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WEBVTT
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Alright.
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Repeat this step again.
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Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast, I am Corey J. Mahler.
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And I'm Woe.
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Today's episode of Stone Choir is going to be discussing the made-up sin of slavery.
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As we did a couple weeks ago, one about racism, we're now going to touch on another extremely
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hot topic.
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This is not a dead issue.
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Slavery is something that although it has been eliminated in the West, it still exists
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in other parts of the world.
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But the reason that it's still controversial is that it is fundamentally rooted in much
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of the gospel message itself.
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So the theme that we're going to present today is not only is slavery itself not a sin per
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But in fact, you can't actually understand scripture if you do not accept slavery qua
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slavery.
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Before we get into the meat of this, I wanted to issue two brief corrections from last week's
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episode.
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One, the last two episodes ran about five hours combined.
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That's longer than we want these to be.
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In both cases, we were working line by line through things that the Missouri Synod Corporation
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had issued.
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So we really didn't have quite the editorial control over what we had to discuss.
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We do have that control today, so we're going to keep this under 90 minutes even if it means
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we have to cut our own microphones.
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So I'm not sure exactly how long this will be, but I promise you will be a regular length
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episode.
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As I was listening again to last week's episode, I heard myself say something that really rubbed
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me the wrong way.
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So I'm sure it bugged some of you and so I'd like to issue a correction of what I said.
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I mentioned that I had gone hunting with my dad and I said I didn't really like it and
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I said something about clover and bees and when I was listening, I thought, man, that
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guy sounds like a complete hippie tree hugger.
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That is not me.
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I want to clarify for the record, in honor of my father and all of my ancestors and mighty
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hunters like Nimrod, I do not think that hunting is a moral wrong.
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I think that hunting is a great thing as apex predators, as the pinnacle of creation man
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in many places must hunt simply because we have displaced the other apex predators.
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So I have no problems with hunting.
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What I said and what I meant was that I personally just as an aesthetic choice, when I see a
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wild animal out my window or when I'm walking around in nature, my first thought is what
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a miracle it is that all these wild creatures live entirely by God's providence, that all
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their food, that their shelter, that everything is by their wits and their cunning, and directly
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from God's blessings.
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And I take that as reassurance because our own lives, particularly mine, are so separated
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from the immediacy of God's providence.
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So I have a roof over my head.
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It's warm in the winter.
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It's cool in the summer.
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Whenever I get hungry, if I don't have food in the house, I can go to the grocery store
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and they have food.
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That's life on easy mode.
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A wild animal doesn't have that.
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So when I see a wild animal, my first thought is that I'm reminded of God's blessings to
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all of us.
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And I don't want the animal happening across me to be the reason that its own life ended.
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But for hunters, God bless you.
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I appreciate it.
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You kill animals.
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I know that those responsible hunters respect and understand that that sacrifice is something
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that God is giving to them.
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So I have zero moral problems with it.
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Hunting is great.
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We need more of it, not less.
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If kids were spending more time outside doing that, it'd be a better place.
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When I was hunting as a kid, it was zero degrees and 4 a.m.
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So it was kind of unpleasant for those reasons.
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The other thing that I said that I realized wasn't a mistake, but I said something a little
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unusual.
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When we were talking specifically about slavery, the first two times I referred to the political
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events in the United States in the 1800s, I said prohibition twice before correcting
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myself to say abolition.
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And I was thinking about why I made that mistake.
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And I realized that something was happening that was a little bit interesting, at least
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to me.
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I'm very analytical about my own mistakes.
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I always go back over and try to figure out why did I get something wrong.
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When I couldn't remember the word abolition the first two times, I said prohibition.
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If one thing, prohibition was equally accurate.
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We did prohibit slavery, but it's not the precise term that was used at that time for
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the political movement.
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I think that what my brain was doing was preventing me from saying abolition because it's really
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lousy framing.
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Abolition is today a very loaded morally tinged word that is the opposite frame of the one
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that I hold.
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I hold that slavery was prohibited.
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It was legal, and then it was made illegal.
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And while I think that that is a permissible policy choice for a nation, the anti-slavery
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moral positioning that abolition was the stamping out of an ontological evil, and that that
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itself was an absolute moral good that justified any manner of evil in its name, I fundamentally
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object to that, and that is why we're doing this episode.
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I think my brain was protecting me from fumbling into the adversaries framing by calling an
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abolition.
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Anyway, I noticed that I said that, and I had mentioned in the episode, We Might Do
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a Slavery episode in the future.
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We decided, let's do it next because it was also one of the made up sins that the LCMS
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president condemned explicitly.
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He said that we were pro-slavery, which is a lie, but that's a very profound question.
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As I promised, today we are going to be going through scripture, not line by line, but we're
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going to go through many of the places where slavery is acknowledged, where it is permitted,
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where it is in some cases commanded, where it's used, and the fact that it is never explicitly
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prohibited, condemned as a sin anyway.
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I want to acknowledge up front that because if we were to do the full treatment of this
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episode of this topic, the way we did for race, which took five episodes over probably
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about 10 hours, this could easily be probably a 30-hour series.
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We're not going to do that.
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It's 90 minutes.
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What we're going to talk about today is specifically what scripture says in favor of slavery.
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We're going to almost completely ignore all the arguments that are trotted out principally
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from the New Testament to justify abolition.
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The reason for that is that it's a case we've made before.
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If you are talking about something and you're saying scripture prohibits it, prohibits it,
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you must deal with the places where scripture doesn't prohibit it.
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We're just going to give you all the places where God says, this is fine, I do not have
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a problem with this, and I am the Lord your God.
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If somebody else wants to come along and make an argument, the scripture, oh, actually
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God says that, they have to deal with everything we're saying.
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This is the affirmative case for why slavery itself is not a sin.
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We're going to spend the entire 90 minutes minus my intro talking specifically in scripture.
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I thought about first starting with Abraham, but I think in fact to go roughly chronologically,
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we have to start earlier than Abraham.
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We have to start with Job, because Job is almost certainly the oldest book in the Bible,
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and the treatment in Job is very brief.
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We really only need two verses from Job, three verses from Job, but it makes the point very
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succinctly and really it makes the totality of the point, but of course we won't end the
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episode there.
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Job is described in the opening of the book of Job as a man who is blameless and upright,
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one who feared God and turned away from evil.
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He is described as a good man.
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He is described as righteous throughout the book of Job.
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He fears God.
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He does not sin with his lips through most of the book of Job.
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But what's noteworthy there is scripture notes the wealth of Job.
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He possessed sheep, camels, yoke of ox, and female donkeys.
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There's a reason they're specified as female donkeys, but that's for another time.
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And very many slaves.
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Some modern translations will say servants, they weren't servants, they were slaves.
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He owned these people.
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They depended on him for their livelihood, for their shelter, their bread, their clothing.
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He owned these people, they were his property.
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And he is commended as being blameless and upright, despite being a slave owner.
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Of course that goes against what modern individuals, modern men would tell you.
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They'd say that you can't be morally upright if you're a slave owner, because slavery itself
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is wicked.
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Well, it's not what scripture says.
