Whose Slave Are You?

Alba 9-26-2021

WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?

Romans 6:15-23

Slavery! That is a word that does not have a good connotation. It brings to mind a lot of things. It could refer to a person slaving over a hot stove to fix a meal for a large group of people.

But it also refers to the terrible practice of one person owning another person and making them do whatever work needs to be done.

Our country has a history of people having slaves. For all of the mistakes our nation made concerning slavery, we are not at all the first nation to have it.

We are also a nation that went to war with itself over it, and paid with the lives of over 600,000 men and boys to settle the issue.

Slavery is not a black and white issue. The history of the world records countless stories where generation upon generation dealt with the issues of slavery.

Tragically, the history of human kind includes a history of people enslaving other people. You only need to go back to the Bible to see that one of the earliest accounts addressed slavery nearly 4,000 years ago.

In Genesis 15:13 it says, “Then the Lord said to Abram, 'You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.'” (NLT)

The word 'slave' is terrible word with a horrible meaning. But slavery hasn't gone away. According to the U.S. Department of State, there are still 167 countries that openly allow slavery.

From the combined total of all these countries it is estimated that at least 48 million people are in bondage around the world. Today we don't use the word slavery as much as we use the word trafficking.

Human trafficking or “modern slavery” is “the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.”

The reports of the illegal migrants entering our country on our southern border indicate that there are many who fit the description of being trafficked by cartels or others.

Migrants who cross the southern border are particularly vulnerable to the criminal traffickers and smugglers who take advantage of their desire to come to the United States.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although many people think of the sex trade when they think of human trafficking, this crime also occurs in such labor situations as:

Domestic servitude, Labor in a prison-like factory and Migrant agricultural work.

Even in New Testament times the practice of slavery was common in the Roman empire. So while Paul's letter to the Romans speaking of slavery does not sit too well with our sense of what is right or wrong these days, it would have been familiar enough to his earliest readers.

It was a common practice for a person at that time to sell themselves into slavery in order to get themselves out of debt. It has been estimated that 85%-90% of all Roman citizens were slaves.

While slavery was not as desirable as freedom, it was more desirable than prison.

Slavery is not a term that sets a positive tone, nor does it bring with it empowering or comfortable ideas. That is why Romans 6:15-19 might make us uncomfortable. Lets turn there and read. (NKJV)

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

We have all heard of Christians being referred to as servants, as sheep, as sons, as the bride of Christ, and as the body of Christ, but now we are told that we are slaves?

By the way, in most English translations of the New Testament there has been a mistranslation of an important word.

That word is the Greek word, “doulos” (doo-loss) which means “slave”. This word, doulos, appears over 130 times in the original Greek text of the New Testament.

But in many places it is not translated as “slave” in the English versions. In fact the King James Version of the New Testament uses the word slave only once.