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P10: Slavery and The Bible Part 1 - Exodus 21:1-6 | Bible Study
April 4, 2024 · 1 hr 3 min
P10: Slavery and The Bible Part 1 - Exodus 21:1-6 | The Torah Bible Study
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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Understanding Slavery in the Bible 0:00 Okay. Let's get going with Bible study.0:36 Welcome in everybody to the Deep Dive Bible Study on Tim Hechelev on YouTube. If you're here for the first time, every Wednesday night at 7 30, we do bible study for about an hour and we are going0:48 through the Torah, the first 5 books of the bible. This is part 10 but I'm gonna put a subtitle under Torah part 10 and that is Torah part 10, subtitle slavery in the bible part 1. So today, I think this is1:00 going to be a very good benefit to your life on how do we address the very challenging topic of slavery in the bible. It's there. God talks about how the Israelites1:11 are supposed to take slaves. And we modern people will use this conversation in the holy scriptures as an excuse to devalue other texts and to question the inerrancy1:23 and the reliability and even the Holy Spirit inspiration of Holy Scripture. So today is incredibly important. Let's get to it in our bible study on Torah, the law of life.1:48 Yeah. Torah, the law of life. How how can we trust the bible when it seems to be such an antiquated text? Right? This is the skeptic's complaint. We did this with our first discussion about difficult text2:00 in the Torah a couple of episodes ago with regards to the captive slave woman. And today, we're going to do it again because the Bible does talk about slavery. And some people could say this is proof that the Bible2:12 can't be trusted or moreover, this is proof that we need to adapt the rest of the Bible to our time. So, you know, the Bible's outdated here. Slavery is there. It teaches Israel to take slaves and also to2:24 sell their children and their daughters as slaves. And what's all that about? So maybe since the bible is outdated in regards to slavery, maybe it's outdated in regards to, oh, I don't know, human sexuality, drug use,2:34 other things that we wanna do which the bible kind of prohibits and we don't like those uncomfortable passages. So let's find ways in the biblical text to, you know, redefine morality according to the bible.2:46 And there's questions to be asked about this that are important. Should we ignore the bible's teaching on slavery? And, of course, you're gonna hear me say no. But I want you to stay with me for this content so that I2:58 can unpack the why behind that answer. And then we have to ask this question, how we have to answer the question of how how does how does the bible allow for slavery3:10 with with this question. And I am I am under the weather, so please forgive me for clearing my throat on a regular basis. I did not wanna push back this content. I had to give it out. So anyway, I'm pushing3:22 through. So we have to answer the question, how does the bible allow for slavery with a kickback question? And here it is. Are we that much better than the ancient world? Are we that much better than the ancient world?3:33 Consider the fact that we are living in a time in which there are more slaves in captivity right now than at any other time in human history. This is data from the Exodus3:45 Road, sex trafficking freedom project. There are more people trapped in slavery today than at any other point in human history. 43 percent of human trafficking victims are enforced labor. 30 percent of human3:56 trafficking victims are being exploited in the commercial sex trade and 44 percent of human trafficking victims are enforced marriage. 1 of the organizations that we support here on this channel is4:08 Project Rescue. Here's data from their homepage. Over 4000000 people are being held in bondage globally right now trapped in the horrors of sexual exploitation. They're on a mission to change that. When you support this4:20 channel, we are supporting them. 10 percent of all that comes in goes to them because we have to stop we had to stop slave trading. We have to stop we have to stop sex slavery. Yes? And here's the question that I'm gonna4:32 answer tonight at the end of our conversation. I love to give you the upfront load. Here's what I plan on delivering to you. K? What the bible teaches about slavery in the Torah. And then I want to answer this question,4:43 why didn't the Bible eliminate it? Because wouldn't it have been so much easier, especially for us modern people who love the Bible, who love God's word, who want to defend God's word? Wouldn't it have been much easier4:52 if God had just said, oh, by the way, don't have slaves? Because in 3000 years, slavery is gonna come to an end in the modern American culture and they're gonna think, why did the Bible offer slavery? And that would have5:03 been my preference. I would have loved if God just said, you know what? Thus says the Lord, no slavery. But he doesn't do that. And he doesn't do that for a reason, but you're gonna have to wait until the end of the5:12 content to get to that answer. So we've got to understand. Number 1, we are no better than our forebears in this regard because there are more slaves today than at any time in human history. And5:24 to anyone who is out there saying, boy, you know the bible, how dare to allow for slavery? My question to them, the skeptics, the agnostics, the atheists is simply this. What are you doing right now since you know the5:34 slavery is so bad to end sex trafficking, to end