The following is a presentation
of Apologetics Press.
The modern atheistic community has come
up with lots of accusations against the
God of the Bible. One of those is that
God is pro-slavery. They suggest to us
that because the writers of the Bible
portrayed God as a being that does not
condemn all forms of human servitude
or slavery, then that God cannot be the
perfect moral being that Christians say
He is. Let's read a few statements by
atheists who make this accusation. Sam
Harris in his "Letter to a Christian
Nation" said, "Consider the question of
slavery. The entire civilized world now
agrees that slavery is an abomination.
What moral instruction do we get from
the God of Abraham on this subject?
Consult the Bible and you will discover
that the creator of the universe clearly
expects us to keep slaves. Nothing in
Christian theology remedies the
appalling deficiencies of the Bible on
what is perhaps the greatest--and the
easiest--moral question our society has
ever had to face." You see, what Sam Harris
is saying is every single person in the
world understands--if they're thinking
morally--that any type of human servitude
or slavery is wrong. If it's the easiest
moral question that there is to answer
and the Bible presents a being that does
not condemn all human servitude or all
forms of what someone might consider to
be slavery, then obviously the Bible and
the God of the Bible and the writers of
the Bible, they couldn't be the perfect
moral examples that Christians are
saying that they are. Listen to this
statement by Dan Barker. Barker said,
"Why did Jesus, the unrivaled moral example,
never once speak out against slavery? Why
did the loving, wise Son of God forget to
mention that human bondage is a brutal
institution? Why did he incorporate it
into his teachings, as if it were the
most natural thing in the world? I'll
tell you why because he supported it. The Old
Testament endorses and encourages slavery,
and Jesus being equal to God, supposedly
wrote the Old Laws, so he had to support
slavery." You see there? The accusation
again is that the Bible writers
presenting Jesus and presenting God as
beings who would condone slavery, beings
who would not condemn all forms of
human servitude. They simply cannot be--
according to the atheistic view point--
moral beings. And so people who are in
the atheist community look at the
Bible and say this is a deficiency, this
is a problem that the Bible has. Is it
true that the idea of human servitude or
the slavery that's depicted and pictured
in the Bible militates against the idea
that God is a perfectly moral God? No
it's not. And we're going to get into why
that's the case. But the first thing that
we need to ask ourselves is where would
the atheistic community get a foundation
upon which to say something is
objectively right or something is
objectively wrong? What I mean by that is,
if the atheist says this is immoral, this
is wrong, the simple question would be
according to whom? When you look for a
foundation for an ethic, for morals in
the atheistic philosophy what you
quickly realize is that there's not one.
You cannot go to atheism and find a
way that you could ever say this is
objectively, morally right. William
Provine illustrated that for us so very
well in his speech in 1998 on the campus
of the University of Tennessee in
Knoxville Tennessee. He said this in his
Darwin Day speech. He said, "Naturalistic
evolution has clear consequences that
Charles Darwin understood perfectly. No
gods worth having exist; no life after
death exists; no ultimate foundation for
ethics exists; no ultimate meaning in
life exists; and human free will is
non-existent." If we were to look there
at the third point that Provine made:
"No foundation for ethics exists." And he
says Charles Darwin understood this
perfectly. When you look to Charles
Darwin's writings, you see that yes he
did understand this perfectly. Listen to
what Charles Darwin said about a person
who doesn't believe in God. He said,
"A man who has no assured an ever-present
belief in the existence of a personal
God or of a future existence with
retribution and reward, can have for his
rule of life, as far as I can see, only to
follow those impulses and instincts
which are the strongest or which seemed
to him the best ones." What was Charles
Darwin saying? If a person does not
believe in God, if a person doesn't think
that there is a final reward, if there is
final retribution, then the best that
person can do is follow the instincts
and impulses which seem best to him. If
you were to look in Richard Dawkins book
"The Selfish Gene" you would see a very...
