Less one gets confused about what this paper sets forth, let me say from the outset: I emphatically condemn the American slavery institution that once existed and any lingering support for it; I in no way condone it or justify its implementation. Voluntary slavery is biblical and righteous when regulations are followed. However, American slavery was forced/involuntary slavery and forced slavery of kidnapped/stolen people and such is unbiblical and sinful. Indeed, the overall implementation of slavery and related racism in America was unbiblical and sinful. To the extent racism still exists, it is still unbiblical and sinful.
America began during the time of the New Covenant/Testament not the Old.
In this document slavery is involuntary servitude and voluntary servitude with harsh strings attached such as in Exodus 21:4-6. Involuntary means the person did not voluntary subject himself to serve one called a Master. One who is a voluntary servant is called a hired servant.
The Bible distinguishes between involuntary servitude and voluntary servitude. In this document, voluntary servitude refers to hired servitude not qualifying as involuntary servitude as defined above.
The Bible allows voluntary enslavement but not forced/involuntary enslavement. Voluntary enslavement including Hebrew Israelites enslaving other Hebrew Israelites is present through an analysis and synthesis of scriptures such as Exodus 12:44; 22:3l and Leviticus 25:39-44. Forced slavery is prohibited in scriptures such as Exodus 21:16 where it says: “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”. The New Testament also indicates the permissibility of voluntary slavery in scriptures such as Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 6:5-9 and Colossians 4:1. The New Testament speaks against forced or involuntary slavery in scriptures such as 1 Timothy 1:10 where it says: “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;”.
The Bible clearly allows a form of slavery (e.g., Genesis 47:1-26; Exodus 12:43-44; Exodus 21:2-11; Deuteronomy 15:12-18; Leviticus 25:39-55). Indeed, Genesis 47:23-26 says Joseph engaged in a kind of enslavement on the behalf of Pharaoh though certainly not of the kind practiced in historical America. Leviticus, especially Leviticus 25:44, seems to forbid holding fellow Israelites in bonds whereas this condition is seemingly absent in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Perhaps, Leviticus may be interpreted as applying only to those Hebrew/Israelites who sold themselves into slavery because they were extremely poor (Leviticus 25:25) and were later sold to another; it was that other who was to help him and release him rather than further enslave him, not the first. Indeed Deuteronomy 15:12 allows enslavement of those Hebrews who were slaves in Egypt (Deuteronomy 15:15). That is, the Israelites so called in Egypt (Exodus 9:7). This means Deuteronomy 15:12 reference to Hebrew brothers is a reference to Israelites which means Deuteronomy 12 allows Israelites to enslave Israelites at least under some conditions.
In the Old Testament, God cautions and regulates against killing (i.e., things like hanging) and abusing slaves (Exodus 21:20-27) to the point of severely harsh treatment. Exodus 21 does not give a penalty if a slave is physically punished and dies on the third day. I suppose this is because one may not be humanly able to sufficiently establish a nexus between the death and the punishment after some significant time has passed. God established 3+ days to be too much time. Parents are allowed to use the rod on children; but certainly God does not expect them to abuse the children (Proverbs 13:24).
Enslavement is to be in bondage to another. There are different degrees and forms of enslavement. There is both voluntary and involuntary enslavement. Indentured Servitude is a form of enslavement even to the point that the owner has the right to sell the indentured servant to another even if the servant does not want to go.
The Bible does not outrightly condemn all forms of enslavement; to do so would condemn imprisonment of people for crimes as imprisonment is a form of enslavement or bondage against one’s will and is therefore a kind of involuntary enslavement/bondage. Also, Paul in Philemon speaks of being a prisoner of Christ not because he had violated the law but that he was in bonds to Christ for ministry and life. So then Paul is saying he was enslaved to Christ though he uses a different Greek word than say Ephesians 6:5 when talking about bond-servants.
Even joining the military is a degree of enslavement; for example, you cannot just decide to leave and quit as it would be cause to lock you up in jail or otherwise punish you so it is a kind of voluntary enslavement/bondage. This differs from a regular job where if you give your employer two weeks notice you can leave and go to another job whenever you wish to do so as a matter of the norm. The Bible does regulate enslavement to some degree in both the Old and New Testaments.