sex slavery, to end the enslavement of peoples around the world? What are you contributing? What are you building? What are you fighting for if you agree that slavery5:46 shouldn't be allowed? That would be my kind of tongue in cheek answer to somebody like that as we would probably go back and forth on a debate on the vile the validity of the bible and scriptures. But here's another5:56 point, a philosophical point that CS Lewis made in the last century. Consider the idea of chronological snobbery. Now you say, what on earth is chronological snobbery? Here's what c s Lewis meant for that. By the way, c6:06 s Lewis was 1 of the most profound thinkers of the last century. And he was an atheist and he came to Christ reluctantly, author of Mere Christianity. Basically, he chronological snobbery is this. The the6:18 the idea that your thinking, your values, and your knowledge in your era are superior to those of another era simply because they are more recent. So you living now in the time in which you live6:31 are blessed. You are blessed with the history behind you that has brought you to the understanding that you have today. You are blessed with the literacy rates that are at an all time high. You are you are blessed6:42 with the information age. You can get information anywhere through your phone. You can read almost any book right now. You can read history and literature in the past in ways to inform your mind, shape your mind that6:54 previous generations couldn't. And be wary of the idea that you now are better than them simply because you are the beneficiary of what they contributed to the world. Just because you were born7:05 and bequeathed the information that previous generations developed does not necessarily make you the morally superior person. Do you does that make sense? And by the way,7:17 this works both ways, in regards to what came before us as well as what will come after us. Because here's what you don't know about the the future and I don't know and no 1 knows. Okay? The future has yet to7:29 write moral codes. So so every generation is in the struggle with what is morally appropriate. Every generation is. Right now in our generation, we're we're in a big kind of cultural struggle with, well what do we do7:40 with human sexuality and what do we do with gender? And and those questions are being, you know, asked and they are being debated in the cultural sphere right now. But those questions are just7:52 a couple of generations away from being answered in my opinion. We're also having a conversation about where does human life begin? In the womb, at conception. Where does where does a human being have viability and laws8:04 and protections and rights? Those are the abortions about those are the abortion questions. Right? We're we're also having debates about how do we handle our world and the climate. And these are political conversations8:15 that the bible speaks to, that Christians should have, that should they should have entered into discussion with. But here's what we don't know. No 1 knows what the future is going to say about our generation. In fact,8:25 there's a good chance. Okay? This is part of the chronological snobbery idea. There's a good chance that future generations are going to look back on this generation and say, I cannot believe that they allowed for late8:35 term abortion. I cannot believe that they allowed for any abortion. There is a very very good chance that that's where we're going to resolve in the future. Now, you are welcome to disagree with that if you're a skeptic8:44 and you're not a Christian and you're just tuning into the channel to find out what the bible says about about slavery. And welcome to the content. I'm so glad that you're here. But what we are constantly involved in as8:53 human beings is asking the question, what is beneficial for human flourishing? And by the way, that is the point of the bible. God wants it to go well with us. He wants us to prosper. He wants us to rule and9:05 subdue the earth. He wants us to live with dignity, respect, honor for him and for his creation and for each other. And the scriptures seek to lead us toward a more,9:18 just civil and ordered society. So the question tonight is what does the Torah, the first 5 books of the bible, say about slaves? Now, we also have to acknowledge something else. Every single 19:30 of us, no matter who you are, brings implicit bias into the text. As soon as you examine scripture, you are already a biased observer or examiner of scripture because your story is9:42 shaping your is has shaped your approach to the bible. Your history, your family history, your religious history, your experience with other Christians, other people who believe the bible, good or bad,9:54 they have all born into your heart a bias toward holy scripture. Whether you believe it or not. And so I'm asking you to do something that is almost impossible, but I'm10:05 gonna ask you to do it anyway. Can you acknowledge, at least acknowledge, that you have some implicit bias regard regarding the the bible? And I am talking to the skeptic a little bit more tonight than I10:17 am to the devoted disciple of Jesus, although I am fully aware that most of my audience is a fully devoted follower of Jesus. You're here for bible study. But I do want to talk to the skeptics because I think that the10:29 the subject matter, the title of the video, is gonna attract you to click on the video. So you have to acknowledge, at least acknowledge. You don't have to eliminate it. It's almost impossible to eliminate your implicit10:40 bias, but you have to