SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2017
8:21 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
Christianity and Slavery
The first thing that I want to write is that I don’t know
how I missed doing my devotions from Philemon last night. I looked all over my computer but could not
find it and so I have to say that I just forgot to do it. I guess we will pick up where we left off on
Friday.
In his commentary on Philemon John MacArthur states that
by the time that the New Testament era came along people were beginning to have
a change of heart with their slaves as they were finally figuring out that
slaves can be more useful to them if they were treated better, as slaves had
the ability to do things by thinking as well as back breaking work.
Slaves began to figure out that they were at times better
off than freemen as they were assured of a place to stay and also food to eat
where poor men did not have that all of the time, so being a slave, especially
to a good owner was better than being free at times.
MacArthur writes “By the first century, freedom was a
real possibility for many slaves. Owners
often held out the hope of freedom to inspire their slaves to work better. Many shared deep friendships with their
masters and were loved and cared for with generosity. Many slaves would not have taken their
freedom if it had been offered because their employment was happy and
beneficial. Slaves could also purchase
their own freedom. Masters often
designated in their wills that their slaves were to be freed of receive part of
their estate after the master’s death.
Manumission was thus widespread.
One study indicated that in the period 81-49 B. C., five hundred
thousand slaves were freed (Rupprecht, 5:458).
By the time Augustus Caesar, so many slaves were being freed upon the
death of their owners that a law had to be passed restricting that practice
(Rupprecht 5:459). Estimates of the
average length of time a slave had to wait for his freedom range from seven to
twenty years.
“It is significant that the New Testament nowhere attacks
slavery directly. Had Jesus and the
apostles done so, the result would have been chaos. Any slave insurrection would have been
brutally crushed, and the slaves massacred.
The gospel would have been swallowed up by the message of social
reform. Further, right relations between
slaves and masters made it a workable social institution, if not an ideal one.
“Christianity , however, sowed the seeds of the
destruction of slavery. It would be
destroyed not by social upheaval, but by changed hearts. The book of Philemon illustrates that
principle. Paul does not order Philemon
to free Onesimus, or teach that slavery is evil. But by ordering Philemon to treat Onesimus as
a brother (Philem. 16; cf. Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1), Paul eliminated the abuses of
slavery. Marvin Vincent comments, ‘The
principles of the gospel not only curtailed [slavery’s] abuses, but destroyed
the thing itself; for it could not exist without its abuses. To destroy its abuses was to destroy it.’
“One writer summed up the importance of Philemon in relation
to slavery in these words”
‘The Epistle brings into
vivid focus the whole problem of slavery in the Christian Church. There is no thought of denunciation even in
principle. The apostle deals with the
situation as it then exists. He takes it
for granted that Philemon has a claim of ownership on Onesimus and leaves the
position unchallenged. Yet in one
significant phrase Paul transforms the character of the master-slave
relationship. Onesimus is returning no
longer as a slave but as a brother beloved (verse 16). It is clearly incongruous for a Christian
master to ‘own’ a brother in Christ in the contemporary sense of the word., and
although the existing order of society could not be immediately changed by
Christianity without a political revolution (which was clearly contrary to
Christian principles), the Christian master-slave relationship was so
transformed from within that it was bound to lead ultimately to the abolition
of the system.’ (Donald Guthrie).’”
6/25/2017 8:49 PM
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