The key difference between biblical slavery and American slavery is that the bible does not allow killing the enslaved such as hanging them as was routinely done during the American form of slavery. The Bible also does not allow the kind of physical abuse and dehumanization that American form of slavery inflicted upon blacks (Exodus 21:20-27).
The Old Covenant allowed harsh treatment of persons in some cases whereas the New Covenant removed such harsh treatment. For example, if a woman committed adultery under the Old Covenant, she was to be stoned to death. However, Jesus taught us that this was not to be under the New Covenant. Similarly, the harsh treatment of servants was removed under the New Covenant as illustrated in Ephesians 6:5-9.
There are many definitions of bondage that are largely rooted in degree, type, and implementation. In general, bondage is a word used to refer to a physical relationship between one person (the servant) and another person (the master) such that the master owns the servant as property. Moreover, usually all that the servant owns the master also owns. Levels or degrees of bondage range from being forced physically or by necessity to work for unreasonable wages to being forced to work without the physical power to say no and walk away from such work. Some of these degrees or levels are righteous and some are not.
Fundamentally, the bible speaks of five types or degrees of biblical servitude:
- Indentured servitude (those who voluntarily sell themselves for labor into constrained servitude) of Hebrews for a set period of time (Exodus 21:2-6)
- Selling one’s Hebrew daughter as a maidservant for optional marriage to the man, his son or non-marriage (Exodus 21:7-11)
- Buying heathen nation foreigners and their children as bondmen and bondmaids as property for life (Leviticus 25:44-46)
- Putting an entire nation under tribute if they accept such peaceful subjugation (Deuteronomy 21:10-11)
- Capturing and taking foreign women and children as plunder, after killing the men if a nation does not accept tribute (Deuteronomy 20:12-15; 21:10-14; Numbers 31:15)
The Holy Bible does not condemn bondage. Indeed, Leviticus explicitly permits the buying and therefore selling of servants (Lev. 25:44-46).
Leviticus 19:20 says: “And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free”. Leviticus 19:21-22 goes on to give the punishment for the man that lieth with the bondmaid. The punishment is not death as is the case apparently regarding non-bondpersons in Deuteronomy 22:22-27.
Paul does exhort release of Onesimus in Philemon (Philemon 1:16) where Onesimus is a bond-servant who had apparently left his master. However, he does not use the opportunity to say all servants should be released but his request is specific to Onesimus only. Moreover, the Bible does regulate bondage to some degree. Even the New Testament recognizes righteous bondage and regulates it. For indeed a servant in bonds is a slave as delineated by use of the words servant and bond (Ephesians 6:5-9) in verses 5 and 8, respectively, as well as the distinction between a bondservant and a hired servant as delineated in Leviticus 25:39-40. The Holy Bible also provides guidance concerning the spiritual responsibilities the master has to the servant and the servant has to the master. The concept of bondage is not unbiblical or sinful; a specific implementation of bondage may be unbiblical and sinful as was the case for the American slavery institution.
Since the Holy Bible speaks about bondage without condemning it as sinful, we must conclude that bondage is not sinful. Yet, the Holy Bible speaks about freedom without condemning freedom as sinful, so then we also must conclude that freedom is not sinful. Since neither bondage nor freedom is sinful, we must conclude that every individual has the right to seek to be a bond-servant or to seek to be free and no other individual has the right to deny a person the right to seek either. Thus, we conclude the following:
- A person has the biblical right to seek his freedom if he is able to do so.
- A person has the biblical right to force his freedom from unrighteous enslavement if he is able to do so.
- A person has the biblical right to sell himself into righteous bondage if he is able to do so.
- >A person has the biblical right to buy another into righteous bondage if he is able to do so (Leviticus 25:44-46)
- A government has the biblical right to take a prisoner of war or for a crime into righteous bondage at least for a time is a reasonable observation (2 Samuel 8:1-2).
- A nation’s government has the biblical right, responsibility, and obligation to regulate bondage and related activities, and the people of that nation have the right, responsibility, and obligation to establish and change such regulations over time, in order to ensure righteous behavior and opportunity of all concerned.