I don't know if you would say surprising
if you understand what the atheistic
philosophy really is, but a very eye
opening statement. Let me read to you a
statement he made in that book. Richard
Dawkins said, "We are survival machines--
robot vehicles blindly programmed to
preserve the selfish molecules known as
genes. Much as we might wish to believe
otherwise, universal love and the welfare
of the species as a whole are concepts
that simply do not make evolutionary
sense." Do you understand what Dawkins is
saying? The entire point of human
existence is for this robotic machinery
to pass on molecules called genes. And as
much as we would like to think that love
and human welfare are things that are
part of this robotic machinery, Dawkins
says they're not. That love and universal
welfare of the human species is not
something you get from atheistic
philosophy. Now, if we were to say,
"Hey, does the Bible condemn or condone
slavery?" If the atheistic community says,
"Well, if it does condemn slavery then
that's right. If it does not condemn
slavery then that's wrong." The simple
question is according to whom? And the
answer there is, atheism cannot give us
an objective right and wrong. In fact, if
you were to look at the naturalistic
world around us what we would see is
that in some cases there are organisms
that use slavery to their advantage and
it helps them pass on their genetic
material. Amazonian Slave-making ants.
They're prosperous. They do well in
passing on their genes. How do they do
that? They find an ant colony that is not
of their particular kind and they go and
they steal the babies from that ant
colony. They bring them over to their
colony and they raise them and force
them to be slaves and to do their work.
In fact, studies have been done on
Amazonian Slave-making ants and if you
take the slaves away from them, they
cannot prosper and they die and they
can't pass on their genetic information.
So according to Dawkins, if we humans are
robotic machines programmed to pass on
our genes... If slavery would help us pass
on our genes, then what would make that
wrong? In "The Selfish Gene" in the
book he wrote, he tried to argue that we
need to rise above this. We need to do
differently than our ancestors did or
than other organisms do. But why? He can't
give you a why. The atheistic philosophy
can't give you a why. There's no way
according to atheism that you can say it
is objectively, morally wrong to have a
person be your servant. So if we were
just to start this discussion and listen
to the allegation by the atheistic
community that the God of the Bible
condones slavery and that makes him
immoral, the simple way to answer that
from the outset is you cannot ask or
answer a question like that according to
atheism because you don't have
an objective moral standard.
But there's something else I want you to see
that's getting done in this discussion.
It's something called the 'Spotlight
Fallacy.' And the 'Spotlight Fallacy' is
when a certain case that has received
lots of media attention is presented as
the example of all cases in that
particular category. Now let's think
about that as it relates to slavery. If I
were to ask you what form of slavery has
received the most attention? What form
has been in the spotlight the most?
Of course you know the answer to that
would be colonial slavery. The
slavery that was going on in the 1800s
in the colonies in the Americas. And if I
were to ask you what were some facets of
that type of slavery, many of us who have
seen the television programs and have
seen the media coverage of what was
going on then understand that that was
in many cases a very abusive, harsh,
inhumane treatment of other humans.
We understand that. Many of those people
were kidnapped from their homes for no
reason. They were enslaved because of
their race. It had nothing whatsoever to
do with anything wrong that they had
done. They were tortured and killed on a
regular basis if they didn't do exactly
what the masters wanted. And that type of
slavery is presented as the example of
all human servitude or slavery. And that
then is used to say, "Well, if God condones
any slavery, then it must be slavery
that's similar to that. And so, the God of
the Bible is immoral." There are
several reasons why that is not the case.
When we look at the Biblical picture of
slavery--of human servitude--what we need
to understand first is that slavery and
human servitude never in God's plan from
the beginning. What I mean is it's a less
than ideal situation. You say, "Okay, Kyle.
