Slavery in the Bible

Slavery was a universal feature of ancient civilizations, anchored in their view of the divine.  The Mesopotamians believed that the gods created humans to be their slaves, to serve them and do the unpleasant work necessary to ensure their comfort.  Humans had no intrinsic dignity; the gods regarded them as pests to be periodically reduced through famine, disease etc.

The Jewish law was revolutionary in that humans were portrayed as being made in the image of God - everyone carried the dignity of God in his or her being.  Humans were created, not to serve but to rule.  The work given Adam and Eve in the Garden was to further their own comfort, not God's.

But the Israelites lived in a time when the dignity of humanity was not assumed.  In fact, the Israelites had been slaves themselves.  The slave mentality permeated both them and the surrounding cultures.

For God to simply outlaw slavery would have been to set the Israelites up for failure.  Our own modern struggles with race relations tell us just how hard it is for humans to treat one another decently and that is after thousands of years of Christian teaching has permeated society.

In order to help Israel get on the path that led to equality, God started by allowing the existing institution of slavery to continue, but in a restricted form.  Much that same as pro-life people try to restrict abortion even though they want it to be abolished.  Masters were not allowed to do whatever they wanted with their slaves.

For instance, Exodus 21 says “And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished."  We see here that discipline of a servant was restricted.  The text goes on to say, "Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property."  This sounds repugnant to us because it seems to allow masters to use any kind of force as long as the servant remains alive.  But the text also says "If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye.  And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth."

So we can see that, far from giving masters carte blanche to discipline their servants, masters were restricted and subject to punishment and the loss of the servant if they got out of hand.  This sounds like setting the bar too low to our modern ears but at the time these laws were given, these restrictions were unheard of.  God raised the bar for His people and did not expect too much from them.  This was a step in the right direction.

God's main focus in Old Testament times was to teach his people to worship Him only; to be loyal to Him and to love Him.  Proper treatment of people could only stem from proper relationship with God - remember all the Old Testament prophets rebuking the people for mistreating others as well as for degrading Yahweh - and so God gave a good deal more instruction to the people about how they should treat Him than how they should treat each other, knowing the latter flows out of the former.

Salvation by Proxy?

Question:

In Acts 16:31 the jailer of Philippi is told that he should believe in the Lord Jesus then he and his whole household would be saved. Does that not contradict our believe that every individual has to come to Christ himself, there is no salvation by proxy.

Response:

Great question!  It is true that salvation is by faith, which each individual expresses: “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved” (Romans 10:19).  This is what happened with the jailer.  

Acts 16: 29-34 reads: “Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.  And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.  And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.  Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household."

You can see from the passage that the elements for salvation were present: Paul and Silas preached the gospel, and the jailer and his family believed the message.  In addition, their faith was confirmed by their baptism.

It is important to understand how religions and families operated in the ancient world.  The father was the head of the household with more authority than what we are used to in modern society.  The father’s religion was the religion of the family.  A father’s conversion to another religion was not considered to be simply his own personal decision.  In essence, the father decided for the whole family.  When the jailer showed that he wanted to be saved, Paul was referring to this custom of familial conversion.  We might object, saying that perhaps one of the family members didn’t really believe and was just going along.  

That might have been the case, but it is up to God to judge who truly believes in Him.  Paul was simply expressing his expectation and hope that the father’s new faith in Christ would be shared by his family once they too heard the gospel and the miracle that he had witnessed, and from what we can tell from the passage, that is what happened.

Apostle Name List Discrepancies

Question:

How do you explain that the disciple Thadaeus (Matth.10, Mark 3) is also called James (Luke 6) sometimes??

Response:

There are four lists of the disciples: Matthew 10, Mark 3, Luke 6 and Acts 1.  When the lists are compared side-by-side we see that Matthew and Mark list “Thaddaeus” which Luke and Acts omit.  Luke and Acts list “Judas the son of James” which Matthew and Mark omit.  What we can conclude from this is that “Thaddaeus” and “Judas” refer to the same person. 

Perhaps this man, having a name in common with the betrayer of Jesus, preferred to go by Thaddaeus after Jesus was raised from the dead.  But Luke, when writing his gospel and the book of Acts, chose to use his alternate name “Judas”.