GOD'S "WORD" THE NEW TESTAMENT PERMITS SLAVERY

Jesus claimed that anybody saying any law in the Old Testament is wrong or even inferior will be punished for not a line will pass away from it for it is all meant to be fulfilled and honoured.  Matthew 5.  That was despite or because of it spending chapter after chapter spelling out how God wanted people to be enslaved and controlled.  He attacked the Jewish leaders for many things including washing hands too much.  He was very vicious towards them as you can see from Matthew 23 especially.  There he oddly backed up their slave keeping by saying that nobody should doubt their teaching and the only problem was that they signed up to it and did live up to it right.  He said they made up laws that God did not authorise and he condemned that.  But surely they had rules that oppressed slaves even worse than they already were?  Not a word from Jesus about that!  Yet he said he came to make sure the law of God was understood correctly without people putting in their own interpretation and rules so that it could be fulfilled!

The Catholic Church is not as against slavery as it lets on. It openly taught in the pre-political correctness days that "Slavery not against natural law [immoral] for it is okay to own a person's work but not the person." It only condemns slavery that claims to own the person but all slave-masters would pretend to own the person's labour not the person anyway so what use is that?

The Old Testament is clear that God commands slavery in a way that deliberately opposes the dignity of the slave. We must remember that Exodus gives the words God used when he legislated that a slave may be beaten badly but care must be taken not to do them permanent damage. It was okay to beat them up savagely as long as they didn't die during the beating but after. Read Exodus 21:7-11. When God went out of his way to make such an evil law in relation to slaves, he clearly accepts the notion of slaves being inferior beings. Nobody can be sane and argue that Israel needed the right to abuse slaves which was why God tolerated the abuse. That excuse cannot hold water here and it in fact insults those who suffered because of God's law. God gives no hint that he let the beatings take place for cultural reasons or because the people were intransigent. In fact he gives no hint that the laws are temporary or provisional. The Law of Moses claims to be an everlasting law. Indeed Exodus attacks the culture of occultism and idolatry. Exodus presents Israel as struggling to accept the law so it is nonsense to imagine that poor God had no choice but to make some bad laws to avoid having to make worse ones.

The principle behind slavery in the Old Testament is that you can buy or sell or steal a person. Slaves from other nations were put up for sale to Israelites. The contract was to be forever though there were some ways out that did not apply in most cases. In a shocking example of the corruption of children, Israelites could grant slaves to their children as inheritances (Leviticus 25:44-46). Foreign women and children could be taken during war and forced to be slaves. {This is not mentioned but it is obvious this led to sex slavery!] The Old Testament stresses how God owns everything. Thus if you told somebody back then how wrong slavery was they could say, "But God knows best and he owns them and thus he gives them to us. It is because God owns us he can do what he wants."

Bible believers for most of history, kept slaves and upheld slavery as a cultural norm and a system. Those who claimed to be Christian and who battled to abolish slavery found that real Bible believers were an obstacle. But they won the day. They probably doubted their faith enough to refuse to endorse slavery though it was commanded and blessed by the Bible God.

Wilberforce is often mentioned as having fought slavery on biblical grounds. But the fact remains that the majority of Christians of the day were okay with it and had communion every Sunday as if they were right with God. Religion's function as a placebo for evil enabled the problem of slavery and even celebrated it. And if Christianity is so great it took it a long time to decide that slavery is a sin. The Old Testament God condoned masters battering their slaves almost to death and as for Jesus and his cronies, they did say things that imply slavery is problematic but they were careful not to call it a sin. A religion of hypocrisy and moral placebos is hardly a good protector of human rights. It could turn evil again in an instant.

St Paul may have really written the Epistle to the Colossians and the one to the Ephesians. Even if he did not they still betray his support for slavery for they were certainly written by somebody who was well acquainted with his religious policies. He tells those who own slaves to be clement towards them (Colossians 4:1; Ephesians 6:5,9). These masters are Christians because Paul advises them to be gentle in honour of Jesus.

Paul in Ephesians 6 asks slaves to obey masters with fear and trembling as they do Jesus. But they are warned to make it about Jesus not the master. “Do it as to the Lord and not to men and not to women.” This frightening text asks people who already suffered terrible fear to fear even more. Now they have to weed out the natural human tendency to think of pleasing people not just Jesus.

Ephesians 6:5 is taken as proof that Christianity advocates slavery to men. But take a close look. Jesus is a literal slave master. It is definite that the faith recognises slavery when Christ is the owner. This slavery is taken in a symbolic sense but in the light that the New Testament was written for ordinary people who had no time to study it should not be. We should argue that if Jesus can keep slaves man can too.

