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Main pro-slavery arguments
- God gave permission for Israelites to buy foreigners as
slaves. They became the permanent property of their
owners.
- (You may buy slaves from the nations around you. …
You can bequeath them to your sons as inherited
property and can make them slaves for life … Lev 25:
44-46)
- There are no passages in the Bible which condemn or
criticize people for owning other people as slaves.
- Jesus appears to have accepted slavery as part of his
society. There is no record of him opposing it. In fact,
Paul implies that Jesus approved of slaves honoring
and serving their masters (1 Tim 6:1-3)
- Jesus told parable stories with slaves in them (e.g. a
king and his slaves – Matt 18:23-34; relationship
between slaves and masters – Luke 17:7-10; slaves
sent as messengers – Luke 20:9-12; slaves entrusted
with master’s money – Matt 25:14-30). Jesus praised
those slaves who serve well.
Jesus healed a centurion’s slave (Luke 7:1-10).
Jesus called his disciples slaves (John 15:15).
- Paul and the apostles accepted, and implicitly
endorsed, the system of slavery and they instructed
masters and slaves about their duties. They did not
proclaim that slavery was an evil.
- (Slaves, obey your masters … and masters, give up
threatening your slaves – Eph 6:5-9; Col 3:22-25; 4:1;
Slaves are to be subject to their masters in everything
… whether the masters are good or harsh – Tit 2:9-10;
1 Pet 2:18-19
Slaves should remain in their existing condition – 1 Cor
7:20-24)
Paul returned a runaway slave to his master –
Philemon 1:12
- There is no record of the early churches condemning
slaveholders for owning slaves or the churches
ordering them to free their slaves.
- Slave masters becoming church members in apostolic
times shows that owning slaves was, and is, not sinful.
Main anti-slavery arguments
- The concept of slavery is inconsistent with Jesus’
commands to love (care for) others as yourself and to
do to others what you would want them to do to you.
These commands, if practiced, would have led to the
abolition of slavery.
- Slavery is wrong because it reduces the human life of
some people to mere property and those people are
bought and sold as mere things.
- Israelites being able to have other Israelites as slaves
was not true slavery. They could voluntarily enter into
servitude to pay their debts and were to be treated as
servants. They had to be released from service after
7 years and could be bought out of servitude at any
time by their close relatives.
- Because there is no record of Jesus opposing slavery,
it does not mean that he supported it.
The above pro- and anti-slavery arguments are derived largely from
Willard M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women: Case Issues
in Biblical Interpretation (1983)
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