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Slavery Again and Again - Ephesians 6
Slavery Again and Again - Ephesians 6
One of the most difficult subjects that is included in the New Testament is slavery. Paul again writes about it in Eph. 6:5-9. Slavery is a broad word with many different levels of meaning and enslavement. Slavery was an ancient and pretty much universal fact. Much of the whole social and economic systems the ancient world had slavery in its basic structure. American slavery (and pretty much world-wide 18th century slavery) was brutal and immoral.
Christianity was an extreme minority religion in the Roman empire for 100s of years. The writings of the New Testament did not right all the wrongs of society, nor was it intended to. It was not a social /economic panacea. It was applied individually – person by person by person. No one that I have read has even suggested a possible remedy to change every government, economic structure, or social makeup that then existed.
Yet, the growth of Christianity laid the groundwork for the abolition of much slavery in the world. But alas, while it isn’t socially visible to most people, slavery is alive and ‘well’ throughout the world, it is just gone ‘underground’. Still, lots of human trafficking and abuse goes on.
Now, to the immediate problem: how to respond to the teaching of the New Testament. What would you do if you WERE a slave AND confronted with the gospel? Would you reject the whole story of the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of eternal life because of this one issue? Does the existence of such moral aberrations by the majority of the world population overshadow the future glory of God’s people?
Do difficult teachings allow for selective disobedience to commands that are distasteful? I know it is easy for a person who has lived their whole life with the freedoms of the 20th and 21st centuries in America to write about this, but that is who we are and where we are.
At the end of your life, you will answer this difficult question, or rather, you WILL HAVE answered this question; NOT by a mental response but by your living response to God’s teachings. Go ahead and make a list of the instructions you find difficult or even distasteful, but then what? Will you submit? Will you rebel? There are many commands that will bring about suffering on the part of those who obey.
Paul wrote about his many sufferings (reread 2 Cor. 11!), but concluded: “16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:16-18).
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!
Hugh DeLong