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And then at the end of Job, chapter 42, it says that God restores to him twice as much
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as he had before.
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That includes twice as many slaves as he had before.
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God gave Job slaves.
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And so if someone wants to argue that trading in slaves, giving someone slaves, possessing
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slaves is sin, well, you've just accused God of sin, and you've said that scripture
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is wrong when it calls a man righteous who owns slaves.
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And that's just the oldest book in the Bible.
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It's throughout the entirety of the Bible that you see this accurate, this correct teaching
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on scripture.
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So we'll move to Genesis and deal with Abraham, starting, of course, as Abram, since we start
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with the call of Abram, which is in Genesis 12.
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And in Genesis 12 it is noted that Abram has slaves, that would be Genesis 12.5.
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And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and laught his brother's son, and all their possessions
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that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Heran, and they set out
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to go to the land of Canaan.
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Those people they acquired, those are slaves.
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They acquired them.
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You acquire property.
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And so the beginning of God dealing with Abram, who would become Abraham, Abram has slaves.
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God doesn't tell him to put away his slaves.
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God doesn't tell him to leave his slaves because slavery is not a sin.
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God told him to leave the idolatry of the land in which he lived.
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To leave those things that were sinned behind.
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He did not tell him to leave his slaves.
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And then, of course, how does God bless him?
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Well, he gives him more slaves, because he acquires more slaves when he sojourns in Egypt,
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and that's the same chapter, chapter 12, slightly later on, verse 16.
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And for her sake, that is, Sarai, he dealt well with Abram.
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And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys,
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and camels.
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Of course, those are, again, slaves.
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This is, I'm reading from the ESV, which sometimes likes to play little games.
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But when it says servants, it means slaves.
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Because in this era, you didn't have servants.
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You had slaves.
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God, men and women, you owned as property, and they performed various tasks for you.
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And these were given to Abram by Pharaoh.
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So he gave him slaves.
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God blessed Abram with these things.
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And so, moving on to the next chapter, chapter 13.
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Here we get an idea of just how many slaves Abram had.
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Because this is where Abram has to separate from Lot, because they cannot dwell together,
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because their flocks and the number of people they have to care for those flocks and their
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households is so large that they overburden the land.
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They have to split.
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That's how many slaves God gave Abram as a blessing.
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And so here in the beginning of Scripture, we see that having slaves is not a sin, rather,
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it is a blessing from God, at least under these circumstances.
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It's not saying that slavery is always a blessing from God.
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But if it can be a blessing from God, then it cannot be a sin.
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And that, of course, is the point.
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This is something that comes up explicitly in Genesis 24 when Abram sends out his servant
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or his slave, one of his chief slaves, to find a wife for Isaac.
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And when he comes to Laban and speaks to him, his Abraham servant says, I am Abraham's
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servant.
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The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become great.
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He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male slaves and female slaves, camels
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and donkeys.
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So explicitly it says the giving of slaves is a gift from God.
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There's no circumstance in which enslavement can possibly be a sin per se when God is saying,
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here's a blessing to you, have some slaves.
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And I think that one of the problems that we have in our modern minds is that the idea
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of being enslaved to us seems so horrific, based on Hollywood portrayals, that we don't
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consider whether the transaction of God giving Abraham slaves was not a blessing to both
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Abraham and to the slave.
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Because imagine if you lived in that time and God gave you into the hand of Abraham
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to be his property, is that a curse or is that a blessing?
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I think that if you believe what Scripture says about the sort of man that Abraham was,
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then the idea that you would belong to that man is a profound honor.
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It is something that we don't really understand today because it's alien to our culture, but
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to be owned by a man not only is it not inherently morally tinged either way, but it can actually
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be a tremendous blessing.
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Now indeed, there were certainly slave owners in every era, in every culture who were horrible,
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and there are also many who were great men who were kind, who were honest, who treated
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their slaves well.
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And if one's lot in life was to be a slave, then to be owned by a man who was a good man
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was a blessing from God.
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So I think it's important that we don't permit the Marxist dialectic approach to these questions
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of power dynamics, structure how we think about these relationships.
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Because there are two men in that relationship.
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There's Abraham the master, and then there's a slave.
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Now this was one of his chief slaves that had been sent on this crucial mission.
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He was one of his most trusted servants, but he owned him, Abraham owned this man.
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This man loved Abraham.
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He was sent far away with money and with gifts, and with a profound mission for his master.
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And it was his greatest privilege to serve that.
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And that's the reason I said at the beginning, that the Christian life can only be understood,
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I think in the context of the proper understanding of slavery, because we all have duties.
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As Lutherans, we call things vocation, but there are obligations that we have to do certain
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things, and sometimes it's just narrowly within your own household.
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Sometimes it's within your neighborhood or whatever.
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But regardless of the context, we have obligations to do things.
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That is not freedom the way Americans want to think about it.
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That is a type of slavery.
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It is a type of ownership where one's illicit moral choices are bounded by the obligations
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we have.
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And those obligations are inherited ultimately from God through the headship under which we
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are placed.
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And in certain times and places throughout most of history, a big part of that was the
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institution of men owning other men.
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And we also see in the slaves that are transferred to the ownership of Abraham, particularly
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the ones from Pharaoh, we see that promise of God to bless all nations in the seed of
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Abraham already taking place, because they are coming into the family, the extended family
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in this case, of Abraham.
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And so they will hear that gospel.
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They will hear the Messiah who is to come.
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And so we already see God fulfilling his plan for humanity via slavery.
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And so it's difficult to say that slavery is an evil when God is using it for the ultimate
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good.
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And before we move on to Exodus, I think it's worth just pulling out a quick comment from
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Genesis 21.
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When God addresses the issue of Hagar speaking to Abraham, he says be not displeased because
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of the boy and because of your slave woman.
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He says slave woman, he doesn't use her name.
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Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring
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be named.
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And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.
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To most modern ears it's going to sound terrible that God says slave woman.
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He doesn't use her name.
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God, of course, knows her name.
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He addresses her later on in Genesis and does use her name there.
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But here he just calls her the slave woman because he's noting that relationship between
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Abraham and Hagar.
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Abraham, even though Hagar is now his concubine, he still owns her.
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She's still his property.
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Briefly before we get into Exodus, I just want to point out that not only did Abraham
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receive tremendous blessings from God in large part by having numerous slaves, but
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Isaac and Jacob were also similarly blessed.
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So although we're pointing back to this early period in the Old Testament, it's important
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to refute the notion that, oh, well, that was cultural.
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On one hand, you have God giving his blessings to his own people.
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I mean, at this point, Abraham had become a believer in God and God was richly blessing
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him, had promised that he would be the source of the Messiah, that his lineage would be.
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But it's not just that it was, oh, old timey, and so they had slaves.
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It wasn't that that was then and this is now.
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It's one of the things I think Americans in particular, but really everyone in the West
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has been just fundamentally brain damaged by the post-enlightenment thinking, as we've
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talked about in the last few episodes, about the priors from the Enlightenment, from the
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French Revolution in particular, that became our own creed of liberty being a paramount
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moral virtue when I hope that we're making the pattern clear that liberty, as it is held
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up in the secular world, is nothing of the sort.
