Does the Bible advocate slavery? Many in the secular world today argue that it does and because of this that it is an unfair unreliable book influenced by ancient cultural norms. Find out what scripture says about slavery here.

<p>Does the Bible advocate slavery? Many in the secular world today argue that it does and because of this that it is an unfair unreliable book influenced by ancient cultural norms. Find out what scripture says about slavery here.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Freedom Health Ministries

Gabriel Arruda

God and Slavery

This sermon has been made possible by Freedom Health Ministries.

If you would like to learn more about health evangelism, go to freedomhealthministries.com.

If you would like to learn more about how to reverse autoimmune diseases, go to reverseautoimmune.com.

The title of this sermon is God and slavery.

Let's start with the word of prayer together.

If you don't mind, I'd like to have a extra prayer for the word.

Father in heaven, I just again ask, I petition you who are great and love mercy to please have mercy on us.

We don't deserve any of the gifts that we're asking for right now.

We ask that you would bless us in understanding this message and helping us understand what it means to us, and giving us the power to carry out the Christian life in ease, but most importantly in hardship.

So this morning we are going to talk about the issue of slavery in the Bible.

And understanding this topic is going to help you reach a lot of the young adults today.

You know, social justice is a big thing amongst the 20, 30, 40 year old group, and it's a big thrust.

And 1 of the complaints that group have against the Christian faith, against the Bible in particular, is that hey, the Bible advocates slavery, and I'm not okay with that.

But first I want you to understand you have to divide slavery in the Bible into 2 parts.

There's slavery as it was in the Old Testament, and there was slavery in the New Testament.

They're actually 2 different type of scenarios.

I'm not going to have time to address the Old Testament version of slavery.

That would have been the slavery that was there under the Israelite economy, under the Jewish economy.

When you study the Bible and you look at all the terms and conditions God laid down, Old Testament slavery under the Jewish economy is nothing like the slavery that happened to, let's say, the African-American population in the United States in the 1800s.

Nothing, when you look and study Scripture, and you look and really see what it says.

But I don't have time to get into all of the details of that.

We're going to look more into the New Testament version of slavery that we see in Scripture.

Now we don't live in a country currently of legalized slavery anymore.

However, I will say there are still plenty of slaves.

And at this message you're going to see it's going to take kind of an unexpected turn.

But just imagine for a minute, transport yourself and your mind back to the first century in Imperial Rome.

Your country has been conquered by the Romans, They're conquering everybody.

You have been taken captive and you are a slave in a rich man's house in Imperial Rome and you are miserable.

You want nothing more than but to be free.

And then you hear of this new religion that's popping up all over the place.

This new faith, a new religion where the god of this religion is the Almighty God.

And you get excited as you hear that this God claims to have come to set the captives free.

And that this God desires freedom and liberty for all people.

That this God recognizes no class, this God recognizes no rank, no castes.

And as you learn more about this God, you accept the truth and He changes your life.

And you eagerly Anticipate the time when God uses his almighty power to free you from your life of oppression.

Please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 5.

You're a slave, you're living in imperial Rome, you've become a Christian, you're looking forward to the time when God frees you, and then you hear Paul preach in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 5, servants be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto Christ.

Well, that's not exactly the message I was expecting to hear.

Well, I don't know, maybe Paul had a bad day when he was preaching.

I'm sorry, Colossians chapter 3 and verse 22.

Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." something wrong here.

That's not exactly the message as a slave I was expecting to hear.

You know what, maybe Paul's out to lunch on this topic.

That guy actually spent 3 and a half years with Jesus, so let's go talk to Peter.

Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 18.

And by the way, the word for servants here could be translated as slave in all these passages.

1st Peter 2 18, servants be subject to your masters.

With all fear, Not only the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

You've accepted this new religion, he's come to set the captives free, and the message you hear is, Be a better slave.

God, I think this is the part where you use your almighty power to free me from my life of slavery and, you know, make me a man who could go out and work for myself and live in my own place, but no.

As a matter of fact, this message in the New Testament occurs explicitly 6 times.

This is not a fluke thing, this is repeated message over and over in the Scriptures.

And this is a question I had as I started studying the Bible, but you know what I've learned?

Every good Bible study starts with a really perplexing question.

Why would you think a God of liberty, a God of freedom, well you would think that a God of liberty, a God of freedom, His first priority would be, all right, time to free all Christian slaves.

That would seem to make sense to our human minds.

But the shocking truth is, is that the resounding message in Scripture is not how to get out of slavery, but rather how to be a good slave.

That's what we see over and over in the New Testament.

This is kind of disturbing because that would seem in a sense to validate the system of slavery, wouldn't it?

Teaching people how to cooperate with it, as opposed to teaching them how to fight against it.

And if He's not, then why does He seem to endorse it?

And why does he not seem to fight against it in the New Testament?

Do you see the apparent contradiction here?

Well, we're going to look into this, and we're going to find 3 answers that I found from Scriptures, 3 very good reasons why we see this in the Bible.

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God and Slavery

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