Less than ideal. What are you trying
to say there?" When Adam and Eve
were created, the world was perfect. There
was no sinning. But after they sinned and
they were ejected from the Garden of
Eden, they were going to be some things
that were imperfect that God was going
to have to regulate. One of those things
is going to be, what happens when people
do things that are wrong? What happens
when there is criminal activity? What
happens when a person accrues so much
debt that they can't pay it back? Do you
think that God ever wanted a person to
go to prison? No, certainly He didn't.
In fact, God from the very beginning wished
that all people would choose to do right.
But all people weren't going to choose
to do right. So if you are going to have
some people who choose wrongly--and let's
say they commit criminal acts--what are
you going to do with those people?
If you're God and you see that certain
relationships could become abusive, then
you're going to have to put regulations
on those relationships so they don't
become abusive. So what we see in the Old
Testament often--and even in the New--is
that sometimes God regulated things that
were less than ideal. Is prison less than
ideal? Certainly. But is it morally,
inherently wrong? Absolutely not.
But could it become abusive if not regulated?
Yes, it could. So what we're seeing in the
Old Testament is that human servitude
was not an ideal situation, but because
it was going to happen due to the wrong
choices of people, God needed to regulate
that. And what you see when you look into
the Bible is that the idea of human
servitude--or slavery as some people would
call it--was nothing like what was going
on in the Colonial America's. There were
some very serious differences that
separate it from what was going on then.
Let's look at some of those differences.
Number one, it was never based on race
or ethnicity. I want you to read with me
Leviticus 19:34. "But the stranger who
dwells among you shall be to you as one
born among you, and you shall love him
as yourself; for you were strangers
in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your
God." Notice that there in Leviticus you
see the statement is made that God has
no view of race or ethnicity in so far
as how a person is to be treated. He
tells the Israelites, "You need to treat
all of the strangers--all people who
aren't Israelites--in the same way as you
would treat each other. They are humans.
You are humans. I made you both and
there's no race dividing line by which
we would say that this group needs to be
in service to another group because you
are created all in the image of God and
race is not a determining factor as to
who should serve who." If you were to look
in other verses, you see the exact same
thing. If you were to read Deuteronomy 24:14.
you would read, "You shall not oppress
a hired servant who is poor and needy,
whether one of your brethren, or one of
the aliens who is in your land within
your gates." There again you see the exact
same point that servitude or slavery was
never based on race or ethnicity. Read
with me Deuteronomy 10:17-19.
"For the Lord your God is God of gods and the
Lord of lords, the great god mighty and
awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes
a bribe. He administers justice for
the fatherless and widow, and loves the
stranger, giving him food and clothing.
Therefore, love the stranger for you were
strangers in the land of Egypt." Love the
stranger? Well that's not the picture
that is presented to us often in the
accusations made against the God of
the Bible. In fact, often we are led to
believe that God was an ethnocentric
God who favored the Israelites and who
abused and tortured and enslaved every
person that wasn't an Israelite.
But that's not the picture you get from the
Bible when you honestly read what it has
to say. You see, the servitude and the slavery
that was allowed in the Bible was never
condoned based on race or ethnicity. God
said that the children of Israel were to
be kind to the strangers, exactly like
they were to be kind to their brethren.
You know what's ironic in this case?
The accusation is made that the God of the
Bible is racist--at least it's implied
that God is. But the Darwinian Theory
actually does promote racism. I want you
to listen to what Charles Darwin said
about this concept of racism. Charles
Darwin said in "The Dissent of Man,"
"At some future period, not very distant as
measured my centuries, the civilized
races of man will almost certainly
exterminate, and replace, the savage races
throughout the world. At the same time
that anthropomorphic apes, as Professor
Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt
be exterminated. The break between man
and his nearest allies will then be
wider, for it will intervene between men
in a more civilized state, as we may hope,
even then the Caucasian, and some ape as
low as a baboon, instead of as now
between the negro or Australian and
the gorilla." Do you see there is some
racism that's going on here? But it's not
from the Bible or the God of the Bible.
The racism that's going on here is if
you were to understand that a genetic
connection between lower apes would mean
that certain groups were not as complex
as other groups, certain races of men were
inferior to other superior races. You can
understand Darwin's statement there. What
he was saying is Caucasians happen to be
the highest level of human race. And the
lower savage races, which he said himself
"savage races," well, those savage races
like the negro and the Australian. Do
you understand that? Darwin was a racist
in that he believed that there were certain
higher elevated races of humans and
lower savage races. And that simply is
not the case. In fact, that's never what
you get from the Bible. When you look
into the Bible, you see that God created
all men and women is His image. And no
person or group of people are disparaged
because of a certain race or because of
a certain ethnicity. That's something
very different from colonial slavery
that we see. There's something else
that's very different from colonial
slavery. If you were to go to the Bible
and you were to analyze these
differences, you would see that it was
never all right to kidnap a person and
force that person into slavery. Let me
read to you a couple passages along
those lines. If you were to read Exodus
21:16 the Bible says, "He who kidnaps a
man and sells him, or if he is found in
his hand shall surely be put to death."
Kidnapping was wrong. It was a criminal
action. And anyone who kidnapped another
person and that was found out, that
person who did the kidnapping was killed.
If you went to 1 Timothy 1
you would read this in verses 8-10:
"We also know that the law is
made not for the righteous. but for the
lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and
sinful, for kidnappers." That word is
'men stealers' or 'slave traders.' There
again you see something very different
than what was going on in colonial
slavery. You see that the Bible
specifically says if there is a person
that kidnaps another person and you
find that out, then the kidnapper is a
criminal and that kidnapper is going to
suffer the consequences of his criminal
action. That picture of colonial
slavery that we're led to believe
exemplifies all forms of human servitude,
well that's not right at all. And you see
that the Bible never has God condoning
kidnapping and other crimes against
humanity that would not be in congruence with
morality. There's another thing that is very different
from the Old Testament regulations of
human servitude and the colonial slavery
that we're often told is the example of
this particular case. The thing that's
very different is that if a slave ran
away, that slave was not to be returned.
If that slave was being abused and
wanted out of the service relationship
that he had with a master... If he ran away
he was not--according to the Bible--to be
returned to his master. Let's read the
passage that tells us that over in
Deuteronomy 23:15-16. We read, "You
shall not give back to his master the
slave who has escaped from his master to
you. He may dwell with you in your midst,
in the place where he chooses within one
of your gates, where it seems best to him;
you shall not oppress him." There you have
it. Several of the differences between
what was going on in colonial America
slavery and the biblical form of human
servitude. You might then take a step
back and say, "Well why is slavery in the
Bible at all? That just doesn't make
sense? Even though it might not be like
American colonial slavery, surely any
type of human servitude is wrong." Is it?
That's the question that we would have
to answer. And we'd have to answer that
yes. We'd have to answer it in the
affirmative to see if God was a moral or
immoral being. If you could show that
every single type of human servitude was
immoral and God allowed or condoned that
kind of thing or he regulated it and
didn't stop it or didn't say it was
wrong. If you could show that, well then
you might have a case. But you can't show
that. There's a reason you can't show
that because all forms of human
servitude are not inherently, morally
wrong. Now they can be abused, just like
any relationship could be abused; just
like a parent-child relationship could
be abused; just like a boss-employee
relationship; or a governmental official
and a non-governmental person could be
abused. Sure they could be abused. But
inherently are forms of human servitude--all
of them--morally wrong? No. You have to
answer absolutely, positively not. Because
we even in America recognize that there
are some forms of human servitude or
restricting people's freedoms that are
morally justified. Give me one of those.
Easy to understand. Suppose a person goes
in takes a 9-millimeter pistol, robs a
bank shoots, the teller, is apprehended by
the police, is taken to trial, and he is
found guilty, and he is sentenced to life
in prison. Are you going to curtail the
freedoms of that individual because of
something that he's done? Sure you are.