19:05.100 --> 19:06.620
It is not a blessing.
19:06.620 --> 19:08.060
It is actually a curse.
19:08.060 --> 19:09.060
It is wickedness.
19:09.060 --> 19:15.820
It is itself rebellion against God and it always follows on the heels of tremendous evil and
19:15.820 --> 19:18.740
evil springs from it.
19:18.740 --> 19:23.620
When slavery existed in these periods, both among believers and among unbelievers, in
19:23.620 --> 19:31.300
myriad forms, for example, the slave that Abraham sent to find Isaac, a wife, was certainly
19:31.300 --> 19:33.300
one of his most senior slaves.
19:33.300 --> 19:40.660
He would have had a higher station in civilization than the slave who was mucking the stalls.
19:40.660 --> 19:43.420
That flies in the face of, oh, we're all created equal.
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We all have equality.
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No, we don't.
19:46.020 --> 19:49.860
Some men are really only equipped for mucking stalls.
19:49.860 --> 19:52.780
If that is what you were equipped for, that is a blessing.
19:52.780 --> 19:53.780
Do it.
19:53.780 --> 19:54.780
Do it well.
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If all you can do is clean toilets, make them the cleanest toilets you can.
19:57.620 --> 20:02.500
That is you blessing your neighbors by being the gift that God wants you to be for those
20:02.500 --> 20:03.700
in your life.
20:03.700 --> 20:10.300
It is not diminishing the value of a man inherently to say he's only good for shoveling cow manure
20:10.300 --> 20:11.940
or cleaning toilets.
20:11.940 --> 20:13.980
It is saying that here's what you can do.
20:13.980 --> 20:14.980
Do it well.
20:14.980 --> 20:22.380
The men who can do better, who can do more lofty and more respected things equally well
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are given a higher station, but God also spends a great deal of time in scripture talking
20:27.260 --> 20:31.740
about the fact that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
20:31.740 --> 20:36.660
Now, it's not only talking about power dynamics, it's not talking about only the rich and the
20:36.660 --> 20:37.660
poor.
20:37.660 --> 20:42.540
Abraham was tremendously wealthy, and he is certainly not the least in heaven, so I don't
20:42.540 --> 20:47.780
want to make it strictly about that, but it's to say that when you have someone who has
20:47.780 --> 20:52.380
a lowly station in life, maybe someone is a slave of slaves.
20:52.380 --> 20:57.660
If they're a faithful believer, God will reward them and the things that they have lacked
20:57.660 --> 21:02.820
in this life, God promises they will receive in the New Earth.
21:02.820 --> 21:11.180
As we deal with these questions of equality and inequality and how men rank hierarchically,
21:11.180 --> 21:16.460
how we perform our duties hierarchically, I think it's important to note, as we always
21:16.460 --> 21:20.360
say, we're not talking about our standing before God.
21:20.360 --> 21:22.260
God shows no partiality.
21:22.260 --> 21:28.300
In this life and in the hierarchy of order that God has instituted, there are differences.
21:28.300 --> 21:32.400
Just as there are differences in the angels, there are angels and there are archangels.
21:32.400 --> 21:35.200
God is a God of hierarchy and order.
21:35.200 --> 21:40.520
The fact that we find these patterns in all times and all places, it's not some historical
21:40.520 --> 21:41.520
aberration.
21:41.520 --> 21:44.200
It's not that, oh, they didn't understand democracy yet.
21:44.200 --> 21:47.040
They didn't understand liberty and freedom and equality.
21:47.040 --> 21:49.440
Now that we have those things, we're better than them.
21:49.440 --> 21:51.360
That's absolutely not the case.
21:51.360 --> 21:56.080
These men were living godly lives and they were blessed by God for it, and that included
21:56.080 --> 21:59.360
the inequality of man before man.
21:59.360 --> 22:08.080
So unlike dealing with slavery in Genesis, the issue is a more general one in Exodus,
22:08.080 --> 22:12.720
and I want to address it more generally instead of pulling out particular verses and highlighting
22:12.720 --> 22:18.800
those because, yes, there are many times that slavery is mentioned, particularly in Genesis
22:18.800 --> 22:23.400
and the following books where it says that God took them out of the house of slavery in
22:23.400 --> 22:29.200
Egypt and that phrase out of the house of slavery is repeated many times.
22:29.200 --> 22:34.200
But I want to highlight something about slavery and Exodus.
22:34.200 --> 22:42.440
Yes, the Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians in Egypt for centuries, but slavery itself
22:42.440 --> 22:45.680
is never once condemned in Exodus.
22:45.680 --> 22:52.920
In fact, beyond that, Pharaoh and the Egyptians are never condemned for enslaving the Israelites.
22:52.920 --> 22:57.200
There isn't a single verse condemning that in Scripture.
22:57.200 --> 23:00.240
Not one in Exodus, not one anywhere else.
23:00.240 --> 23:05.920
What is noted in passing, and it could be argued that it is condemned, and I think it's
23:05.920 --> 23:10.000
a fair argument, is the oppression and the affliction.
23:10.000 --> 23:16.000
They were mistreating the Israelites as their slaves because there is a standard to which
23:16.000 --> 23:18.720
slave masters are held with regard to their slaves.
23:18.720 --> 23:22.440
That comes later in Scripture, but that is relevant here.
23:22.440 --> 23:26.720
And so when they tell them you don't get hay, but you still have to make bricks, that's
23:26.720 --> 23:30.040
mistreating your slaves, and that's not acceptable.
23:30.040 --> 23:35.960
But reducing them to slavery and keeping them as slaves is not condemned.
23:35.960 --> 23:43.640
What is condemned, what God makes the point in Exodus, is that ultimately the Israelites,
23:43.640 --> 23:49.360
even though they are for a time slaves to the Egyptians, they belong to God.
23:49.360 --> 23:52.080
They're his slaves, he owns them.
23:52.080 --> 23:59.920
And so when he tells Pharaoh, give me my property, and Pharaoh says, no, that's the problem.
23:59.920 --> 24:03.440
The problem is not that they were reduced to slavery, not they were kept as slaves,
24:03.440 --> 24:05.120
not they were treated as slaves.
24:05.120 --> 24:10.440
The problem is that they were not given back to God when he told Pharaoh, give me back my
24:10.440 --> 24:12.880
people that they may go and serve me.
24:12.880 --> 24:15.000
Now, that's absolutely the case.
24:15.000 --> 24:20.120
When God said, let my people go, we ignore them, my part, that's possessive.
24:20.120 --> 24:23.600
Instead of saying, these are mine, you've had them, I want them back.
24:23.600 --> 24:27.240
As you said, Pharaoh said, no, that was the entire problem.
24:27.240 --> 24:29.040
There were other slaves in Egypt.
24:29.040 --> 24:32.480
In fact, as an Egyptian, you belonged to the Pharaoh.
24:32.480 --> 24:37.240
You had to worship Pharaoh as God, which was another part of the problem God was dealing
24:37.240 --> 24:40.000
with, was the Egyptians' idolatry.
