DOES THE BIBLE REALLY CONDONE SLAVERY?

Few words carry more painful history than the word slavery.

For Americans, the word immediately brings to mind Africans kidnapped from their homeland, transported across the Atlantic, bought and sold as property, separated from their families, and forced to work for others because of their race.

Then someone opens the Bible and discovers something disturbing.

The Bible talks about slavery.

It regulates slavery. It tells masters how to treat slaves. And in some Old Testament passages, it actually permits people to own slaves.

So the question is fair:

Does the Bible condone slavery?

We should not dodge the difficult passages. We should read them.

FIRST, WHAT DID “SLAVE” MEAN?

The first mistake we can make is assuming that every person called a “slave” or “servant” in the Bible lived under exactly the same circumstances.

They did not.

Slavery and servitude existed in many forms in the ancient world. People could become servants because of debt. Some were prisoners of war. Some were born into servitude. Foreigners could be purchased. Others entered service because poverty left them few alternatives.

That does not make slavery good.

It does mean that we should allow each passage to tell us what kind of situation it is describing.

A HEBREW SERVANT WAS TO BE RELEASED

Consider Exodus 21:2:

“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free.”

That is already quite different from the permanent, hereditary slavery familiar from American history.

Deuteronomy repeats the command:

“In the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.”
— Deuteronomy 15:12

But God went farther.

The master was not permitted simply to open the door and tell the servant to leave with nothing.

“And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed.”

The former servant was to be supplied generously from the master's flock, threshing floor, and winepress (Deuteronomy 15:13–14).

Why?

God reminded Israel:

You were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD redeemed you.

Israel was never supposed to forget what slavery had been like.

WHY WOULD A SLAVE CHOOSE TO STAY?

Then we encounter a practice that sounds very strange to modern ears.

Suppose the six years were finished and the servant was legally free to leave.

But he didn't want to go.

Exodus says:

“I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free.”

— Exodus 21:5

In that situation, the servant could choose to remain with the household permanently.

His master would bring him to the door or doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. The pierced ear became a permanent sign that he had chosen to remain (Exodus 21:5–6).

Deuteronomy explains why someone might make such a choice:

“Because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you.”

— Deuteronomy 15:16

That is difficult to fit into our usual picture of slavery.

Here is a man who has the legal right to leave but voluntarily chooses to remain.

This does not mean that all slavery in Israel was voluntary.

The Bible will not allow us to say that either.

THEN WE COME TO THE HARD PASSAGE

Leviticus 25:44–46 says Israelites could acquire male and female slaves from the nations around them. These foreigners could become their property and could be passed on to their children.

We should not pretend that the passage says something else.

It does.

This is not merely a six-year employment contract.

Foreign slaves did not receive the same automatic release given to Hebrew servants.

So if someone asks:

“Did the Old Testament permit Israelites to own slaves?”

The answer from Leviticus 25 is yes.

But that is not the end of the biblical evidence.

KIDNAPPING A PERSON WAS A SERIOUS CRIME

The kind of kidnapping that supplied enormous numbers of slaves in later history was expressly condemned under Israel's law.

Exodus 21:16 says:

“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.”

Deuteronomy 24:7 gives a similar command concerning the kidnapping of a fellow Israelite.

Human beings were not simply objects that could be stolen and sold without consequence.

A MASTER DID NOT HAVE UNLIMITED POWER

The law also placed restrictions upon the master's treatment of a slave.

Exodus 21:20–21 deals with a master who strikes a slave. If the slave died under the beating, punishment followed.

Then verses 26–27 give another remarkable protection.

If a master struck a slave and permanently injured an eye or knocked out a tooth, the slave was to be set free because of the injury.

Again, that does not make slavery desirable.

But it shows that the master's authority was not absolute.

The slave was still a human being protected by law.

WHAT ABOUT A RUNAWAY SLAVE?

Here is another passage that deserves more attention.

Deuteronomy 23:15–16 says:

“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you.”

The escaped slave was permitted to live where he chose.

Israel was commanded:

“You shall not wrong him.”

That is especially striking because many later slave systems did exactly the opposite. Runaway slaves were captured and returned to their owners.

Israel's law contained a provision protecting an escaped slave.

AND WHAT ABOUT FOREIGNERS?

Foreigners were not to be treated as though they were less than human.

God commanded Israel:

“The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.”

— Leviticus 19:34

And once again God gave the reason:

“For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Israel's own history was supposed to affect the way Israelites treated vulnerable people living among them.

THEN JESUS CAME

The New Testament did not enter a world without slavery.

Slavery was deeply embedded in the Roman Empire.

The apostles therefore addressed Christians who were already living within that social system—both slaves and masters.

But something remarkable began happening inside the church.

Paul wrote:

“There is neither slave nor free...for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

— Galatians 3:28

Slave and master could now sit at the same Lord's table.

Both had the same Lord.

Both had been purchased by the same blood.

Both were brothers and sisters in Christ.

THEN READ PHILEMON

Philemon may be one of the most important little books in this discussion.

Onesimus was a slave connected with Philemon's household.

Paul sent Onesimus back—but listen to how Paul told Philemon to receive him:

“No longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.”

— Philemon 16

Think about that.

Master and slave were now brothers.

Paul even told Philemon:

“Receive him as you would receive me.”

— Philemon 17

Paul did not write a political program for abolishing slavery throughout the Roman Empire.

He did something more fundamental inside the church.

He challenged Christians to see the slave not merely as someone's property but as a brother for whom Christ died.

SO DOES THE BIBLE CONDONE SLAVERY?

The Old Testament permitted and regulated slavery.

We should not deny that. Leviticus 25 makes it impossible to deny honestly.

But biblical slavery was not one single institution.

Hebrew debt servants were released. A freed servant was not to be sent away empty-handed. A servant could even voluntarily choose to remain with a household. Kidnapping people for sale was condemned. Masters were subject to restrictions. Serious injury could result in a slave's freedom. An escaped slave was not automatically returned.

And then the gospel introduced a relationship that cut directly across the master-slave distinction:

You are brothers.

FOLLOW THE STORY ALL THE WAY THROUGH

Perhaps the best way to understand the subject is not to isolate one verse.

Follow the Bible's story.

Israel had been enslaved.

God heard their cries.

God delivered them.

He repeatedly commanded them to remember what bondage felt like.

Then Christ came.

And in Christ:

Jew and Gentile became one.

Slave and free became one.

Master and slave became brothers.

The Bible begins with human beings created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27).

And it ends with redeemed people from every tribe and language and people and nation standing before God (Revelation 5:9; 7:9).

So we should neither defend slavery because it appears in the Bible nor pretend the difficult passages aren't there.

Read all of them.

Then follow the story from beginning to end.

The question is not merely:

“What practices existed in the ancient world?”

The larger question is:

“Where was God taking His people?”

And the gospel's answer is difficult to miss:

The person standing across from me—slave or free, Jew or Gentile, foreigner or neighbor—is a human being made in God's image and someone Christ calls me to love.

That's TEXT B4 TRADITION.

Read First. Conclude Later.

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