acknowledge that you have it. Your history, your story, your narrative, your family, your biology, your predilections, your desires, and where you are with God all10:53 speak to and affect your implicit bias when it comes to approaching the biblical text. And that brings me to this graphic which I wanted to put here up on the screen for you. Is that when it comes to slavery in the11:04 ancient world, the scriptures are not teaching us the they are not answering the questions that we are asking. So let me put this graphic up. Slavery in Torah, God is speaking and you'll notice that11:15 the arrow is pointing. This is what God is speaking to us about slavery. But here's what we're doing when we come to the text and this is the implicit bias that I'm talking about. When we talk about slavery, we're coming11:25 from our perspective, our modern view, particularly in the cultural west where we have eliminated slavery for, well, close to 200 years now, 160 years. And it's a11:36 different world that we are asking questions of and from that the bible is answering from. See, we are kind of missing each other on the highway of conversation. There's a11:48 cultural gap here between what the bible is speaking about slavery and what we are asking about slavery. And so that has to be acknowledged because without acknowledging those fundamental12:00 foundational, characteristics of this conversation, we're just gonna talk past each other and we're not going to have a reasoned discussion. So my hope and my prayer for today12:12 and this video is that you will walk away from this study saying, okay. At least I understand what a Christian does with the difficult texts of the bible12:24 when it comes to slavery. And 1 more qualifier before we get into it and that is simply this. This is in no way an exhaustive examination of slavery in the bible. I plan to have I think we12:36 could have probably 3 or possibly 2 at the at the minimum more discussions about slavery in the Torah. This is just part 1 and they will be, I think, the next episode of this bible study will12:48 be part 2 and then we're gonna skip it. We're gonna come back to it anyway. There's a lot to say about it. In no way am I trying to do an exhaustive study, but I hope through the sub, you know, section of this13:00 study, we will provide with provide plenty of content for you to examine holy scripture in regards to slavery in the ancient world. Now with that in mind, let's do this. Right? Let's discuss slavery in the13:12 ancient world. I wanna give you a couple of quotes. Slavery, quotes from historical figures on slavery. Slavery in their own words. And these are historically noble figures13:24 that modern western people would probably admonish and regard as civilized and, you know, forward thinking cultural shaping13:36 people, such as Aristotle who who said this about slavery. He called a doulos or a slave an animated tool, just as a tool is a soulless slave. That13:47 is what Aristotle said about slaves. Cicero, more recently, 1 0 6 to 43 BC. Slaves are our tools for life but they lack their own. That is13:59 the meaning of the ancient saying that slaves are living tools and tools lifeless slaves. Or Plato who a lot of Western people go to college and study Plato and consider him a hero of modern14:11 thought. And here's what he said about slaves. He said, to be sure, my friend, a man should act toward his slaves as he does toward his animals. He should set no 1 of them free. This is the14:23 ancients in their own words. So if you're going to first question the the validity of the entire text of the bible because of what it says about slaves, then you have to do and apply that same standard to Plato,14:34 Aristotle, Cicero, and other. That's just a fraction of ancient notable figures and how they viewed slaves, human beings, who today, modern western people, cannot imagine being14:46 enslaved. That's how the ancients viewed them. So be fair, skeptics, that the way you measure the scriptures, you're going to measure ancient writers as well. You say I already do that. Fine. Let's go a little bit14:58 further. There is, some archaeological evidence about how slaves were treated in the ancient world. I'm gonna show you this. This is a slave tag from the Roman empire. This was discovered, I think, about 30 years ago.15:09 It's a metal tag that slaves were required to wear. This is dated in the fourth century after Christ, so about 400 or 300 AD. And it is it is inscribed with a demand to return15:21 the slave to his master's estate in Rome. In fact, what it literally says in the in Latin is hold me lest I flee and then return me to my master Vivinteus15:33 on the estate of Callistus. Basically, it's a dog tag. Like, you put dog tags on your dog. Right? This is a slave tag that was common in the Roman world. Scholars estimate that about 10 percent of the of the Roman15:45 world's population was were slaves. Romans did not enslave based on color. That was a very modern invention in terms of the slave world. In fact, it was15:57 pretty much what American Britain did. Britain identified Africans as slaves and before that, slaves were white people, slaves were brown people, slaves were black people or any mixture of the sort.16:08 Romans basically just enslaved whoever they conquered. You became a slave in Rome by having your nation conquered by the Roman army. And the Roman army was very good at conquest and so they would enslave all colors of16:20 skin and all types of people. But, they also prohibited the release of slaves extreme, in extreme ways. The ways that16:32 the Romans