24:40.000 --> 24:44.240
But there was no notion that, oh no, slavery is bad, you need to free all the people who
24:44.240 --> 24:45.320
are captive.
24:45.320 --> 24:49.200
Every Egyptian was fundamentally a captive to the Pharaoh.
24:49.200 --> 24:52.880
God was saying, the Israelites are mine, I want them back.
24:52.880 --> 24:55.160
If you don't do it, these are the consequences.
24:55.160 --> 24:59.640
And the consequences, as you said last week, included God delivering genocide against the
24:59.640 --> 25:05.240
Egyptians as judgment for not giving God his property, his people.
25:05.240 --> 25:10.640
And when God says, let my people go, because it does say that, it says in one place, let
25:10.640 --> 25:15.120
my son go, that he may serve me.
25:15.120 --> 25:18.760
Let my people go, that they may serve me.
25:18.760 --> 25:23.880
It's always the point of letting them go so they may serve their ultimate master, which
25:23.880 --> 25:25.960
of course is God.
25:25.960 --> 25:27.600
It's not letting them free.
25:27.600 --> 25:29.840
It's not liberating them.
25:29.840 --> 25:34.720
It is transferring them to their rightful master.
25:34.720 --> 25:40.400
Because as we will get into in the New Testament, certainly, we are all slaves of God.
25:40.400 --> 25:43.540
And that is a fundamental truth of the Christian faith.
25:43.540 --> 25:45.040
You are God's property.
25:45.040 --> 25:47.280
You cannot be anything else.
25:47.280 --> 25:50.760
Even if you are in rebellion, you're still God's property.
25:50.760 --> 25:56.300
You are just rebellious, useless property instead of useful property.
25:56.300 --> 26:00.000
Those terms mean something, and we'll get into that soon enough as well.
26:00.000 --> 26:04.520
I want to specifically highlight Exodus 21, where it talks about the rules for slaves,
26:04.520 --> 26:10.080
just because it explicitly eliminates several of the claims that are made that, well, ancient
26:10.080 --> 26:15.320
slavery was one sort of thing, but more modern forms of slavery, particularly as we had in
26:15.360 --> 26:16.800
the Antebellum South.
26:16.800 --> 26:17.800
Those were evil.
26:17.800 --> 26:21.320
The stuff before wasn't evil, and there are certain patterns that are permissible or
26:21.320 --> 26:22.320
impermissible.
26:22.320 --> 26:25.120
I'm going to read this passage and just point out a couple of things, because it's vital
26:25.120 --> 26:29.880
to dismissing those arguments against slavery, per se.
26:29.880 --> 26:33.080
Now, these are the rules that you shall set before them.
26:33.080 --> 26:37.000
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh, he shall go
26:37.000 --> 26:38.760
out free for nothing.
26:38.760 --> 26:41.040
If he comes in single, he shall go out single.
26:41.040 --> 26:44.160
If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.
26:44.160 --> 26:48.480
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children
26:48.480 --> 26:51.720
shall be her masters, and he shall go out alone.
26:51.720 --> 26:56.360
But if the slave plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out
26:56.360 --> 27:01.160
free, then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or to the
27:01.160 --> 27:06.120
doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with and all, and he shall be his
27:06.120 --> 27:07.120
slave forever.
27:07.120 --> 27:08.640
Now, two things there.
27:08.640 --> 27:10.840
One, slavery was permitted for life.
27:10.840 --> 27:14.480
Two, you could absolutely be born into slavery.
27:14.480 --> 27:19.680
So those are claims that are made elsewhere in history as, oh, well, one kind of slavery
27:19.680 --> 27:25.120
back in the olden Bible days was maybe that was okay for a time, but what they did over
27:25.120 --> 27:26.120
here was evil.
27:26.120 --> 27:29.120
Well, two of those specific examples are shown here.
27:29.120 --> 27:33.160
You can absolutely be born into slavery, and you can be owned your entire life.
27:33.160 --> 27:39.160
As Corey mentioned earlier, the ESV butchers the word slave in most places in Scripture.
27:39.360 --> 27:44.160
One of the few places where modern corrupt thinking is snuck into it.
27:44.160 --> 27:47.840
In some of the later quotes from the New Testament, I went in and just edited it because it was
27:47.840 --> 27:50.280
nonsense.
27:50.280 --> 27:54.100
When you read the term bond servant, just read slave.
27:54.100 --> 27:58.840
When you read the word servant, you should usually think slave.
27:58.840 --> 28:05.560
There may be cases where it was actually closer to a servant like Potiphar's servant.
28:05.600 --> 28:14.600
They're very highly placed men who are, they're given higher status in life, but fundamentally,
28:14.600 --> 28:19.560
they're still slaves, which is to say fundamentally, they're still owned by another man, which
28:19.560 --> 28:22.240
is the definition of a slave.
28:22.240 --> 28:24.600
It is not social status principally.
28:24.600 --> 28:26.360
It is not wealth principally.
28:26.360 --> 28:32.360
It is, are you free to come and go as you please and to do as you please without another
28:32.360 --> 28:34.760
man saying, no, you may not do this?
28:34.960 --> 28:42.320
In Scripture and in time after Scripture, that is the fundamental definition of slavery.
28:42.320 --> 28:47.000
If you're owned, even for a time, I have ancestors, I know, one who came over on the Mayflower
28:47.000 --> 28:50.680
who was an indentured servant, he was effectively a slave.
28:50.680 --> 28:56.840
He was a slave for a period of time while he worked off a debt, but nevertheless, he
28:56.840 --> 28:57.840
was owned.
28:57.840 --> 28:59.960
He was not free to come and go as he pleased.
28:59.960 --> 29:04.800
He had to rack up a certain amount of profit for his owner before he could be freed, before
29:04.800 --> 29:06.720
the indenture ended.
29:06.720 --> 29:12.120
We play these word games because in the 21st century, we go so squeamish about the very
29:12.120 --> 29:18.520
word slavery, but if you look at things just plainly in terms of, well, one man owns another
29:18.520 --> 29:25.560
man and determines what he can and cannot do, that is not inherently a moral question.
29:25.560 --> 29:29.040
The second part of the Exodus 21 passage, I just want to mention briefly.
29:29.040 --> 29:33.440
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.
29:33.440 --> 29:39.200
If she does not please her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall
29:39.200 --> 29:40.480
let her be redeemed.
29:40.480 --> 29:44.680
He shall have no right to sell her to foreign people since he has broken faith with her.
29:44.680 --> 29:51.240
Now, God is literally saying, when a man sells his daughter, so this also acknowledges that
29:51.240 --> 29:56.440
the oranges of slavery are not necessarily kidnapping, which we'll get to later.
29:56.440 --> 29:59.520
There can be conquest, there can be transfer of title.
29:59.520 --> 30:06.160
God acknowledges that it is permissible, in principle morally, for a man, for a father,
30:06.160 --> 30:09.720
to transfer the title of his daughter to someone else as property.
30:09.720 --> 30:10.880
That's utterly shocking to us.
30:10.880 --> 30:12.440
I don't like the sound of it.
30:12.440 --> 30:14.280
I'm not saying, oh, this is great.
