SLAVERY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT (3/5)
This is the third installment of a series of posts addressing the claim that Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color. Two reasons are often given in support of this claim:
Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color because Christianity’s book, the Bible, condones slavery.
Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color because many white American Christians possessed slaves in the antebellum South and used the Bible to justify it.
In the last post, I addressed this first claim by looking at slavery in the Ancient Near East (ANE) and Old Testament. Today, my hope is to interact with the first claim again, but this time we will look at slavery in the Roman world and in the New Testament.
SLAVERY IN THE ROMAN WORLD
What if every fifth person you met was a slave? According to some estimates, this would have been your experience if you lived during the time of the Roman Empire.[1] Most became slaves as war captives, but others became slaves through piracy, kidnapping, infant exposure, or as a punishment for criminal acts. Still others sold themselves or their children into slavery to avoid destitution.[2]
Since slaves were seen as subhuman, they were regularly abused physically and sexually, tortured, and even put to death by burning or crucifixion.[3] Though some ancients believed slavery to be contrary to nature, hardly anyone protested slavery as an institution.[4] It is difficult for the modern person to grasp the degree to which the Roman world did not concern themselves with the inhumanity of slavery.
As heinous as slavery was in the Roman world, there were still differences between this type of slavery and the kind found in the Antebellum South. For one, unlike slavery in the Antebellum South, slavery in the Roman world was not associated with race. In addition, unlike many American slaveholders, Roman society did not purposefully keep their slaves uneducated. Some slaves were even more educated than their slaveowners and tutored their master’s children. Other slaves were physicians, managers, musicians, artisans, barbers, cooks, shopkeepers, and slaveholders themselves.[5] Lastly, unlike slaves in the Antebellum South, slaves in the early Roman Empire were often set free by the time they were thirty.[6] Since manumission often came with Roman citizenship, a person’s social status could even improve through enslavement.[7]
TWO ASSUMPTIONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH
For the early church, slavery was assumed. Jesus used slavery as a familiar image in his parables and as a metaphor in his teaching (Matt 8:5ff; 13:24ff; 18:23ff; 21:33ff; 22:1ff; 24:36ff; 25:14ff; John 13:16; 15:20). Several slaves are mentioned in the Gospels (Mt 26:51; Lk 7:2ff; Jn 4:51; 18:18). And although Paul and Peter never condoned slavery, they did not condemn it outright either (1 Cor 7:20–24; 12:13; Gal 3:28; Eph 6:5–9; Col 3:11; 3:22–4:1; 1 Tim 6:1f; Tit 2:9; Philemon; 1 Pet 2:18–21).[8]
The early church also assumed the equality of all humans as ones created in God’s image—an equality that only grew deeper for those in Christ.[9] Paul repeatedly taught the revolutionary idea that there was no difference between slave and free in the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11). Slaves even took leadership positions in the church.[10] These ideas would have been seen as ludicrous by the average Roman.[11]
For early Christians, slavery was assumed in a fallen world, but the equality between slaves and free in Christ was celebrated.
SLAVERY AND NT HOUSEHOLD CODES
Against the backdrop of preexisting slavery and Christian ideas of equality, Paul addressed both slaves and slaveowners in “household codes.” In these codes, Paul gave instructions regarding the proper relations between members of a household. As Jeffers notes, these codes “do not challenge the institution of slavery, or the authority of the master overtly, but they do transform the relationships within those institutions and the lines of authority.”[12]
In an unprecedented move, Paul addressed Christian slaves as ethically responsible individuals (not property) and encouraged them to serve Jesus and commend the gospel by obeying their slaveowners with “sincerity of heart” (Col 3:22–24; cf. Eph 6:5–8; 1 Tim 6:1f; Tit 2:9). Ultimately, they did so “serving the Lord Christ” (Col 3:24).