- A nation’s government has the biblical right, responsibility, and obligation to regulate bondage and related activities, and the people of that nation have the right, responsibility, and obligation to establish and change such regulations over time, in order to ensure righteous behavior and opportunity of all concerned.
- The people have the biblical right to rebel against governments so as to effect desired changes even to the point of enduring suffering in the hope that even if change does not come now it will come later, perhaps even if only for others of a later generation.
- A person A has the biblical right to exhort person B to free person C at person B’s discretion (Philemon 1:10-19)
All of the aforementioned rights refer to God given rights. All of which is to be done within the spirit of and consistent with the New Covenant of the New Testament. Under the New Covenant the prevailing spirit regarding human relationships is freedom rather than bondage such that one major purpose of legal laws is to protect the weak against the strong.
The overall implementation of bondage and related racism in America was unbiblical and sinful. American slaves were sometimes if not most of the times purchased by slave traders from other people including African Chiefs and other Africans; such Africans sometimes if not most of the time had captured other Africans in war or specifically for sell/trading with the slave traders. The Bible permits the buying and selling of servants. However, American slavery as an institution far too often involved killing, extreme dehumanization, and unwarranted harsh treatment of a single race of people namely blacks or which was/is sometimes called colored people or Afro-Americans; such extreme activities are not permitted by the Bible. Thus, American slavery was rooted in racism. Racism is sinful since it presumes one race to be superior to another race. God is not a respecter of races and does not consider one race superior to another race (Ephesians 6:9). American slavery was rooted in racism; therefore it was sinful.
Exodus 21:20, 26, and 27 speak against killing and long term disabling of servants. Exodus 21:21 says that the master may chastise the servant with a rod since the servant is the master’s money. American slavery violated Exodus. Section 2 of Article 1 of the US Constitution counts slaves as three fifths of a person with regards to establishing the number of representatives from each state for the House of Representatives. This of course was a form of extreme dehumanization.
In the beginning of America, slavery in America was not unconstitutional or at least was not perceived as unconstitutional. However, even the framers of the US Constitution recognized slavery as inconsistent with the ideas on which the nation was being founded that “all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Article I Section 9 of the US Constitution contains this recognition and deferred national correction because of the fear (weakened faith) of hindering or hampering the effective formation of the new nation. Amendments 13, 14 and 15 completed this correction and clarification in the US Constitution regarding the undesirability and sinfulness of the specific implementation of slavery as done in America overall.
Moreover, legally sanctioned discrimination, the consequence of slavery, was not largely rooted out of our nation until the arrival of the civil rights protests led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others and the passing of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
So then Blacks in America had the God given right to petition and rebel against America, its laws, and its people who supported slavery so as to obtain the freedom that Blacks in America desires and deserves. That which the founders of the nation knew in their soul and heart was best for America has come to be in America with respect to most if not all public policy and laws even if not so in the heart and soul of all Americans. Praise God for that! Yet, the struggle continues; we must ensure progress continues both in attitudes and laws rather than regress, however open or subtle, to the ways of old.
The Civil Rights movement led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as supported by those who fought before him, with him, and after him, was about exercising our God-given right to seek and gain freedom from unrighteous bondage, racism, discrimination, and related unrighteousness activities (Deuteronomy 23:15-16, I Corinthians 7:21).
Scriptural References:
Exodus chapter 7 through chapter 11 (Israel in Egypt); 21:1-32; Leviticus 25:35-55; Deuteronomy 15:12-18; 20:10-14; 23:15-16; 24:7; Joel 3:8
Matthew 8:5-13; 10:24-25; Luke 12:36-48; 19:11-27; John 13:16; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22; 4:1, I Timothy 1:10; 6:1-3; Titus 2:9-10; I Corinthians 7:1-24; II Corinthians 3:17 ; I Peter 2:18-21
For a discussion on Benjamin Franklin and founding founders and subsequent leaders thinking on populations, skin color, and slavery see my article entitled Populations and Skin Color.
Other References
Why Doesn’t the New Testament Condemn Slavery and
Does the Bible
Say It is Okay to Beat Slaves If They Don’t Die?
Christian Questions Podcast: Why Did God Allow Slavery
To God Be the Glory!<