30:14.280 --> 30:18.320
I'm saying this is what God says and we don't get to use God of sin.
30:18.320 --> 30:24.800
If you hear an argument in favor of abolition that says these are sins, just know that the
30:24.800 --> 30:28.240
man who's making that argument is accusing God of sin.
30:28.240 --> 30:32.360
That's why I wanted to highlight Exodus 21 particularly because it puts to death several
30:32.360 --> 30:36.560
notions that say, well, this slavery was okay, but this slavery is bad.
30:36.560 --> 30:37.560
No.
30:37.560 --> 30:43.640
The slavery that was seen in the west in the latter 18th, 19th century was itself somewhere
30:43.640 --> 30:48.120
in the middle on the scale of how bad slavery could get for people.
30:48.120 --> 30:51.640
We'll get to some examples of what slavery is like in Roman days.
30:51.640 --> 30:56.600
They were far worse than anything that we've ever even heard about in our days.
30:56.600 --> 31:01.800
Don't let someone try to pluck things out of history and then misconstrue them in ways
31:01.800 --> 31:05.480
that can lead to conclusions that condemn God.
31:05.480 --> 31:09.960
It is also worth noting that God permits corporal punishment of your slaves here.
31:09.960 --> 31:15.400
The only restrictions being that if you kill your slave, you are to be punished unless
31:15.400 --> 31:21.560
he survives for a day or two after you inflict the injury that ultimately causes his death,
31:21.600 --> 31:26.320
and if you damage his eye or his tooth, he is allowed to go free.
31:26.320 --> 31:31.160
And so even physically punishing your slaves is permitted in Scripture.
31:31.160 --> 31:36.840
And so those who argue that, well, they whipped them or beat them, that's permitted by God.
31:36.840 --> 31:38.360
You cannot argue that is sin.
31:38.360 --> 31:41.360
That is something God says is fine.
31:41.360 --> 31:46.920
And it is also worth highlighting that God says that you are not allowed to sell your
31:46.920 --> 31:49.680
women to foreign peoples.
31:49.680 --> 31:53.880
That's for a future episode on another topic, but it's worth noting that is in Scripture.
31:53.880 --> 31:56.560
That is a restriction here.
31:56.560 --> 32:02.720
Since you brought up the difference there between servant and slave and, yes, the ESV
32:02.720 --> 32:08.240
and other modern translations sometimes play games with that, which is unfortunate.
32:08.240 --> 32:13.920
We have several places in Scripture where is extremely clear that there is a difference
32:13.920 --> 32:17.280
between these and just what that difference is.
32:17.280 --> 32:19.720
I will pull up that verse here.
32:19.720 --> 32:22.880
It helps if I'm not typing in Greek.
32:22.880 --> 32:28.440
In Mark 10, you have Christ speaking, but it shall not be so among you speaking as those
32:28.440 --> 32:31.520
who lord over others amongst the heathen.
32:31.520 --> 32:35.360
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first
32:35.360 --> 32:37.960
among you must be slave of all.
32:37.960 --> 32:43.400
Well, we have the two words right there, both servant and slave, clearly differentiated.
32:43.400 --> 32:48.440
And so it's inexcusable that some of these translations play games with the word doulos,
32:48.440 --> 32:52.280
which is what slave is there, and servant is diaconos.
32:52.280 --> 32:55.000
So we have both of these terms, and they are different.
32:55.000 --> 32:56.400
They're used in Scripture.
32:56.400 --> 33:00.480
They're used in the exact same passages, contrasting.
33:00.480 --> 33:04.280
So we know what these terms mean.
33:04.280 --> 33:07.280
Modern translations should not get away with the little games they like to play.
33:07.280 --> 33:12.360
I don't mind bondservant because bondservant historically is basically equivalent to slave.
33:12.360 --> 33:14.900
The problem with bondservant is it's like chattel.
33:14.900 --> 33:17.580
You mentioned chattel slavery last week.
33:17.580 --> 33:20.880
Chattel slavery is a redundancy.
33:20.880 --> 33:26.040
And the problem is that when modern years hear bondservant, everyone wants to pop in
33:26.040 --> 33:30.120
the monocle and nod sagely, oh, yes, bondservant, and like, no, they were slaves.
33:30.120 --> 33:31.880
They were slaves with a price.
33:31.880 --> 33:32.880
They were not their own.
33:32.880 --> 33:33.880
They were bought with a price.
33:33.880 --> 33:35.320
We're going to get to that passage.
33:35.320 --> 33:41.880
It was very clearly understood that regardless of the terms and conditions of the slavery,
33:42.160 --> 33:43.160
it was ownership.
33:43.160 --> 33:47.240
Maybe it was a lease, which is basically what bondservants are.
33:47.240 --> 33:48.240
You're still a slave.
33:48.240 --> 33:49.240
You're still owned.
33:49.240 --> 33:54.440
You're still property in the custody of someone who determines what you can and cannot do.
33:54.440 --> 34:00.680
And so when terms like bondservant and chattel get thrown around, our brains check out and
34:00.680 --> 34:05.760
are like, oh, well, yeah, that's a special magical Bible thing, like, no, man.
34:05.760 --> 34:10.040
It's just a basic term for a legal concept.
34:10.040 --> 34:14.080
There's nothing sophisticated about it, but when people are permitted, they permit themselves
34:14.080 --> 34:19.400
to be divorced from what was actually happening, we get lazy and say, well, that doesn't apply
34:19.400 --> 34:20.400
to me.
34:20.400 --> 34:21.400
That doesn't apply to this.
34:21.400 --> 34:22.400
It doesn't apply to that.
34:22.400 --> 34:26.120
You tune out and say, oh, bondservant, whatever that is, I guess they had that, but we don't
34:26.120 --> 34:28.400
have those anymore, so I can ignore that passage.
34:28.400 --> 34:30.960
And that's fundamentally the point that I think we need to make.
34:30.960 --> 34:36.280
Yeah, there are a lot of different historical terms for different types of slavery is really
34:36.280 --> 34:37.800
what it comes down to.
34:37.800 --> 34:44.480
Bond servant is one serfs by and large were slaves, indentured servitude, also slaves.
34:44.480 --> 34:49.260
Slaves were a period of time often treated actually worse than slaves because obviously
34:49.260 --> 34:53.680
if you have a slave for a period of time, it can set up a perverse incentive if you're
34:53.680 --> 34:57.000
the sort of person who is weak to that.
34:57.000 --> 35:00.120
And that was the case for some of the slave owners in the colonies, certainly because
35:00.120 --> 35:06.240
they realized the indentured servant they had for X number of years, whereas the slave
35:06.240 --> 35:09.120
you have the slave for his entire life, you don't need to get as much work out of him
35:09.120 --> 35:12.520
as possible in this set period of time.
35:12.520 --> 35:13.520
And we see the same.
35:13.520 --> 35:17.400
The reason I bring it up is partly because that is our own context, but partly that's
35:17.400 --> 35:24.520
also the same two tier system that we see in scripture, because God permitted the Israelites
35:24.520 --> 35:30.520
to have their fellow Israelites as slaves, but they were permitted to have them as slaves
35:30.520 --> 35:34.680
only for a period of six years, and then they were to go free in the seventh year.
