
Someone mentioned people arguing about slavery with those in
favor of slavery quoting some verses and those opposed quoting
others.  Well I'll tell ya, those opposed to slavery have got
the shorter list of verses!  It comes as a surprise to most
people, but the Bible is explicitly PRO slavery.  That is, it
explicitly authorizes chattel slavery.  That's the type of slavery
we had in America before the Civil war - where humans are property
and other humans own them.

Here's the verse that authorizes slavery:

        LEVITICUS 25:44 'As for your male and female slaves whom
        you may have - you may acquire male and female slaves from
        the pagan nations that are around you.

(Note: the King James Version consistently euphemises the "slave"
as "servant".  However, servants can't be bought and sold.  Every
other translation I've seen uses "slave", as above.)

Generally, there are different classes of slaves and owners.  The
most privileged class of slaves are male Israelis owned by
foreigners.  Their freedom can be repurchased at any time by the
slave or his relatives and the owner has to sell him back.  The
repurchase price is on a sliding scale and gets smaller every year
of captivity.  After a certain number of years, the slave must be
freed without charge.

The next class of slave is a male Israeli owned by an Israeli.  They
also have to be released after a certain number of years, but their
owner doesn't have to sell them back their freedom before that date
unless he wants to.

The lowest class of slave is a foreigner owned by an Israeli or
an Israeli woman owned by anybody.  They have about the same status
as a slave in ante-bellum America.  You can keep them forever.

There are some restrictions on how cruelly you can treat your
slaves.  If you poke a slave's eye out or knock out a tooth, you
have to release him.  If you beat a slave so hard that he dies
quickly, you're in unspecified trouble, but if he survives the
beating for a day or two, you're off the hook because, after all,
he was your property.

Many Christians might assume that the New Testament reverses this
and condemns slavery, but it doesn't.  There are frequent
exhortations for slaves to obey their masters.  The entire book
of Philemon is a letter from Paul to Philemon, who is the owner
of the runaway slave that Paul is sending back to him!

I get the impression that the NT writers would have preferred to
condemn slavery and help free the slaves, but politically, they
would have been in deep, and I mean deep as in dead, trouble with
the Roman government if they had done so.  By NT times, the
Romans were deathly afraid of slave revolts and Christians were
widely suspected to be more sympathetic to slaves than to masters.
In fact, many of them were slaves.

Actually, the OT passages about slavery seem to have been written
by the wealthy and powerful class that was likely to own slaves
while the NT passages were written by people who were far more
likely to be slaves someday that to own them.

Here are all the slavery verses that I know of in the Bible, but
there may very well be more.  Read them, look them up in the Bible
so you have them in context and never miss an opportunity to share
this valuable Bible knowledge with proselytizing Christians.  They're
a wonderful example of Biblical morality.

------------------------------------------------

                   Old Testament

LEVITICUS 25:44 'As for your male and female slaves whom you
may have - you may acquire male and female slaves from the
pagan nations that are around you.

LEVITICUS 25:45 'Then too, it is out of the sons of the
sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain
acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom
they will have produced in your land; they also may become your
possession.

LEVITICUS 25:46 'You may even bequeath them to your sons after
you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent
slaves.  But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel,
you shall not rule with severity over one another.

LEVITICUS 25:47 'Now if the means of a stranger or of a sojourner
with you becomes sufficient, and a countryman of yours becomes so
poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is
sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger's family,

48 then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold.
One of his brothers may redeem him,

49 or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him;
or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

50 'He then with his purchaser shall calculate from the year when
he sold himself to him up to the year of jubilee; and the price of
his sale shall correspond to the number of years.  It is like the
days of a hired man that he shall be with him.

51 'If there are still many years, he shall refund part of his
purchase price in proportion to them for his own redemption;

52 and if few years remain until the year of jubilee, he shall so
calculate with him.  In proportion to his years he is to refund the
amount for his redemption.

53 'Like a man hired year by year he shall be with him; he
shall not rule over him with severity in your sight.

54 'Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still
go out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.

55 "For the sons of Israel are My servants; they are My servants
whom I brought out from the land of Egypt.  I am the Lord your God.

EXODUS 21:2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six
years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without
payment.

EXODUS 21:3 "If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is
the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

EXODUS 21:4 "If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him
sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her
master, and he shall go out alone.

EXODUS 21:5 "But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my
wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man.'

EXODUS 21:6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall
bring him to the door or the door post.  And his master shall
pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

EXODUS 21:7 "And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave,
she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

EXODUS 21:8 "If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who
designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed.
He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people
because of his unfairness to her.

EXODUS 21:9 "And if he designates her for his son, he shall deal
with her according to the custome of daughters.

EXODUS 21:10 "If he takes to himself another woman, he may not
reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

EXODUS 21:11 "And if he will not do these three things for her,
then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

EXODUS 21:20 "And if a man strikes his male or female slave with
a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.

EXODUS 21:21 "If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance
shall be taken; for he is his property.

EXODUS 21:26 "And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female
slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of
his eye.

EXODUS 21:27 "And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female
slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.

Lev 19:20  "If a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave,
betrothed to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom,
an inquiry shall be held.  They shall not be put to death, because
she was not free;

LEVITICUS 22:11 'But if a priest buys a slave as his property with
his money, that one may eat of it, and those that are born in his
house may eat of his food.

LEVITICUS 25:39 'And if a countryman of yours becomes so poor
with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not
subject him to a slave's service.

40 'He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a
sojourner with you, until the year of jubilee.

41 'He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him,
and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the
property of his forefathers.

42 'For they are My servants whom I brought out from the
land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale.

43 'You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to
revere your God.

DEUTERONOMY 15:12 "If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is
sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the
seventh year you shall set him free.

DEUTERONOMY 15:13 "And when you set him free, you shall not send him
away empty-handed.

DEUTERONOMY 15:14 "You shall furnish him liberally from your flock
and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give
to him as the Lord your God has blessed you.

DEUTERONOMY 15:15 "And you shall remember that you were a slave in
the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I
command you this today.

DEUTERONOMY 15:16 "And it shall come about it if he ways to you, 'I
will not go out from you.' because he loves you and your household,
since he fare well with you;

DEUTERONOMY 15:17 then you shall take an awl and pierce it through
his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever.  And
also you shall do likewise to your maidservant.

DEUTERONOMY 15:18 "It shall not seem hard to you when you set him
free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a
hired man; so the Lord your God will bless you in whatever you do.

Ecc 2:7  I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who
were born in my house; I had also great possessions of herds and
flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

ISAIAH 14:2 And the peoples will take them and bring them to
their place, and the house of Israel will posses them in the LORD's
land as male and female slaves; they will take captive those who
were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.

                      New Testament

1 CORINTHIANS 7:21 Were you called while a slave?  Do not worry
about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that.

22 For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord's
freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ's slave.

23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

24 Brethren, let each man remain with God in that condition in
which he was called.

EPHESIANS 6:5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity
of your heart, as to Christ;

6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

COLOSSIANS 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your
masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely
please men, but with sincerety of heart, fearing the Lord.

COLOSSIANS 4:1 Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness,
knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.

1 TIMOTHY 6:1 Let all who are under the yoke as slaves regard their
own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our
doctrine may not be spoken against.

2 And let those who have believers as their masters not be
disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but let them serve
them all the more, because those who partake of the benefit are
believers and beloved.  Teach and preach these principles.

TITUS 2:9 Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in
everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative,

10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith that they may adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.

Dave Mullenix