As for slaveowners, they were under the Lordship of Jesus as well. For this reason, Paul exhorted slaveowners to treat their slaves “justly and fairly” (Col 4:1) and to “stop…threatening” (Eph 6:9). But the most shocking command comes in a cryptic phrase Paul gave just after he encouraged slaves to serve their slaveowners well: “Masters, do the same to them…” (Eph 6:9). The exact meaning of this command and its application in this context may be debated, but at the very least, Paul is seeking “to foster a sense of reciprocity” and “to place the two groups as nearly as possible on the same footing.” Such an idea would have been unheard of in the Roman world.[13]
WHY DIDN’T THE EARLY CHURCH JUST ABOLISH SLAVERY?
With the introduction of so many novel and revolutionary ideas, it is difficult for modern persons to understand why the NT writers did not just call for the abolition of slavery. However, we must remember that the early church consisted of small congregations with little to no social influence or political power over the massive Roman Empire.[14] Even if the idea came into their minds, the fledgling church of the first century would not have had the social or political capital to accomplish such a goal. And if they had, the structure of society was set up to where many slaves would have lost any chance they had of survival.[15]
In this context, it was more practical to help new believers learn to follow the way of Jesus in the social station they were in and to call them to use their situation as an opportunity to commend Christ to those already in their immediate circle (1 Cor 7:20–24).
Though the NT writers did not call for the abolition of slavery, this does not mean they were blind to the injustice of it. The apostle John, for example, alludes to the inhumanity of selling and buying slaves as though they were cargo in Revelation 18:13; and Paul lists “enslavers” among the “lawless and disobedient” in 1 Timothy 1:8–10.[16] In addition, while Paul generally encouraged believers to remain in the social situations they were in, he encouraged slaves to gain their freedom if the opportunity arose (1 Cor 7:21). Some have even argued that Paul subtly suggested the manumission of the slave Onesimus in his letter to Philemon.[17]
CONCLUSION
Some have argued that Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color because it was built on a book condoning slavery; but when we look deeper at the New Testament in its historical context, we notice four truths that go against this claim:
Slavery in the Roman world was not race-based.[18]
The NT views slaves and free as equal at the foot of the cross. Slaves were to have full rights in the church and could even hold the office of bishop.[19]
Paul speaks out against “enslavers” in 1 Timothy 1:10.
NT household codes reframed the relationship between master and slave as one between equal individuals who were both accountable to the Lord Jesus.
No, the New Testament does not abolish slavery, but neither does the New Testament condone it. Each of these four truths laid the foundation upon which future abolitionists could build.[20] In my next post, we will explore this further as we look at slavery in the history of the Christian church.
__________
[1] Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 794.
[2] J. A. Harrill, TheManumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 32). (Tübingen: Mohr, 1995), 30.
[3] S. Scott Bartchy, “Slaves and Slavery in the Roman World” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, Ed. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 170–171. Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 794.
[4] Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, 3.
[5] Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 794.
[6] Bartchy, “Slaves and Slavery in the Roman World,” 174. Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, 53.
[7] James S. Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 222.
[8] Bartchy, “Slaves and Slavery in the Roman World,” 172.
[9] Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2011), 151.
[10] Copan, Is God a Moral Monster, 152.
[11] Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era, 235.
[12] Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era, 229.
[13] Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 42 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 423. NT Commentator Peter O’Brien describes this command as “outrageous,” but believes Paul is likely exhorting masters to have their attitudes and actions towards slaves be governed by their relationship to their own heavenly master and not exhorting masters to serve their slaves. Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 454.
[14] Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 795.
[15] Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 798. Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, 61–62.
[16] Michael Parsons, “Slavery and the New Testament: Equality and Submissiveness,” Vox Evangelica 18 (1988): 90.
[17] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 34C (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 32. For a discussion on whether Paul means to advocate for Onesimus’ manumission see Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2000), 412–415.
[18] Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 794.
[19] Schirrmacher notes the famous example of Bishop Kallist (d. 222 A.D.) who was a former slave who became the Bishop of Rome. Thomas Schirrmacher, “Slavery in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and Today” in The Humanisation of Slavery in the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 56.
[20] Schirrmacher, “Slavery in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and Today,” 57.