35:34.680 --> 35:38.240
You also have to factor in jubilee, which makes it a little more complicated, but that's
35:38.240 --> 35:45.520
the basic rule that God gives them, whereas foreign slaves could be slaves for life, and
35:45.520 --> 35:49.840
you owned their children and their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, they were your
35:49.840 --> 35:57.240
property in perpetuity, whereas your own people had to be permitted to go free or be redeemed.
35:57.240 --> 36:02.200
And that's really roughly the same thing we saw in the slavery system in the U.S., the
36:02.240 --> 36:05.760
difference between a slave and an indentured servant.
36:05.760 --> 36:11.120
And the crucial point to be highlighted in your nation and other nations is that was
36:11.120 --> 36:13.160
fundamentally racial slavery.
36:13.160 --> 36:17.480
God made racial differences in the disparate treatment of slaves.
36:17.480 --> 36:20.000
If they were your own people, you get one set of rules.
36:20.000 --> 36:25.040
If they're other nations, other races, they get a different, worse set of rules.
36:25.040 --> 36:28.800
You treat foreigners worse than you treat your own race.
36:28.920 --> 36:35.000
That was codified by God in the law regarding the ownership of human beings.
36:35.000 --> 36:36.280
We don't get to paper that over.
36:36.280 --> 36:37.760
We don't get to ignore it.
36:37.760 --> 36:39.720
We don't get to condemn it.
36:39.720 --> 36:43.840
We have to deal with it head-on, and it's simple reality.
36:43.840 --> 36:49.720
God does not condemn certain things that today's post-enlightenment, post-French Revolution
36:49.720 --> 36:51.320
morality condemns.
36:51.320 --> 36:55.720
And that's why this podcast series exists, is that we're basically fighting the Enlightenment
36:55.720 --> 36:56.720
in reverse.
36:56.720 --> 37:02.160
We're trying to undo the damage done by these perverse moralities that have been inserted
37:02.160 --> 37:05.040
by Satan into our hearts and minds.
37:05.040 --> 37:10.120
So we're pointing to scripture because people will make arguments on moral grounds that
37:10.120 --> 37:13.120
are not in accord with scripture.
37:13.120 --> 37:16.720
And so I say at the beginning, we're going to ignore some of the arguments against slavery
37:16.720 --> 37:19.320
that are made from scripture because they're proof texting.
37:19.320 --> 37:25.400
They must necessarily either ignore these passages or condemn them, or resort to Marcianism
37:25.400 --> 37:28.280
where you say, well, that was the Demiurge, that was the Old Testament God.
37:28.280 --> 37:29.920
We have a different God now.
37:29.920 --> 37:34.880
Well, yes, some of those people do in fact have a different God, and that is a dangerous
37:34.880 --> 37:36.800
thing that we're facing today.
37:36.800 --> 37:41.080
And just to highlight that difference from scripture, I'll read one of the passages that
37:41.080 --> 37:43.400
deals with that from Leviticus 25.
37:55.400 --> 38:00.720
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have, you may buy male and female slaves
38:00.720 --> 38:03.280
from among the nations that are around you.
38:03.280 --> 38:07.600
You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you, and their clans that
38:07.600 --> 38:12.880
are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property.
38:12.880 --> 38:18.040
You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession for ever.
38:18.040 --> 38:22.560
You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel, you shall not
38:22.560 --> 38:27.280
rule one over another ruthlessly.
38:27.280 --> 38:31.000
And so that emphasizes what was just said.
38:31.000 --> 38:37.200
The Israelites were allowed to purchase as slaves and to keep as slaves in perpetuity
38:37.200 --> 38:41.000
those from other nations.
38:41.000 --> 38:47.200
God commanded them, required of them, that they treat their own race differently from
38:47.200 --> 38:49.040
those of a foreign race.
38:49.040 --> 38:55.960
And this is something that shows up in 1 Kings 5 when King Solomon is building the temple.
38:55.960 --> 39:01.240
He gets help from King Hiram of Tyre, who was a friend to his father David.
39:01.240 --> 39:06.880
And when Solomon was blessed by God with peace and prosperity, he had the means, the motive,
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and the opportunity to build the temple that David had wanted to build.
39:11.360 --> 39:17.040
And so as the temple was being built, 1 Kings 5 makes clear in the commentary he's going
39:17.040 --> 39:23.320
to detail to bolster the point, there were tens if not hundreds of thousands of slaves
39:23.320 --> 39:26.520
who were used in the construction of the temple.
39:26.520 --> 39:35.000
And King Solomon in particular used Canaanite slaves, conquered alien race of people as slave
39:35.000 --> 39:37.600
labor in the construction of the temple.
39:37.600 --> 39:43.080
Now I highlight this fact because the temple is not just like a building.
39:43.080 --> 39:47.300
The temple was God's home on earth.
39:47.300 --> 39:51.600
It was where the Holy of Holies was built, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed,
39:51.600 --> 39:57.800
where God had a special presence as he has never had at any other point in human history.
39:57.800 --> 40:00.520
The temple was blessed by God.
40:00.520 --> 40:02.400
God supervised its construction.
40:02.400 --> 40:07.360
He was talking to Solomon on a regular basis about its construction.
40:07.360 --> 40:13.800
God knew that these racial Canaanite slaves were being forced to labor on the temple.
40:13.800 --> 40:18.680
Now the reason I highlight this is that in 1 Kings 6 it mentions, when the house was
40:18.680 --> 40:24.360
built it was with stone prepared at the quarry so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool
40:24.360 --> 40:28.200
of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.
40:28.200 --> 40:30.880
Now the temple wasn't even complete at that point.
40:30.880 --> 40:32.080
It hadn't been consecrated.
40:32.080 --> 40:34.080
They had not finished it.
40:34.080 --> 40:39.760
But it was still such a holy important place that they banned hammers and tools so that
40:39.760 --> 40:42.440
there would be no racket, there would be no clatter.
40:42.440 --> 40:46.200
The temple was to be as quiet and solemn as possible.
40:46.200 --> 40:49.640
That's how much they cared about the construction of the temple.
40:49.640 --> 40:55.960
So you cannot ignore the fact that racial slave labor was used in the construction of
40:55.960 --> 40:56.960
the temple.
40:56.960 --> 40:58.880
That is not a small point.
40:58.880 --> 41:02.640
And those slaves were blessed to be a part of it.
41:02.640 --> 41:06.480
Again, that's part of those two sides of this equation, regardless of what the Canaanites
41:06.480 --> 41:09.840
thought about their slave labor for Solomon.
41:09.840 --> 41:11.000
They were blessed.
41:11.000 --> 41:15.480
They were blessed to be a part of something that was magnificent, that was blessed by
41:15.480 --> 41:19.560
God in an absolutely unique way.
41:19.560 --> 41:25.160
And God would not have blessed that if it were not in perfect accord with his will.
41:25.160 --> 41:29.440
He would not have come down to a place that was evil, that was tainted by the original
41:29.440 --> 41:33.800
sin of racism and slavery, because slaves helped build it.