allowed for slavery, you had to purchase your slavery and even to do that you had to work as a slave for years or you had to have some special skill or some special abilities and it was almost impossible to16:42 get out of slavery in the ancient world context. Let me give you a writer from AD 64 in the ancient world of Rome. His name is Seneca. He was a very notable philosopher in Rome and here's16:54 what he says about the conditions of slaves in the Roman Empire. He says, when we recline at a banquet, 1 slave mops up the disgorged food, another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the leftovers of the tipsy17:05 guest, another carves the priceless game bird's hapless fellow to live only for the purpose of cutting fat carp capellans correctly. Another who serves the wine must dress like a woman and wrestle with his17:17 advancing years. He cannot get away from his boyhood. He is dragged back to it and though he has he has already acquired a soldier's figure, he is kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the17:27 roots. And he must remain awake throughout the night dividing his time between his master's drunkenness and his lust. In the chamber, he must be a man At the feast, a boy. So, you see17:39 the degradation of slaves in the ancient world and this is what you would call the more modern ancient world, AD 64. This is after Christ has come and risen from the grave. This is the ancient Roman Empire17:52 and it's not good. They are demanding old men to have their beards plucked out and act as women and then even satisfy the lust of their slave owners in the bedroom and then act as a boy. You see the pedophilia here. You18:03 see the degradation of the human dignity, the worth of the slave, in the heart of the, person. You you see all of these things and it makes for a very inconvenient truth18:15 with regards to slavery in the ancient world. Kind of interesting to see that perspective. So when it comes to the bible and slavery, can we do this? Read it18:27 from within the context to which it was written. Okay. So the latest New Testament text is written, I think, around 80 90. So, you're in you're within 30 years of Seneca's view of18:39 slaves in the ancient world. Now, we're gonna even go further back because we're talking about Torah, the first 5 books of the bible, which were written in 1500 BC or thereabouts. The Bronze Age,18:51 basically. You have a profoundly different view of slavery in the first 5 books of the bible than you had in almost anywhere else. No. No. Not almost.19:03 In anywhere else in the ancient world. So with that in mind, let's get to tonight's text, slavery in Torah, Exodus 21 1 to 6. And we're gonna stop at verse 6 and we're gonna go past verse 6 in our next19:15 discussion on slavery in the Bible in a future episode. God says, now these are the rules that you are to set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve 6 years and in19:27 the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or19:38 daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, I love my master, my wife, my children, I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him to God19:49 and he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall be his slave forever. Okay. There's a lot to that text and we're not even gonna cover everything in19:58 that text because I know some of you are right now you're saying, holy smokes. Did they just talk about the fact that if the master gives them a wife and children and then the wife and children are are now the master is20:05 when the guy gets released? And, there's a very simple explanation about that, but we're gonna maybe table that. I might get to it, but we might table that for another another time. Let's take a look look at the word20:16 slave from this text. Number 1 is Ebed in Hebrew or Chabad in Hebrew. It can mean worker. It can mean employee. It can mean servant or slave. So, when we're talking about the terminology of slave in the Hebrew20:28 scriptures regarding Torah, We could be talking about almost anybody including somebody who is paid to work for another person. And then we have to back up in the biblical text and understand that slavery20:39 was always assumed to be a reality in the ancient world and there's no getting around that. For as long as human beings have been around, slaves have been around. In fact, the word slave comes from the Slavic term for20:51 Slavic people who were taken as slaves and they were white people. That's another inconvenient truth to the modern scholars but it is a true fact that the very English word slave comes from that, that21:03 reality. White people, Slavic people were enslaved to other people. Now, let's back up in the Torah. Let's talk about the narrative because narrative in the Torah is part of the pedagogy of God in the21:15 Hebrew Bible. God speaks through narrative. So if you back all the way up to Abraham, Abraham is called out of Ur of the Chaldees, an oppressive, godless, vicious people. He is called to21:27 Canaan to possess a promised land and this is all the way back in Genesis chapter 17 and here's what God prescribes for Abraham in his household. He says, he who is 8 days oh wait, this is21:39 Genesis 17 verse 12. He who is 8 days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is21:51 not of your offspring. Now look at this, verse 13. Both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised.22:03 So my covenant so shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Hit the brakes right now and just notice something. And, by the way, verse 26 and 27 of the same