Does God approve of slavery?

[Luchito]

Do you agree with and support these biblical commandments on slavery?

Is this the word of God?

If you don't agree with slavery, can you please explain how you reconcile your God's words about slavery with your own beliefs?

In order to answer any of those questions, there are some little details that you ignore, not because you never heard about them, but because you were reading and reading several biblical passages and never understood them.

For example. the biblical god, indeed, gave rules about slavery. Take note there are also specific rules when an individual "voluntarily" wants to be a slave.

Note as well, that the people believing in the biblical god, they also have rules to treat slaves.

From here, you must put in your mind, that the Israelite was not the same as other tribes or nations.

Other tribes and nations did not respect the integrity of their slaves, many of those nations treated slaves as animals not as persons.

The people in Israel were to give respect to the integrity of the slave. Their laws came from a god, not from a human like the other nations.

Hope you are starting to understand the situation here.

Then, being a slave in Israel was not a bad idea after all. And many foreign people and Israelites themselves became slaves by their own will.

Same treatment was given by the Israelite to their slaves in times of the apostles, of course, under the new foreign rulers, such respect perhaps was lost, and even in ancient Israel many might have ignored in purpose the laws of God in reference to slaves.

Point is that from God's part, acquiring slaves by force after a conflict, or buying them or accepting them, slaves were to be respected physically and emotionally. There are also rules in case the slave is a rebel. But such is not injustice, a same or worst punishment was to be given to the son of the master if this son was disobedient (rebel) as well.

Then, under the conditions provided by God, of course slavery can not only be considered but in many cases suggested.*

(*Several years ago, on TV, it was a special program revealing slavery in the south of this country. The cameras showed farms where people escaping from the law, decided to become slaves and found protection from the landlords of those territories. It was not a bad deal for them, they avoided jail, they had food, shelter, peace, and even security, something much better than been behind bars. It remind me the biblical practice of slavery).

 

[Dennis Tate]

Let's start with the Christian God (or the Jewish one).

Here are some extracts from the bible about slavery. This is from Exodus, Chapter 21.

21 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

26 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.
​

Here's one from 1 Peter 2:18:

18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
​

And from Colossians 3:22

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
​

And Leviticus 25:

44 “ ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
​

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Christians and other believers:

Do you agree with and support these biblical commandments on slavery?

Is this the word of God?

If you don't agree with slavery, can you please explain how you reconcile your God's words about slavery with your own beliefs?

I could be wrong.... I often am.....
but I have the impression that Lucifer Satan may well be compared to a psychologist who has an experiment in mind......
and he goes to YHWH for permission??????

Luke 22:31
"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:"

Something somewhat similar can be found in the first chapter of Job.


Job 1:9 "Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD."


Although it is clear that slavery was permitted or allowed by YHWH in both the Jewish as well as in the Christian Scriptures..... there is a difference between something being the full fledged will of the Creator vs something simply being permitted or allowed.

 

[Dennis Tate]

Let's start with the Christian God (or the Jewish one).

Here are some extracts from the bible about slavery. This is from Exodus, Chapter 21.

21 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

26 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.
​

Here's one from 1 Peter 2:18:

18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
​

And from Colossians 3:22

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
​

And Leviticus 25:

44 “ ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
​

-----
Christians and other believers:

Do you agree with and support these biblical commandments on slavery?

Is this the word of God?

If you don't agree with slavery, can you please explain how you reconcile your God's words about slavery with your own beliefs?

Let's compare two or three possibly related phenomena......
let's assume that Art Professor and near death experiencer Howard Storm did a competent and honest job of
relaying on to his readers what he believes that he was shown regarding The Holocaust?

"I asked how God could let the Holocaust of World War II happen. We were transported to a railway station as a long train of freight cars was being unloaded of its human cargo. The guards were screaming and beating the people into submission. The people were Jewish men, women, and children. Exhausted from hunger and thirst, they were totally disoriented from the ordeal of being rounded up and sent on a long journey to an unknown destination. They believed that they were going to work camps, and that their submission to the brutality of the guards was the only way to survive.

We went to the area where the selection process was taking place and heard the guards talking about "the Angel Maker." We went to the place the guards were referring to as "the Angel Maker," which was a series of ovens. I saw piles of naked corpses being loaded into the ovens, and I began to cry. Jesus said to me, "These are the people God loves." Then he said, "Look up." Rising out of the smoke of the chimneys, I saw hundreds of people being met by thousands of angels taking them up into the sky. There was great joy in the faces of the people, and there appeared to be no trace of a memory of the horrendous suffering they had just endured. How ironic that the guards sarcastically called the ovens "the Angel Maker."

I asked how God could allow this to happen. They told me that this was not God's will. This was an abomination to God. God wants this never to happen again. This was the sacrifice of an innocent people to whom God had given the law to be an example, a light, to the rest of the world. This Holocaust was breaking God's heart. The anguish that Jesus was suffering at the slaughter of his people was too much for me to bear and I begged that we leave this place. I will never forget this: his anguish at this horror and what it represents. This was one of the low points in human history."

I asked, Why does God let things like this happen? They told me that God was very unhappy with the course of human history and was going to intervene to change the world. God had watched us sink to depths of depravity and cruelty at the very time that he was giving us the instruments to make the world a godlier world. God had intervened in the world many times before, but this time God was going to change the course of human events." (Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death, page 42,43)

If... Howard Storm did a good job of passing on what he was shown from what may come to be understood as a more comprehensive source of information then:

1. Did The Holocaust happen? Yes

2. Was The Holocaust the will of G0d? No

Why would not God arrange a universe in which God would always get what God wanted????????

Perhaps because God might want to share with us humans at least some degree of Freedom of choice?????