41:33.800 --> 41:38.760
And yet these are arguments that we hear in the lips of some of our own men today.
41:38.760 --> 41:41.320
This is not Christianity.
41:41.320 --> 41:45.320
So these small vignettes that we were plucking from Scripture, we're not saying that this
41:45.320 --> 41:48.880
is the whole point of the Old Testament or the New Testament, for that matter.
41:48.880 --> 41:53.000
We're saying that when God mentions it as an aside, oh, by the way, my holy house is
41:53.000 --> 41:58.680
built by slave labor who were racially chosen to be slaves.
41:58.680 --> 42:00.800
We don't get to say, yeah, but that's sin.
42:00.800 --> 42:02.400
I don't like that.
42:02.400 --> 42:06.360
God consecrated it by blessing the temple.
42:06.360 --> 42:09.760
We do not get to ignore that and we do not get to dispute it.
42:09.760 --> 42:11.120
I was going to go to the same place.
42:11.120 --> 42:17.160
I was going to go to 1 Kings 9, though, where it is specifically noted that all the people
42:17.160 --> 42:22.040
who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Parasites, the Hivites, the Jebusites,
42:22.040 --> 42:26.200
who were not of the people of Israel, their descendants who were left after them in the
42:26.200 --> 42:31.920
land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction, these Solomon drafted
42:31.920 --> 42:35.640
to be slaves, and so they are to this day.
42:35.640 --> 42:40.120
But of the people of Israel, Solomon made no slaves.
42:40.120 --> 42:47.800
So not only was slave labor used to build the temple, it was exclusively non-Israelite
42:47.800 --> 42:51.280
slave labor, exclusively foreign slave labor.
42:51.280 --> 42:56.120
The first passage in the New Testament I wanted to highlight is one that also disputes
42:56.120 --> 43:04.960
one of the other arguments in favor of a hypothetical form of freedom that doesn't actually exist.
43:04.960 --> 43:06.840
So this is from Romans 6.
43:06.840 --> 43:08.520
Paul writes, What then?
43:08.520 --> 43:12.080
Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?
43:12.080 --> 43:13.240
By no means.
43:13.240 --> 43:18.280
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves
43:18.280 --> 43:23.880
of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leaves
43:23.880 --> 43:25.240
to righteousness?
43:25.280 --> 43:30.240
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the
43:30.240 --> 43:34.800
heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free
43:34.800 --> 43:39.440
from sin have become slaves of righteousness.
43:39.440 --> 43:44.200
I highlight this because I think this goes back to the Garden of Eden.
43:44.200 --> 43:48.680
What was the proposition that Satan was making to Eve?
43:48.680 --> 43:51.000
He said, You will not surely die.
43:51.000 --> 43:53.080
You will be like God.
43:53.080 --> 43:59.600
And I think that that is the echo that we hear from the Garden of Eden through Scripture,
43:59.600 --> 44:03.680
up through all the recent historical events that we mentioned in the past episodes through
44:03.680 --> 44:06.440
to today.
44:06.440 --> 44:07.440
It's not a coincidence.
44:07.440 --> 44:13.760
We mentioned last week when we were talking about slavery there that CFW Walther wrote
44:13.760 --> 44:19.080
in opposition to the abolitionists, and he specifically mentioned that the people who
44:19.080 --> 44:23.160
were abolitionists were overwhelmingly atheists.
44:23.160 --> 44:30.520
They were anarchists, all other manner of evil, godless people.
44:30.520 --> 44:37.760
Anarchy in particular is interesting because one of the slogans of anarchy, which is itself,
44:37.760 --> 44:42.320
it's an anti-government of sorts, but fundamentally it's just pure hatred of God.
44:42.320 --> 44:48.880
In the 1800s, the slogan that was used among anarchists and is used to this day, it's still
44:48.880 --> 44:54.480
popular, and you've probably heard it, no gods, no masters.
44:54.480 --> 44:57.960
That's basically what Satan was trying to sell to Eve.
44:57.960 --> 45:01.640
You will be like God, which is saying, you're going to be on equal footing.
45:01.640 --> 45:02.640
You will have no God.
45:02.640 --> 45:04.080
You will have no master.
45:04.080 --> 45:06.080
You will be your own God.
45:06.080 --> 45:12.280
That's Luther's explanation of the First Commandment, that if we fear, love, and trust nothing
45:12.280 --> 45:18.760
above ourselves, we become our own gods, and every sin is rooted in that disobedience.
45:18.760 --> 45:21.360
Every sin is rooted in, I'm God.
45:21.360 --> 45:23.480
For the next 30 seconds, I'm going to do this thing.
45:23.480 --> 45:25.800
I'm going to do it in opposition to God.
45:25.800 --> 45:26.800
I know what he wants.
45:26.800 --> 45:28.840
I'm going to do something different.
45:28.840 --> 45:30.800
That is saying I am God.
45:30.800 --> 45:32.960
That is a First Commandment violation.
45:32.960 --> 45:38.720
It's the most serious sin you can commit because you are in open defiance.
45:38.720 --> 45:41.560
Anarchy is open defiance of God.
45:41.560 --> 45:47.560
Despising slavery is fundamentally open defiance of God because what does Paul say here?
45:47.560 --> 45:50.840
He doesn't say you've been set free from sin, and so now you're free.
45:50.840 --> 45:54.000
He says you're slaves to righteousness.
45:54.000 --> 45:57.240
We've mentioned in past episodes, and one of the reasons that Corey and I both love
45:57.240 --> 46:02.760
to point to Job is that God is our Creator.
46:02.760 --> 46:10.560
In the Austrian conception of the creation of property, it's mixing your labor with the
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soil.
46:11.560 --> 46:16.560
If you go out in the wilderness, you dig a trench, you cut down trees, the act of taking
46:16.560 --> 46:21.720
something that was unclaimed and converting it into something useful, is you making it
46:21.720 --> 46:23.480
your property?
46:23.480 --> 46:29.380
The very first mixing labor with soil was what God did when he created Adam.
46:29.380 --> 46:35.400
He mixed his labor with the soil, and he formed Adam from the ground, from the dirt, from
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the clay.
46:38.120 --> 46:40.680
That is why we are God's creature.
46:40.680 --> 46:48.040
He made us, and the creature creator paradigm is fundamentally one of property, and that's
46:48.040 --> 46:50.340
something that Austrian economics gets right.
46:50.340 --> 46:53.840
That property is made yours by your working with it.
46:53.840 --> 46:56.960
You've made something new, now you're claiming it.
46:56.960 --> 47:01.880
The difference is that God is Creator, literally created from nothing, and so all things belong
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to Him.
47:02.880 --> 47:07.160
There's nothing in creation that doesn't belong to God, especially us.
47:07.160 --> 47:15.000
The problem that we face today as Christians when we assume these egalitarian post-enlightenment
47:15.000 --> 47:21.620
anti-slavery priors is that when you set your morality in opposition to slavery, you gloss
47:21.620 --> 47:26.040
over or you ignore or you have to repudiate these very passages that are intended for
47:26.040 --> 47:27.320
our comfort.