Paul told his followers many of whom were slaves that Jesus bought them for a price and paid for them with his life and blood so nobody belongs to themselves. Yet if you want to break the hold slavery has on a society you need to affirm that the person does in fact own themselves and thus has a right to self-determination.  It is a short step from saying Jesus owns you to saying Jesus wants you to be somebody's slave.
 
Paul wrote his shortest epistle which was addressed to Philemon in about 63 AD who lived in Collossae. Philemon’s Christian lifestyle is praised though it included buying and selling slaves. Some say that even if Paul repudiated the practice his clear conviction that Christ’s second advent was so near that it would not have inspired him to campaign for greater justice. That is no excuse for he could have stopped his bellwethers from approving slavery with one or two words. It is certain that Paul approved of people having slaves.

In case anybody says that Paul meant servants and not slaves let this sink in: Colossians 4:1 tells slave owners to be fair to their slaves for they too have a master in Heaven. People are not to work for God for a reward so they are slaves and they have to be slaves for the penalty of disobedience is so terrible. Paul means slaves all right.

The Bible does not command rebellion against evil laws unless they try to force you to sin.  In Acts 5:22, Peter the apostle urges breaking the law banning him from seeking converts.  He thinks it is a sin not to speak of Jesus and seek to bring in new disciples for him even if that meant stealing them from Judaism.  Unbelievably, he did not support slaves who surely were thinking they had rights and became freedom activists.  What a monstrous hypocrite.

Peter urged battered slaves to put up with their troubles because Jesus taught that God approves of a person who won’t protest when they are abused (1 Peter 2:18-20). He was more concerned about the rights of the evil masters than the victims. If you are a slave and you accept and are resigned to your lot and would consent if you could, that does not make you guilty. The owner is. Some say you are not equally guilty as the owner. Some say because it is your choice you are worse than the owner and it is you degrading the owner by letting them take advantage.  However by becoming resigned the slave will feel it is their own choice.     The master will feel he is not oppressing the seemingly willing slave.  These feelings are the reason why slavery became so accepted.    Peter was part of the problem.  The Church says Peter was the first pope and it says the pope is by default the father of all Christians.  How can this man be father of anybody?  Remember that if the slave objected or protested when abused this would lead to further abuse from the master.  Peter is clearly not thinking of that but of slaves who protest as in try to escape or get out of their situation.  Interestingly, the text shows that the early Church did NOT believe that water baptism made you a Christian for if it did the masters would not be letting their slaves have it.  Pagan and Jewish masters had a problem with the Christian claims.  It fits the notion of people converting without the Church being the in-between.

In the past, the Church tended to mask the Bible teaching in favour of slavery by translating the Hebrew word ebed for slaves as servants. This happened in the King James Bible. The same happens to the Greek words, pais and doulos and sundoulos. That is inconsistent for a slave is a person forced to serve you and a servant is a person who does it willingly (New Age Bible Versions, page 225). The King James translated slave as servant in Philemon 16. In it, Paul says that he is sending Onesimus back to Philemon but more than as a slave – as a brother. It is stupid to imagine that Paul means more than as a servant for if Philemon was a true Christian he would have already considered Philemon to be a brother if he was a servant. But you cannot suppose that a slave is your brother – slavery attacks human equality. Onesimus is not sent back to Philemon to be a slave but a servant. Paul did not like Onesimus being a slave which indicates that Paul knew it was wrong. But despite that he hypocritically pretended that a slave could be thought of as a brother! How fair! Paul had no right to trust Philemon to send the boy back to him for when Philemon enslaved the boy and abused him he could do it again.

Some will tell you that that the apostle Paul warned that Christians must not become the slaves of any man inferring that slavery was wrong (1 Corinthians 7:21-23). There Paul says that if you were a slave when you converted then stay one unless your freedom is offered to you for he who was a slave when called is free in the Lord though he who was free when called is a slave in Christ. However it is certain that when slaves are not told to run away or to clamour for freedom but to leave it up to the master that he thinks the masters have a right to the slaves. He then warns that since we were bought with a price, the death of Jesus, we must not become the slaves of men. Paul is talking here at this point about spiritual slavery to men such as priests and false prophets who have you working for them and have you getting nothing back from God though you expect to get blessings from God. Paul is talking about freedom from such for Jesus did not buy slaves back from their masters and couldn’t for he never paid a ransom of money. The converted slave to man is free from slavery to sin in the Lord though he is still a slave to man in the ownership sense. The freeman who is converted becomes a slave to the Lord for he has to do good for the Lord and not for his own sake so like a slave he does not work for rewards. Paul makes it clear that the slave should remain a slave if his freedom is not offered to him and that Jesus having paid for him does not give him the right to refuse to be a slave any more to man. So when he says that Jesus paid for you do not become the slaves of man he means do not become the spiritual slaves of man for the price paid was a spiritual price and was paid to God not man. So you don’t become slaves of men in the sense that men become like gods to you. (Pope take note. Would this warning have any meaning if Paul believed in your system where priests control the powers of God to forgive sins and feed us with his body and blood?) The Christians who use these verses to improve the reputation of the New Testament are just cons.
 
