At Work And At School, Focus On Jesus (Ephesians 6:5-9) Series

Today, we wrap up the part of Ephesians that's often called the "household code." We tend to think of the family as being one or two parents, some kids, and a dog. But in first century Rome, the household often included slaves. Many people had at least one or two. Some Roman citizens with large estates would've had far more.

So we find ourselves this morning talking about slavery, and any talk about slavery gets complicated really fast.

When we hear the word "slavery," we tend to think about how a couple hundred years ago in Africa, black tribes used to go raiding against other black tribes, and they would capture black human beings, and sell those black human beings to white European slave traders. Those slave traders would ship them across the Atlantic in horrific conditions, and the black people who survived that journey would be resold to white settlers of this new land called America. Those who were sold, were slaves for life. Their children became slaves, and their children's children.

Or, alternatively, when we hear the word "slavery," we think about modern sex trafficking in Asia, in particular. Young women are lured into become forced sex slaves through false promises of freedom, or false promises of a good job waiting for them, and then it turns into something dark and oppressive and horrible.

When we hear the word slavery, that's what we to bring to the text. Right? But we should be aware that what we bring to the text, is not how slavery worked, either in ancient Israel, or in first century Rome.

Since we're in the NT, I'm not going to talk about slavery in ancient Israel. I'm pretty sure I've written something on that topic, if I can dig it up, if you're interested later. But what matters here, today, is how slavery worked in the first century Roman empire. And before I say anything, I should add, the way that slavery worked in Rome is not how God designed creation to work. God didn't set this up. The Roman empire did. And Paul's working as one tiny, insignificant person inside this vast Roman empire. It's good to keep that perspective, also.

So, the quick summary of Roman slavery is something like this (and I'm mostly following S. Scott Bartchy, "Slavery, NT" in Anchor Bible Dictionary, here, with a little bit of Clinton Arnold, Ephesians. None of this is new, or original, or independently researched):

(1) Maybe 35% of people living in the Roman empire were slaves.

(2) There were two main sources for slaves in the first century. The first, is that babies who were born of enslaved women, were themselves slaves. The second, and maybe (?) more common (that's the kind of detail that's perhaps impossible to find), was people voluntarily choosing to become slaves. You'd sell yourself as a slave for several reasons-- to pay off debts, to climb the social ladder, to get special jobs, or to enter into a life that was more secure, and less difficult, than life as a free person (*closely paraphrasing/quoting S. Scott Bartchy here).

(3) Connected to that, and important, is that slavery was viewed as a way to improve your lot and status in life. Slaves were sometimes given positions of high responsibility and honor-- they were teachers, and doctors, and musicians. Slaves could own property. Slaves were paid. In some ways, it was preferable to be a slave than to be a day laborer. Would you rather be a musician, or out picking figs and grapes? Would you rather be a doctor, or muck out horse stalls? Would you rather take the risk that there might not be work for you on a particular day, and you and your family might not eat, or would you rather have the guaranteed food on the table, and a roof over your head?

(4) If you became a slave, that status was not permanent. On a fairly regular basis, masters would pay their slaves money for their service, and slaves would save that money up, and use it to buy their freedom. Most slaves, apparently, were freed when they reached the age of 30 (*Bartchy). When they were freed, the relationship often continued. The slave, became something like an employee to their boss. The job didn't change, and the way they were treated maybe didn't even really change, but their status changed. As an added bonus, when you were freed as a slave, you'd be given citizenship in the Roman empire. So slavery was a path to a higher status in that way, as well.

(5) Slavery in the first century had nothing to do with race, or skin color.

When we put all that together, we can hear that first century Roman slavery worked differently than we tend to think, right? Hearing that takes some of the heat and anger off any discussion of slavery. It also softens some of the criticism that's often leveled at Paul. Some people give Paul a hard time of it, because what they want Paul to say, is that slavery is a terrible evil, that shouldn't ever happen. And I think that's unfair for a few reasons: