The topic of slavery is a very emotional one, because most people only know of corrupt forms of slavery and because the threat of such slavery still exists in the modern world. However, we need to learn that kidnapping and enforced slavery were also forbidden in the Bible.
The only kinds of “slavery” that were permitted in the Bible were arrangements like indentured servitude, temporary slavery for repayment of debts, as criminal punishment for theft and for war reparations. All these kinds of slavery are given different terms in modern society, like apprenticeship, financial debt, prison chain gangs, and prison for war crimes.
For some ancient people, slavery was preferred over freedom because it provided for their welfare and financial stability. Debt slavery and apprenticeships were voluntarily slavery. The laws of ancient Israel sought to bring godly justice to ancient slavery under the general heading of slavery laws. One example is buying out the debt of a Hebrew slave and the limits of his service to six years.
Exodus 21:2-6 “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. 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. 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. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.
Many modern people do not know that ear rings were a sign of voluntary slavery in ancient times.
In the New Testament, slavery is also a topic at times. Roman slaves were not always treated well as was required under Old Testament law, but were under unjust Roman law. Up to a third to a half of people were slaves under this terrible system, and many of them became Christians. None of the Apostles’ advice to them is an endorsement of an unjust Roman slave system, but how to best cope as Christians.
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.
Yet the spirit of the law also teaches us that we have all been slaves to sin.
Romans 6:6 “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin”
Now we are freed from this slavery to the corruption of the world and become true public servants by doing what’s right.
Romans 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
But to become the slave of God is the best news, because God’s slaves are elevated by adoption to being a child of God. This sometimes happened in the ancient world too, where an adopted child had the same status as a natural born child.
Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Even the old letter of the law system was slavery and could not provide salvation because we were in bondage to sin and unable to keep such a perfect law. Yet, Jesus came to set us free.
Galatians 4:5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
This has become the best news in human history, because that freedom has given us a position of sonship, a child of the living God and an heir of eternity.
Galatians 4:7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
In Jesus, we who were suffering as slaves to sin, are adopted as children and receive wonderful eternal inheritances as children of God.