For the rest of his life, he is going to
be in essence in a very real sense a
slave of the state. Can you say that
that's a morally apprehensible position?
You can't say that. Why? Because he
committed a crime that is worthy of
putting him in some type of servitude.
Let's look at the Bible and see how that
idea applies to what's going on as the
regulations are applying to slavery. If
you were to go to Leviticus 18:21-24,
you would read this,
"And you shall not let any of your
descendants pass through the fire to
Molech. Do not defile yourselves with any
of these things; for by all these the
nations are defiled, which I am casting
out before you." What did it mean to let
your children pass through the fire
to Molech? That meant that some of the
people in the land of Canaan were
literally taking their children and
putting them on a idol that was burning,
that was scorching. And they were burning
their children as sacrifices to the god
Molech. Now if you go into the land of
Israel, and God has appointed the
Israelites as His arm of justice, would
it be morally permissible to cause
people who have killed their children to
be put into service to another group of
people--in essence to a government that
has the oversight of those criminals? Inherently
you couldn't say that that would be a
morally wrong position. Let me read to
you another statement from Deuteronomy 9:4:
"Do not think in your heart after
the Lord your God has cast
them out before you, saying 'Because of my
righteousness the Lord has brought me in
to possess this land'; but it is because
of the wickedness of these nations that
the Lord is driving them out before you."
Why did God say He was driving out the
other nations? Because of their
wickedness. In fact, many of those people
in the other nations were put into human
servitude or slavery because of the
criminal actions that they had committed.
Now if that is true, what would we expect
from God if the Israelites then started
doing the exact same thing that the
people in the nations around them were
doing? If God is no respecter of persons,
if slavery or human servitude is not
based on ethnicity or race, if the
Israelites started allowing their
children to pass through the fire to
Molech, if they started committing
criminal actions, what would you expect
God to do? What you'd expect God
to put them over into a form of
servitude or slavery, just like He allowed
the other nations to be put into.
Do you know that's exactly what you see
happening when you go to the book of
Jeremiah? In Jeremiah 32:35
we read, "And they built high places of
Baal which are in the Valley of the Son
of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their
daughters to pass through the fire to
Molech, which I did not command them,
nor did it come into My mind that they
should do this abomination, to cause
Judah to sin." And if you'll go down just
a few verses there after verse 35 you
read that God sold the Israelites into
bondage and sent them into the land of
Babylon. And there you see exactly why
God permitted much of the bondage that
was going on in the Old and New
Testaments because people had committed
crimes. Let me give you an even more
clear verse along those lines. If you
were to go to the book of Exodus and you
were to read 22:1-3
"If a man steals an ox or a sheep, he
should make full restitution; if he has
nothing, then he shall be sold for his
theft." That is easy to understand.
IF a person goes out and steals something,
they use that for their own benefit, it
is found out that they have stolen that,
they are found guilty, they need to make
restitution for what they have stolen.
If they can't do that, then what was
permissible in that case? What was
permissible is for them to be put into a
form of service--a form of human
servitude or slavery--so that they would
have to work off what they had stolen.
Is that a morally permissible situation?
Yes it is. there is nothing immoral about that,
See, what the atheist would have to do is
show that God not only allowed but
condoned and approved of abusive human
relationships. And what you see when you
look through the Bible and closely
analyzed this idea of human service or
servitude or slavery, is that there is
never a time where God approves of an
abusive human relationship. In fact, what
we often see in the Bible is that the
human service that is discussed as
slavery or servitude is actually a
mutually beneficial relationship. This
mutually beneficial relationship can
be seen in how many of the masters and
servants acted toward each other. Let me
read to you a statement from Leviticus 25:47-49.
"Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you
becomes rich and one of your brethren who
dwells by him becomes poor and sells
himself to the stranger or sojourner
close to you, one of his brothers may
redeem him." You see, what's going on in
that situation is a person who is poor
sells himself--sells his service to
another person--who is very rich. Now that
doesn't mean he forfeits his rights as a human
and that doesn't mean that God ever approved of
inhumane treatment. All it means is that
God allowed that form of servitude. And
many times that form of servitude became
a mutually beneficial situation that we
would see much more as an employee
employer relationship than a master
slave type relationship. Let me show you
some that passages that bear
that out. If you were to go to
Deuteronomy 15: 16-17, you would
read: "And if it happens that he a slave
says to you, 'I will not go away from you,'
because he loves you in your house since
he prospers with you, then you shall take
an awl and thrust it through his ear to
the door and he shall be your servant
forever. Also to your maidservant you
shall do likewise." This is a
passage that shows us that often the
relationship was a mutually beneficial
relationship, a relationship that the
servant wanted to stay in and did not
want to get out of. In the Old Testament
and the New Testament, the word
that is translated for 'servant' is the
same word translated for 'slave,''ebed' in
the Old Testament and 'doulos' in the
New Testament. And many times if you're
looking at this situation, you see a
relationship much more of a servant type
relationship than a slave relationship.
Now what the skeptic would like to do is
make a blanket statement that if that
word is ever used it, means a slave and
that slavery always corresponds to
colonial slavery with inhumane treatment.
And that's why the God of the Bible is
immoral. But you can't do that. What you'd
have to show is that God approves of
abusive human relationship and He does
not. He never has. In fact, the book of Job
gives us a very clear idea as to how
righteous, good people understood God's
regulations of servitude. Job says this:
"If I have despised the cause of my male
or female servant when they complained
against me, what then shall I do when God
rises up? When He punishes, how shall I
answer Him? Did not He who made me and the
wound make them? Did not the same one
fashion us in the womb?" You see Job's understanding
of how people are to be treated? Job says,
"If I have a servant or a slave and that
slave complains about how I'm treating
him or her, if I don't look at that
situation fairly, if I abuse that person,
then God is going to call me into
judgment for that." Why? "Because I was
created in the womb exactly like that
servant was created and God views all
humans as equal and He never approves of
inhumane or abusive situations. And the
skeptic says, "What do you mean God
never approves of inhumane or abusive
situations? They are passages
in the Bible that talk about
beating." Yes, there are. Let me read to
you one in Exodus 21:26-27.
"If a man strikes the eye
of his servant or the eye of his
maidservant and destroys it, he shall let
him go free for the sake of his eye.
And if he knocks out a servants toooth, or his
maidservants tooth, he shall let him go
free for the sake of his tooth."
The skeptic comes to the Bible and sees
passages about beating and says anytime
that another person is allowed to beat
another person, that is immoral. It's
always wrong. There's no possible way you
can make that right. Well, hold on just a
second. if we can in the United States of
American condemned someone to life in
prison because of a criminal action that
he or she has committed, would it or
could it be a morally permissible
situation to cause a person to be
physically beaten because of a crime
that they committed? Now this discussion
would then need to change too "Well it's
always wrong to use physical beating to
punish a crime." And then you would go
into a discussion on that. And we could
show that no, that's not true. It would be
moral and permissible for someone to
be beaten. But here's the rub in this
situation. God never said it's all right to
beat a slave, but it's not all right to
beat someone who was free. That statement
is not made--and those beating passages
are not made--and apply only to slaves.
They apply to any person who was worthy
of receiving that kind of punishment.
Let me read to you another passage not very
far from the one we just read. It's found
in Deuteronomy 25:2-3. "If the
wicked men deserves to be beaten, the
judge will cause him to lie down and be
beaten in his presence, according to his
guilt with a certain number of blows."