chapter tell22:15 us that Abraham did just that. He circumcised Ishmael and he circumcised all the men in his house both those who were born in it and those who he bought from a foreigner, which would be slaves. They were all circumcised.22:26 Circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God had made an agreement with Abraham's family, that he would bless him, that he would give him the land as an inheritance, and that his and the nations of the earth would22:37 be blessed through him. Circumcision, that sign. That they are Israelites. They are sons of Abraham. Anyone in Abraham's house or Abraham's house would have the sign of covenant circumcision, the circumcision sign of22:47 covenant guaranteeing them possession of the rights and privileges of God's chosen people, including his slaves. Slaves were to be identified as sons of23:00 Abraham and thereby members or relatives of the family of Abraham in the ancient text. This is groundbreaking. You did not do this in the ancient world. In the ancient world, you had23:11 tribes and clans. You dominated each other. The the clan that was dominated became slaves of the other clan. That's how it worked in the ancient world everywhere else. Abraham, in the narrative portion of Torah, is given23:22 this groundbreaking principle from god. Include into fellowship of the community the people who have been born in your home and those purchased into your home, Abraham. And right23:34 there, you see the heart of god that even through slavery, people come into membership of the family and the community of faith and are adopted as more than slaves. They are adopted23:46 as sons. This is the predicate for the new covenant whereby gentiles come into a both sonship and slavery to god. We23:58 are slaves to righteousness, Romans talks about, but we are sons of god. This is why James, Paul, Peter, all refer to themselves as doulos, slaves of the lord Jesus24:10 Christ. James, the lord's brother, does not refer to himself as the lord's brother in his epistle. He refers to himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. And yet he is also a son of god. So you have in the narrative24:22 of the Old Testament already the elevation of slave status into sonship. Let's go on. Fast forward to Exodus. Oh, by the way, let me give you another24:34 quick jab at anybody who questions God's heart about slavery and freedom from a skeptical point of view. Hey, the second book of the bible is called Exodus which is referring to the freedom of slaves. So24:46 it's like really high on God's agenda to get slaves out of slavery. Anyway, more on that later. Exodus chapter 12. In the instructions that God gives to Moses regarding the Passover in verse 43, look at what God says.24:57 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this statute of the Passover, no foreigner no foreigner shall eat of it but every slave that is bought for money may25:09 eat of it after you have circumcised him. This is profound in the ancient world. You are going to first give them the sign of the covenant. They're going to be adopted as Jews, as sons of Israel25:21 now, even though they're slaves from foreign countries. And then once they are circumcised and adopted into that nation, we would decide the covenant. Now they're welcome to the table of Passover. And by the way,25:32 Passover was a celebration of their liberation as slaves from Egypt into the freedom that God provided for them. So you have right there in holy scripture through narrative portions. Now we're not even talking about the25:43 laws yet. We're talking about the narrative portions. God's heart for the slave. And God's heart is simple. Set them free. Make them part of your community. This is the heart of God for25:55 those who are disadvantaged in society. Speaking of disadvantage, let's talk about slavery in the ancient world. It's very simple to understand something about slavery in the ancient world. Right now as moderns and26:07 removing our implicit bias in our cultural snobbery, as modern Americans or westerners, we have governments with social safety nets, such as welfare, food stamps, WIC programs,26:19 such as social security, such as unemployment benefits, severance packages. You lose your job in the modern world and there's a good chance that you do not go belly up. You can still find ways to maintain your lifestyle26:30 even if you lose work work, disaster happens to your life. There's insurances. We have modern inventions, okay, that are really predicated upon God's heart for the the the underprivileged and the weak and the26:42 vulnerable. We have these modern inventions, which we should thank God for, that protect vulnerable people from disaster, from the loss of a job, the loss of a harvest, the loss of life. Right? This is what26:54 the ancient worlds did not have. And we have to, again, remove our implicit bias and our modern chronological state snobbery and say, okay, let's look at it from their point of view. And you have to understand that27:05 slavery was a social safety net in the ancient world. Leviticus 25 basically stipulates If your brother verse 39. If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave.27:16 He shall be with you as a hired hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of Jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him and go back to his own clan and return to27:26 the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants whom I bought out of brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. Notice the protections for slaves in the ancient world. You're not going to27:37 