Addressing slavery in the bible, again.

I’ve tackled this issue several time in the past and it’s probably best I organize all of my thoughts into concise article.
It’s been suggested by some that because the Old Testament has a list of rules regarding slavery that somehow God condones slavery or advocates it as some sort of moral act.
We have a few problems here with this line of thinking.
First of all, nowhere does the bible actually say that God condones anything of the sort. One has to make that leap by connecting the fact that it is in the bible so therefore it is excused. By making a set of rules it automatically means that slavery is alright as long as one abides by the rules. This is also an incorrect connection.
Unfortunately when one thinks of slavery we immediately think of the situation in the United states and slaves brought over from Africa. The slavery in the Old Testament is far different than Western slavery.
In bible times servitude was acceptable culturally. It was a form of employment that families saw as a blessing to get themselves out of complete poverty. Because it was culturally acceptable The Israelites imposed their own set of rules regarding servitude to make sure that the servant was treated fairly and not abused.
In the New testament times people actually sold themselves as slaves to get out of debt.
Recording the issues regarding the cultural aspects of the servant master relationship were important because it teaches us a very important lesson today about serving our master and how Jesus Christ is fair and merciful and died on the cross to get us out of bondage to our master which is sin.

This message is replete throughout the bible and can be seen in the story of Moses and how he led the Israelites out of bondage from the Egyptians. In the case of the Israelites they were hebrew and were in bondage because of who they were as a people and were slaves because of their race and God dealt with the Egyptians forcefully as a result showing God’s displeasure with racism.

Having servants is not the ideal set of circumstances that Jesus will ultimately put into practice for us here on Earth. We are in a fallen world where we have different governments, different financial systems, and different laws. In the end God will give us a new heaven and a new Earth.

Now admittedly the bible does not appear on the surface to condemn slavery or outlaw it but let us reflect on the words of Jesus Christ regarding loving others as he has loved us and the change that comes from real salvation. If we all give our lives to Christ and follow him to the letter we would have mercy towards others and this world would be quite a different place.