What is there to say about slavery and the Bible? Especially the Old Testament? (MERGED)

[francisca]

If slavery is only for those who worship false gods and idols, then why does it say in Ephesians 6:5-8:
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; 6 not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.7 Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women,8 knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

Here Paul instruct us to obey “our earthly masters”, this is refering to our service in the physical world, we are to obey and work diligently, even as a slave to our earthly-master (in physical world), but at the same time-- spiritually-- we become the servant of Christ because of such obedience & diligence. To have the spirit of obedience, we are obedient to Christ, even as this world enslaves us.

Or what about 1 Peter 2:18-21:

18 Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. 19 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

The passage above Peter instruct us to accept injustice and suffering believing that in all that we will be rewarded. If we are punished because we are doing wrong then we have received just reward. But if we suffer injustice, there will be reward from God.

Both passages are talking about Christians who are slaves and if these passages are inspired, God seems to be saying that it is OK for Christians to be slaves.

Both passages are a call for us to become God’s slaves/ servant by give service to one another. These epistle are sourced from Jesus teaching who said “I come to this world to serve and not to be served”.(Mat20:28, Mark10:45). Jesus who is The Master’s Son, He choose to come to serve (in other words become a servant for all).

Please read this passage from Paul’s epistle to the Romans

Romans 6
16. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18. and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

After we are being redeemed by God, we belong to God. As a free person we can choose to serve God.

1 Corinthians 7
22. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave.

A slave who is freed is allowed to choose not-to-leave the master. A free person can choose whomever he wants to serve. In Paul’s epistles, Paul many times discern his position as being slave to Christ.

Deuteronomy 15 (Christian Community Bible. Claretian Publications.)
11 The poor will not disappear from this land. Therefore I give you this commandment: you must be open-handed to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land.
12 If your fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you as a slave, he shall serve you for six years, and in the seventh, you shall set him free.
13 When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed,
14 but give him something from your flock, from your store of wheat and wine, something from the good things that Yahweh has blessed you with.
15 Remember that you too were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh, your God, has given you freedom. Because of this, I give you this commandment.
16 But if your slave says: “I do not want to leave,” because he loves you and your household and knows that he will be well off with you,
17 you shall then take an awl and thrust it through his ear into the door of your house, and he will serve you forever. You shall do likewise with your maidservant.

 

[Thorolfr]

Both passages are a call for us to become God’s slaves/ servant by give service to one another. These epistle are sourced from Jesus teaching who said “I come to this world to serve and not to be served”.(Mat20:28, Mark10:45). Jesus who is The Master’s Son, He choose to come to serve (in other words become a servant for all).

But there is a difference between serving one another voluntarily and being someone’s slave and being forced to serve someone involuntarily (and probably being whipped for refusing to do so).

 

[francisca]

But there is a difference between serving one another voluntarily and being someone’s slave and being forced to serve someone involuntarily (and probably being whipped for refusing to do so).

By that do you mean that God allowed Israel to force slavery on foreigners? Not true.
God only allowed it if the person voluntarily sell himself to it.
God asked Israel to treat foreigners as native and love them (Lev19:34). This means Israel was not allowed to enforce slavery on those foreigners.

Leviticus 19
34. `The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

Regarding we choose to become slave to Christ, it’s entirely up to our freewill to do so.

John 8
31. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32. and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
33. They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, `You will become free’?”
34. Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
35. "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
36. "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

The fact that there were/ are cases in which people were/ are forced to become slave, it doesn’t mean God teach us to do so. That’s not the teaching of the bible. Besides the teaching of slavery in the bible is for us to understand the consequence of giving up ourselves to other power who is not God.

 

[francisca]

The similarity between a slave and a servant is that both serves a master. The difference between the two is one deserve a reward for his service, the other does not.

God wills us to become neither a slave nor servant of His. He wills us to become children. However, from our standpoint, we can’t claim sonship. Sonship is by God’s favor. By our works we are God’s servants, or we can choose to become His slave too as St. Paul did.

St. Paul chose (voluntarily) to give free service for the Gospel, so he called himself “a slave”

And the reason he did this he said was because such office was given to him not because he chose voluntarily, rather it was against his will that he was bound to preach the gospel. So in this circular discernment Paul consider himself a slave, because he was given the good news not by his voluntarily will but rather he was “bound” to do so.

1Corinth 9:13-23
11Then, if we have sown spiritual riches among you, would it be too much for us to reap some material reward?
13Do you not know that those working in the sacred service eat from what is offered for the temple? And those serving at the altar receive their part from the altar. 14The Lord ordered, likewise, that those announcing the Gospel live from the Gospel. 15Yet I have not made use of my rights, and now I do not write to claim them: I would rather die! No one will deprive me of this glory of mine.
16Because I cannot boast of announcing the Gospel: I am bound to do it. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! 17If I preached voluntarily, I could expect my reward*, but I have been trusted this office against my will. 18How can I, then, deserve a reward? In announcing the Gospel, I will do it freely without making use of the rights given to me by the Gospel.
19So, feeling free with everybody, **I have become everybody’s slave **in order to gain a greater number. 20To save the Jews I became a Jew with the Jews, and because they are under the Law, I myself submitted to the Law, although I am free from it. 21With the pagans, not subject to the Law, I became one of them, although I am not without a law of God, since Christ is my Law. Yet I wanted to gain those strangers to the Law. 22To the weak I made myself weak, to win the weak. So I made myself all things to all people in order to save, by all possible means, some of them. 23*This I do for the Gospel, so that I too have a share of it.

Paul’s discernment about himself as a slave to Christ is to teach us that a freed person can choose to serve God. But a slave cannot choose, so they usually do things by punishments and they’re outlaws/ disobedient. God freedmen are no longer slaves. We do good things voluntarily (freewill)… we as slaves and servants of God are obedient people because we choose to bind ourselves to God (Deut15:16-17 – God’s bondservant by choice)