treat him as a slave. You're gonna treat him as a hired worker. This is an opportunity for him to have a social safety net within the community of Israel so that he doesn't become vulnerable to the conditions of a bad27:48 harvest, a year where his crops were played with who knows what and his family is lost. No. You have a chance brothers and sisters of 1 another in the family of God to protect each other. That was the28:00 heart of God behind speaking to slavery in the ancient world in the context of Israel. Now, this is something else that undermines the very foundation28:12 of slavery as modern Americans think of it. Because most modern Americans, particularly young Americans, only know of the African slave trade that sailed across the Atlantic into the American colonies and into Britain.28:23 That's their only reference to slavery. And you're you're very detached from the lion's share of human history regarding slavery. But I will say this about the Torah28:35 regarding even that slave practice. If, Westerners in the British Empire and in the American colonies had read28:47 scripture properly Okay. Listen to what I'm saying now. The Atlantic slave trade would have never existed. Period. Full stop.28:59 Because the bible has several texts, both in the Torah and in the prophets and in the New Testament, that prohibit the slave trade. Let me show you this from Exodus chapter 21 verse 16. Whoever steals a man and29:11 sells him, that's slave trading. And anyone who's been found in possession of him shall be murdered, shall be put to death. Not not murdered. Shall be put to death. Shall be executed. Capital punishment was reserved29:23 for slave traders in Exodus 21 16. Deuteronomy 24 4 7. If a man is found stealing 1 of his brothers of the people of Israel and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die.29:35 So you shall purge the evil from your midst. Or Amos, a later prophet in the back half of the monarchy in Northern Israel. He says in verse 1 chapter 1 verse 6, he says, thus says the lord, for 3 transgressions29:47 of Gaza and for 4, I will not revoke the punishment because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. That's slave trading. God says, I'm gonna punish the people of Gaza for trading slaves. By29:57 the way, the Gazans were gentiles. So you have replete texts in the old testament where God is saying slave trading is off limits. If the Atlantic slave trade,30:09 which I understand was birthed in the Western world, a world that was the result of Christendom. Yes. No excuses made here. It was an abominable30:21 practice by very Christianized empires and worlds that enacted a slave trade that the Bible clearly prohibited. Okay. The New Testament30:34 prohibits the slave trade. First Timothy 1 8 says, we know the law is good if 1 uses it lawfully. Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and30:45 sinners, for the unholy and the profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers. Other translations say slave traders,30:56 liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. What is Paul saying there? He's saying the law the law is in place to counter31:08 the following practices. Unholy practices, profane practices, abusing your parents, murder, sexual morality, homosexuality, and slave trading. It's right there lying and perjury. These are all there in black31:20 and white in the biblical text and if the British Empire and the American colonies and all these, you know, Christianized areas had just read scripture and followed it, the slave trade never31:32 even would have happened. Never would have even happened. And how would it have been stopped? By people reading the Torah and the Biblical Text. So there is no justification whatsoever biblically,31:44 for what ex what the modern world I say the modern world, the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries Western world practiced. And anyone who31:56 tells you differently is is not reading scripture properly. We we we've got to at least have the honesty to understand that scripture spoke to this, and be honest about32:08 it. Some more biblical texts regarding slavery and we're gonna make some summations about the context of slavery in the Torah, at the end. So we're gonna summarize what we're talking about because it's actually quite32:19 amazing and astonishing how god protected slaves in Torah. So So Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 15 stipulates that runaway slaves were to be released. Now, this is going to shock some of32:30 you but here and and not for what the biblical text says but for what other law texts from the near, ancient Near East stipulate. Deuteronomy 25 15. You shall not give up to his master, a slave who32:42 has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell this is verse 16. He shall dwell with you in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within 1 of your towns, wherever it suits him, you shall not wrong him. Can32:52 you see God's heart for the runaway slave here? And I totally understand, totally concede that biblic not biblical. I don't wanna say biblical.33:05 Christian pastors in the American South, pre civil war, preached from from the bible on to and to encourage and to validate the enslavement of their33:16 fellow men. I totally concede that point. They were wrong. They were biblically illiterate. They were not godly in any way. Those who use the bible to justify evil33:28 have always been around. They will always be around. And it is the it is the job of biblically minded, honest, ex, examiners of holy scripture to33:40 call it