Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
At a seminar in Richmond, Virginia in 2001, I heard a distinguished historian of the Civil War make a statement in passing, as if it were commonly agreed upon, that "slavery is sin." This opinion, in our time, is promulgated without fear of challenge, but what does Jesus, the leading expert on what sin really is, think about it? Does the Bible indicate that God ever considered the ancient social institution of slavery to be sin? Upon which verse in the Bible, or upon which revelation of God, did that renown Civil War scholar base his judgment concerning slavery? I have never found a verse in the Bible that intimates that those who owned slaves were, ipso facto, sinners. Still, "slavery is sin", pronounced the erudite scholar, and everyone in the auditorium seemed to agree.
When Jesus came to live among us, a major obstacle to Israel's recognizing him as the Messiah was that Israel's leaders had redefined some important words related to God, notably among them, the word "sin". Having redefined "sin", Israel's elders then erred in condemning as sinners people who were not sinful in God's eyes. One of those upright people was Jesus Christ himself, whom they condemned because he "sinned" on the Sabbath day by healing the sick on that holy day. God thought that it was good to heal the sick on any day of the week and sent Jesus to do it, but Israel's leaders thought it was sinful to heal on the Sabbath and hated him for it. From their tragic error, we should learn to restrict our definition of sin is to what God says that it is, instead of allowing prevailing prejudices and social movements to define sin for us. Otherwise, we might well condemn as being wicked someone whom God does not condemn.
Abraham, "the friend of God", owned slaves, as did his son Isaac, as well as Isaac's son Jacob. Job, "a perfect and upright man" before God, had slaves, and very many of them. Paul's letter to Philemon was written when he Paul sent a runaway slave, Onesimus, back to Philemon his master. Both of these men, Onesimus the slave and Philemon the master, were believers. Neither of them were condemned as sinners by Paul for occupying their relative social positions.
Most importantly, however, Jesus himself (our chief example) was, and still is, the happy owner of many slaves (Rom. 1:1; Acts 16:17), of whom I am one. In fact, Jesus himself was a slave to God (Mt. 20:27-28; Phip. 2:4-8).
What does the Bible really say about slavery? I researched the Bible's treatment of the institution of slavery, and I found that the Bible never states, nor even implies, that holding slaves was sinful. On the contrary, it deals with slavery, both in the New and Old Testaments, as being exactly what it was at that time: a commonly accepted social phenomenon. Simply acknowledging that incontrovertible Biblical fact places us in the difficult position of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and suffering the contempt of a proud generation that "knows" that slavery was sin, even though God never said so. Our only other option is to reject what the Bible clearly states, so that people in this generation will like us.
Take the time to find out what your God thinks about things. We all know that men do not know the truth; the Bible makes that abundantly clear. Then, why should we mindlessly follow the crowds when they tell us what sin is and what it is not? It is wise to consider for yourself the information on slavery contained in the Bible before answering the question, "Does God say that holding slaves was sin?" I found nothing in the Bible that would lead me to believe that He ever thought that, but if I missed something, perhaps one of my readers will be kind enough to point it out to me.