Answering Atheist Arguments: Slavery in the Bible, Where Does God Really Stand?

So the topic of slavery in the Bible has gotten some attention from a couple of commenters on this blog and friends on Twitter.  I thought it would be good to answer in a little more depth on the issue of why slavery is not outright condemned by God in the Bible.

The primary verses in question are found in the book of Leviticus.  Leviticus 25:44-46 says:

As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ⁴⁵ You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶ You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever.

So this verse shows that God allowed the Israelites to have slaves from other nations.  As I already mentioned, the vast majority of slavery in the Bible refers to a form of “indentured servitude” more similar to modern day employment than modern day slavery.  This verse, however, seems to allow for something a little more objectionable and possibly more similar to Old South slavery.  So what are we to make of this verse?  Were the pro-slavery southerners right when they used the Bible to support the atrocity of American slavery?

First of all we need to understand the purpose of the book of Leviticus to understand what these verses mean to Christians today.  The purpose of Leviticus was to show the Israelites how they could live in ritual purity as God’s special people, set apart from other nations.  It wasn’t about creating perfection on Earth; it was about God setting a standard for his people, specifically Israel.  I will say it again: Leviticus was written for Israel.  Israel has and will play an integral role in God’s salvation plan for mankind, but the law that was given to and for Israel cannot be understood to apply to Christian’s today.  When the old south slavers, and modern day bible haters, use the law in the book of Leviticus to apply to people outside of ancient Israel, they use the book of Leviticus inappropriately.

This group of verses shows that in Old Testament times God allowed the people of Israel to take slaves from foreign nations.  That is all it says.  Anyone who says that it says more than this or that it applies to us today is lying.  They are reading something into the text that is not there.  It does not say that God loves slavery.  It does not say that according to God slavery is an ideal situation.  It does not say that God approved of the brutal version of slavery, of the type practiced in antebellum South.  It says that God tolerated slavery, but put restrictions on how it could be practiced.

Throughout Leviticus we find law after law giving slaves rights, legal protection, and status that was superior to anything going on in the ancient near east at the time.  Was it ideal to be a slave in ancient Israel?  No.  But it was far better to be a slave in Israel than to be a slave anywhere else on the planet at this time.  In Israel slaves had protection, status, and a chance to buy or otherwise gain their freedom.

But a legitimate question remains.  Why would God even tolerate slavery with his chosen nation of Israel?  Why not just ban it?  This is a tough question for me to answer, but I think we get a hint straight from the mouth of the God-Man himself.

There is a scene in Matthew where the Pharisees are trying to test Jesus on the specifics of the law.  They ask him, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

Now the book of Deuteronomy has a set of laws pertaining to divorce.  The law is intended to protect the woman in case her husband divorces her for finding “some indecency in her”.  Jesus knows this, but his response is somewhat perplexing.  Matthew 19 shows the exchange:

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

So basically Jesus says, “No, do not divorce you wife.”  But the law says that God allows for it.  What gives Jesus?  Jesus says, “Look, the law stipulates how to handle a divorce, because you men are hard headed and will go your own way anyway.  The law is there to make the most out of a messed up situation.  In an ideal world you should never go there.” 

So what does this have to do with slavery?  I think that it is possible that laws regulating how to handle slavery are similar.  Slavery is not ideal.  The law God gives the people of Israel makes the most out of a messed up situation.  They were going to have slaves because they were hard hearted.  God’s law was set up to protect the servants from the brutality of slavery in the surrounding nations…antebellum south style slavery.

Am I just guessing about this?  Not at all.  We get another hint about God’s heart on the issue of slavery in the book of Philemon, ironically, the same small New Testament book, that Dan Savage mentions in his angry tirade.  In this book, Paul is writing a letter on behalf of the servant Onesimus, who became a Christian after wronging his master Philemon in some way.  Paul writes:

Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, ⁹ yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— ¹⁰ I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus^] whose father I became in my imprisonment. ¹¹ (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) ¹² I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. ¹³ I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, ¹⁴ but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. ¹⁵ For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, ¹⁶  no longer as a bondservant^[c] but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.  – Philemon 1:8-16

That first line is critical.  Paul could command Philemon to receive Onesimus back as a brother and not a slave.  He would rather Philemon make the right choice because his heart has changed, not because he is compelled.  It’s the same thing with divorce, Jesus wants me to not divorce my wife out of love, not because I am compelled not to.

Look, the Bible’s purpose is spiritual change in the reader.  God’s purpose is to change the hearts of people.  Compulsion, rules, laws and the like do not change hearts.  Despite what some people think, social change is not the main purpose of the Bible.  Social change comes when hearts change first.  When we learn to love God more fully we learn to love our neighbor more fully.  When we learn to love our neighbor more fully, abolitionist movements get started and social justice will become a priority.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

-2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Bible seeks to make you competent and equipped for every good work.  God blessed the Christian abolitionist movement of the Old South because they were doing what was right in His eyes.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
     to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”

-Luke 4:18