The Bible is clear that underpaid or not you have a duty to live simply and not ask for a raise. John the Baptist told the Roman soldiers to avoid violence and be content with their wages (Luke 3:14). He meant unjust and unnecessary violence for violence in self-defence is not wilful violence but self-defence. This is only natural when Jesus said that if a soldier forces you to go one mile with him carrying his pack then go another mile with him (Matthew 5:41). You won’t even get gratitude for that so when you are to work without gratitude or anything for yourself you may have to work with little or no wage. Jesus commanded that we pay what should not be paid (Matthew 22:21) implying that we should not seek to be paid if the employer does not want to pay us. Though the Bible sees pagan nations as having no right in themselves to punish anybody for they are evil themselves, God uses them to punish and execute evildoers (1 Peter 2:13-17). By implication he uses bad employers to punish us or to discipline us. The parable in Matthew 20 that has God paying those who work for him at the last minute the same as those who laboured long for him infers that trade unionism is sinful. If it had not been God would have set ones up in the Old Testament. But this is unjust. God has no right to show one more gratitude than another especially when we all deserve a second chance no matter what we have done.
 
The New Testament is pro-slavery and if Christians who we know universally condoned and encouraged the keeping of slaves up until a few centuries ago really believed it was God’s word they would still be keeping slaves.  Paul claimed he learned his pro-slave doctrine from Jesus himself with whom he said he spoke to in visions and he even reported a visit to the highest heaven to get top learning in theology.  Peter said Paul was infallible scripture.  All that clearly implies that Jesus on the human level was complicit in their endorsement of slavery.  And the claim that Jesus was the word of God means that the Bible must preserve that word and God ensured it did that by being its ultimate author.

"There were innumerable slaves of the emperor and of the Roman State; the Jerusalem Temple owned slaves; the High Priest owned slaves (one of them lost an ear in Jesus's arrest); all of the rich and almost all of the middle class owned slaves. So far as we are told, Jesus never attacked this practice. He took the state of affairs for granted and shaped his parables accordingly. As Jesus presents things, the main problem for the slaves is not to get free, but to win their master's praise. There seem to have been slave revolts in Palestine and Jordan in Jesus's youth (Josephus, Bellum, 2:55-65); a miracle-working leader of such a revolt would have attracted a large following. If Jesus had denounced slavery or promised liberation, we should almost certainly have heard of his doing it. We hear nothing, so the most likely supposition is that he said nothing." MIchael Martin, Is Christianity Absurd? The Secular Web.

Jesus had to have met slaves who needed healing as their masters were allowed to over-work them and beat them. No record exists. Did he ignore them?

Jesus could at least have condemned the Temple for having slaves. He said nothing despite violently and publically objecting to it making money.

The subject had to have come up. Jesus then must have said slavery was right. Saying nothing would add fuel to the fire for him for people would wonder why he was not addressing it. He was already thought to be about upheaval. Saying nothing was about him trying to gain peace for himself without even trying to help those people and children who were trapped in a degrading system.

He must have had slave-owners following him and he accepted what they were doing.

He must have accepted donations of money from them, the profits they got from trafficking in human flesh.

Jesus could have got more followers by backing slave liberation or at least improving their conditions.

Jesus was never reported to have given away his dinner to the poor or to hand a slave some money.

It was all about the master. Slave culture was extreme patriarchy. The slave craved praise for there was nothing else and the alternative was being beaten or sold to a monster.

Normalising slavery in his parables sent the message that it was meant to last and not pass away. He could not even encourage others to rethink slavery.

His warning that society should worry about faith and nothing else for the world was about to end was guaranteed to keep slaves where they were. He knew he was being irresponsible for many like him had predicted an impending apocalyse that never happened.

There is no information at all on Jesus as a worker or as an example for workers. An intinerant preacher cannot be an example for the rest of us.

Human nature has always liked horrible twisted news stories and the gospels and the Bible provide plenty of them. Jesus' example is not good enough. People like to make themselves feel good by glorifying a poor role model. The role model is no real challenge to them but they pretend it is.

Jesus said nothing against slavery and in fact would have hit them when he had the whip in his hand in the Temple.  Christian tradition is that Jesus chose the circumstances of his birth.  Instead of sending a message by being born to a slave woman he chose an ordinary girl.  That is significant.