It's not that the Bible is saying you
could beat the slave but you couldn't beat
another person. The Bible is saying that
if there's a person who's committed some
type of criminal activity that's worthy
of beating--even if he is a slave--then
that slave can be beaten. But even if
he's a free person. And that free person
can be beaten if they deserve the
punishment. Then they get the punishment
whether they're a slave or whether
they're free. When you go to the next
allegation against the God of the Bible
and against Jesus, it's the idea that,
"Maybe God didn't approve of all of
the slavery type relationships that you
see in the New Testament and Old Testament.
Maybe He didn't approve of abusive
relationships, but He didn't ever condemn
them." If you were to listen to Dan Barker,
he says "Why did Jesus the unrivaled
moral example never once speak out
against slavery?" Where's he get that
idea? You go to passages in the New
Testament and sometimes in the epistles
where Paul would write about slaves and
masters and their relationships. you
would read like in 1 Peter 2:18,
"Servants, be submissive to your masters
with all fear, not only to the good and
gentle, but also to the harsh."
Ephesians 6:5: "Servants, be obedient to
those your masters, according to the flesh
with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart as
to Christ." Those passages don't
specifically explicitly condemn slavery
and abusive relationships. And the
skeptic says "Well, if they don't condemn
abusive relationships every time those
relationships are mentioned then that
means they condone them." No, no that's not
what it means at all. In fac,t if you use
that line of reasoning and you were to
go to the book of Matthew and the Sermon
on the Mount, Jesus made statements that
would show that line of reasoning to be
absolutely, positively false. If you were to go to
Matthew 5:39 you read, "But I tell you
not to resist an evil person, but whoever
slaps you on the right cheek turn the
other to him also." Now does Jesus condemn
the abuse of the evil person in this
particular verse? No, he doesn't. What does
that mean? He's approving of a person
slapping another person on the cheek?
No, that's not what it means. What does it
mean? It means that there are going to
be some human relationships that are
abusive. How would and should a Christian
respond to an abusive human relationship?
If someone slaps you on the right cheek,
Jesus says turn the other to him also.
There in that same chapter you read
another passage that shows us what's
going on here. There in Matthew 5:44-45--
especially 44-- "But I say
to you, love your enemies. Bless those who
curse you. Do good to those who hate you
and pray for those who spitefully use
you and persecute you." God doesn't
condemn in that particular instance those
who are persecuting the Christians.
Does that mean He approves of those?
No, that's not what it means. It means that
if you find yourself in an abusive
relationship, He gives you the way that
you should behave to show the people who
are abusing you the love of Christ. What
the skeptic would have to do in order
to show that the biblical position on
slavery and human service is immoral is
they'd have to show where God approves
of an abusive relationship. And they
can't do that because God never
approves of abusive relationships.
In fact, if you were to try to find a way to
abolish slavery, there's only one way
you can do it. Do you know how you can
abolish slavery? If everybody in the
world would apply to their life the
golden rule that Jesus laid down in
Matthew 7:12 "Do unto others as you would
have them do to you." If every person in
this world did to other people what they
wanted other people to do to them, do you
think slavery would have ever occurred?
Do you think there ever would be
servitude that would be abusive or harsh?
The kind of servitude like what's going
on in the colonial Americas?
The atheistic community would like to tell
you that they have a higher morality, but
they can't answer moral questions. They
certainly can't tell you how if we are
just genetic robots trying to pass on our genes,
then it would ever be wrong to have slaves
and force them to do what you want. But when
you go to the Bible, you see that God created
all humans equally, made the person who
finds himself in a service relationship
in the womb exactly like the person who
finds himself in a relationship of
authority. God never approved of abusive
relationships. But if we were to apply
the Golden Rule "Do unto others as you
want them to do to you" we would quickly
see that all abusive relationships
would cease and that New Testament
Christianity is the only way to abolish
the abusive, wrong, immoral, inhumane types
of slavery that have been permitted and
allowed throughout the course of human
history. This has been a presentation
of Apologetics Press, an organization
dedicated to the defense of New Testament
Christianity. Visit us on the web at
ApologeticsPress.org or
call 800-234-8558.