out and to fight for what is right. Because we will get to a whole long list of Christians who fought for the end of the Atlantic slave trade. And they were pretty much all Christians. It's gonna be amazing when33:51 you see the list. So this is what Deuteronomy says. And just bear with me for a second here. This is what Deuteronomy says about what happens when you find a runaway slave. Let's take a look34:03 at a ancient oral corollary to this law from the Code of Hammurabi. Now, Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is 1 of the oldest known legal codes in history. It dates back to the ancient Mesopotamian Empire and it was34:14 created during the reign of King Hammurabi around 17 50 to 7 60 BC. Be before Christ. In the law codes of Hammurabi, runaway slaves were sought for a34:25 bounty and if you aided them, you would be killed. What does the bible say in Deuteronomy? If you return them to your to their master, it's on you.34:37 And you're not going to do that. You're actually going to let them go wherever they want, where they desire to go, and you're not going to wrong them. Let's take a look at the code of Hammurabi. Law 15 says, if34:49 a man harbors a fugitive in his house and does not bring him out to the public, that man shall be put to death. In other words, if you protect a runaway slave, you are going to be, executed. Law 16 from the Code35:01 of Hammurabi. If a slave of a freedman runs away from the city and someone returned to him, the owner of the slave shall give the finder 2 shekels of silver. There's a bounty for those who find a runaway slave. Law 1 17.35:12 If a slave of a man has fled into the city, 1 may arrest him there and bring him back to his owner. These are This is the context, okay, in which Deuteronomy and Exodus is written.35:24 And it was not a favorable context for slaves. What you see repeatedly in holy scripture, particularly even in the difficult topics and the difficult laws, is God35:36 elevating the standard. God bringing people from where they are to where he is. And doing this very very intentionally step by step because he35:48 he's working with the mess of sin in the human condition and he's leading humans to a more equitable future. Let's go forward into the35:59 Torah regarding slavery, something that is not talked about at all. But in the Torah, slave slaves were basically guaranteed their freedom in several texts. Deuteronomy 21 verse 2, When you36:11 buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for 6 years and in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. In other words, 6 years max, free in the seventh year. No charges. He doesn't have to pay. This is absolutely36:22 counter to relevant or corollary laws in the ancient world. If you had to, if you wanted to purchase your slavery from, Rome it cost you ex exorbitant fees and very few people could afford to36:34 ever do it. Exodus 21 26, when a man strikes the eye of a slave. In other words, if you if you abuse your slave and and you hurt him, the slave is immediately free no matter no matter what. Deuteronomy36:46 15 12, if your brother, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, he shall serve 6 years and the seventh of free. Isaiah 58 talking about true fasting. Verse 6, the later prophet, he says, is this not the fast that I choose36:56 that you lose the bonds of wickedness to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? In other words, if you wanna really be spiritual Israel, you're going to set37:08 slaves free. No questions asked. Back to the law from Leviticus. Leviticus 25 10. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. By the way, quick37:20 fact, that's the text that is written on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's Leviticus 25 10. That's why it's called the Liberty Bell. So, you proclaim liberty. This is the law. This is the fiftieth37:30 year of, of jubilee and it says it's gonna be jubilee to you. And when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. So here's what you have to understand about that. The37:42 the the year of jubilee did not just set slaves free. It sent them back home to their inherited property under the under the conquest of Joshua and the distribution of land,37:55 as is outlined in the book of Joshua. So, not only does a slave go free in Israel every seventh year, it all they also go free every fiftieth year, just in case they sign up38:07 for slavery on the 40 ninth year. They would they would serve for 1 year and they were given the option of freedom on the next year and they were returned to their property. Oh, by the way, quick fact, Jeremiah calls out38:18 Israel on the fact that they never practiced this law and he said this is going to be 70 years decreed for you of exile because you did not practice 70 years of freedom, in during the monarchy, during the the history38:29 of ancient Israel, which is really amazing when you think about it. The reason ultimately why Israel goes into exile apart from the idolatry and following the pagan practices and the Baal worship and the Ashram worship38:41 is that they did not set their brothers and sisters free as god intended them to do so. Phenomenal to hear the heart of god in that regard. Then you have the Sabbath year38:53 which is a every seventh year experience for ancient Israel. Leviticus 25 verse 3 talks about this. For 6 years, you shall sow your field and for 6 years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruits. But in theShow more In this video 0:00 Understanding Slavery in the Bible
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