The Doctrine of Slavery

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. – 1 John 2:18

A favorite scapegoat of the unbeliever is, “Why does the Bible condone slavery?!” followed by, “It says to give your slave a day off!”

I have prayed long and hard on this doctrine, knowing that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired, timeless word of God. The best I got from apologetics was that the slavery the Bible spoke of wasn’t the slavery of the 18th and 19th centuries. I don’t like squishy theology, and that was a squishy answer. The slavery of the 18th and 19th centuries may be argued to be crueler than Biblical slavery, but it undeniably fulfills the definition of slavery. Slavery is defined as a person being the property of another; contained within the term is hard undesirable work for no pay, garnishing the minimum necessities for life. I’m reminded of a quote describing slave-ownership by a particularly raunchy television show, “Him? He’s just a young foreigner who works for us in exchange for room and board.”

A favorite brainwashing technique of the Devil is that of this-then-that; in other words, if this is true, that is true. We have been massaged and manipulated by the despicable slavery accurately portrayed in the movie/book “Roots”, in which one ethnic group is oppressed and treated horrendously. The fallacy leads us to believe that if what happened to Kunta Kinte is bad(and it was), then all slavery is bad.

I assure you this is none more than a fallacy, and I will give you the example to prove it. The Bible says that we don’t need to sell our soul to the Devil, but rather we have lost our eternal security through transgression, freely given our soul away, that we are bound in the captivity of the Devil (2 Tim 2:26). We have become the property of the Devil through transgression of God’s laws. There are those Christians, including me, who claim to be Born Again, Blood Bought, Children of God.

If we were the captives of the Devil, and a price was due for our salvation, that price being an atoning death, then the following Bible verses show us how Christians have been purchased:

“…the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” – Acts 20:28
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
“You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” – 1 Corinthians 7:23

In the theology realm, we are either under the ownership of the Devil, or the ownership of Christ, there is no middle-ground, and hence in philosophy, we should see the same thing.

Gone is the day when there was an actual deed of ownership written for our person. We live in the false security that we are our own keeper, that we are free to roam, careless of the watchful eye of our owners, and welcome to make any choice we feel compelled to make.

The slave-owner has been replaced by the Bank, by the Employer, and by the Bill-Collector. We have sold ourselves into slavery through debt and the pursuit of property. One difference today is that we are separated from our masters; the plantation owner is content now to let us make him money from afar; I am in the employ of Wachovia, having promised for a sum of money for room, to pay them 200% the original loan value over the next 30-years. What has changed is the transferability of my ownership; I could easily tomorrow arrange to be sold to Chase Manhattan or to Bank of America or to Wells Fargo; but my station would not change; I would still be indebted and working for a money-hungry indifferent master.

Our employment is another master, demanding the majority of our time for its purposes; and just as the Bible tells to give slaves time off, so must our employer give time off in order to maintain output efficiency and be compliant with labor laws.

We like to think we are free, but in the infamous words of a beautiful song, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” To be free of our debtors, free from our employers is to own nothing and have nothing.

Just as in the age of the Apostles, slavery is condoned in the Bible because slavery guarantees employment, productivity, room, and board. Once we realize that while we are not slaves to the tobacco plantations of South Carolina, we are owned by Capitalism; the laws and recommendations made in the Bible for slave treatment are as timeless and relevant today as they have ever been; no jot or tittle shall fall away from the law till this Heaven and Earth have passed.

This is a tremendous blow to the apologetics whom credit the great Christian William Wilberforce with abolishing slavery in England, and who give credit to Abraham Lincoln for the Emancipation Proclamation. These men should be credited for their attempts to show that all men are created equal, not that they abolished one form of slavery in order to usher in a new type.

Therefore avoid these false gospels of freedom for all men, recognize the antichristian doctrines of antislavery, and hold fast to your owner, God Almighty, and seek that His payment on Calvary might purchase a few more souls before the end.