47:27.320 --> 47:29.280
We are slaves to Christ.
47:29.280 --> 47:35.120
We are slaves to righteousness because we're owned by God twice over.
47:35.120 --> 47:39.480
Every man is owned by God because we're creators and God is our Creator.
47:39.480 --> 47:44.480
Every Christian is owned twice over by God because God redeemed us.
47:44.480 --> 47:49.280
When he shed his blood for us on the cross, he purchased us with a price, and that was
47:49.280 --> 47:50.280
the price.
47:50.280 --> 47:55.000
It was his precious blood being shed for the remission of our sins.
47:55.000 --> 48:00.840
That purchase price purchased us back from the damnation we have earned by our sin.
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We're owned as creatures and we're owned yet again twice over as Christians, as believers
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who are covered in Christ's blood.
48:11.760 --> 48:13.120
That is ownership.
48:13.120 --> 48:18.520
When we put on the cloak of Christ's righteousness, that is like a yoke of slavery.
48:18.520 --> 48:23.560
We don't look at it as a burden, which is the whole point of this episode.
48:23.560 --> 48:25.160
Slavery is not a burden.
48:25.160 --> 48:28.920
That is the lie that we have been sold for the last couple of centuries, that if you're
48:28.920 --> 48:30.280
a slave, you're burdened.
48:30.280 --> 48:31.280
You're being mistreated.
48:31.280 --> 48:32.280
You have to flee.
48:32.280 --> 48:35.600
There are some passages we'll get to in a minute where it specifically talks about slaves
48:35.600 --> 48:40.640
being mistreated and burying up underneath it, that you don't flee if you're mistreated.
48:40.640 --> 48:42.480
God certainly doesn't mistreat us.
48:42.480 --> 48:44.920
We are first and foremost his property.
48:44.920 --> 48:51.040
When Paul writes, when the Holy Spirit writes, we have been set free from sin to become slaves
48:51.040 --> 48:54.040
to righteousness, we need to take that seriously.
48:54.040 --> 48:56.760
We must be slaves to righteousness.
48:56.760 --> 48:59.800
The Lutherans get squeamish because that doesn't sound like the gospel.
48:59.800 --> 49:02.120
That sounds like, is that works righteousness?
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No.
49:03.120 --> 49:05.600
It's the post-soterological life of the Christian.
49:05.600 --> 49:07.520
You are saved, now what?
49:07.520 --> 49:10.360
Now you are to be slaves to righteousness.
49:10.360 --> 49:16.040
It is a word that we must learn to redeem because we need to redeem it from our lies
49:16.040 --> 49:17.960
and our own wayward hearts.
49:17.960 --> 49:23.480
We need to embrace it because it is God's will for us to be his slaves, again, not to
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be slaves to Satan and slaves to sin.
49:26.320 --> 49:31.560
When you mention that slogan of the anarchist that has long been their slogan and still
49:31.560 --> 49:40.080
is today, it also brings to mind two other things, one quote that is frequently used
49:40.080 --> 49:45.240
in this area and one passage of scripture dealing with the same sort of false conception
49:45.240 --> 49:49.760
of freedom, the literally satanic conception of freedom.
49:49.760 --> 49:56.160
The quote is from the French Jesuit-trained philosopher of the Enlightenment, what a
49:56.160 --> 50:02.240
cursed trivia that is, but Diderot, men will never be free until the last king is strangled
50:02.240 --> 50:05.560
with the entrails of the last priest.
50:05.560 --> 50:10.720
And I would hope as Christians, and particularly listeners of this podcast, that people can
50:10.720 --> 50:13.120
see the problem with that.
50:13.120 --> 50:19.960
If you want to subvert the king, then you are attempting to subvert the right rulership
50:19.960 --> 50:21.160
of your nation.
50:21.160 --> 50:25.960
You are attempting to subvert the left-hand kingdom of Christ.
50:25.960 --> 50:31.840
And then, of course, destroying priests is somewhat self-explanatory, I would think.
50:31.840 --> 50:39.080
The passage from scripture is Isaiah 14, of course, it's the statement that is attributed
50:39.080 --> 50:44.640
to Sargon, but really it's Sargon, the second, echoing Satan.
50:44.640 --> 50:49.840
You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, above the stars of God, I will set my throne
50:49.840 --> 50:55.080
on high, I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north, I will ascend
50:55.080 --> 51:01.480
above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the most high.
51:01.480 --> 51:08.360
And that is the cry of every single person who wants to subvert, hierarchy, order, God's
51:08.560 --> 51:10.920
intended rule in creation.
51:10.920 --> 51:14.240
And it's also the same cry of every man who sins, because that is exactly what you're
51:14.240 --> 51:15.720
doing when you sin.
51:15.720 --> 51:20.520
You're saying, no, I am my own God, I will do whatever I want, regardless of what my
51:20.520 --> 51:26.200
Creator intends for me or says I must do or must not do.
51:26.200 --> 51:33.080
And that is this false conception of freedom or liberty that has become one of the core
51:33.080 --> 51:34.680
idols of the modern world.
51:34.680 --> 51:41.520
And it's why slavery grates so much against the modern mind, because it runs directly
51:41.520 --> 51:49.880
counter to this idea of unbounded freedom as one of the highest goods, which of course
51:49.880 --> 51:54.320
is ridiculous, because one, there's no such thing as unbounded freedom.
51:54.320 --> 52:00.440
And two, it's not a good, even if you approach it, attempt to achieve it.
52:00.440 --> 52:08.360
And even today, just as a purely practical matter, we still have the equivalent of slavery.
52:08.360 --> 52:11.520
We still have actual slavery, but we have the equivalent as well.
52:11.520 --> 52:17.720
Because if you're an employee, your employer owns you to a certain degree.
52:17.720 --> 52:24.480
Yes, it may only be for X number of hours per day, whatever the terms of your contract
52:24.480 --> 52:28.800
are, but also you get less for it.
52:28.800 --> 52:32.200
Because historically at the very least, and we can get into more of the history in a little
52:32.200 --> 52:40.720
bit, the slave master had to provide at least basic necessities for the slave, clothing,
52:40.720 --> 52:48.040
shelter, food, whereas your employer just pays you some lump sum for X amount of your
52:48.040 --> 52:53.880
time and then good luck, deal with everything else yourself.
52:53.880 --> 52:59.480
In some ways, many modern relationships of employee and employer are worse than the historical
52:59.480 --> 53:03.960
relation of serf and lord or master and slave.
53:03.960 --> 53:08.760
The second passage that I referred to a minute ago, but I want to read in its entirety, is
53:08.760 --> 53:11.960
from 1 Corinthians 6.
53:11.960 --> 53:12.960
Paul writes,
53:12.960 --> 53:16.360
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
53:16.360 --> 53:20.480
Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
53:20.480 --> 53:21.480
Never.
53:21.480 --> 53:26.520
Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?
53:26.520 --> 53:30.400
For as it is written, the two will become one flesh.
53:30.400 --> 53:36.280
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him, flee from sexual immorality.
53:36.280 --> 53:40.840
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person
53:40.840 --> 53:42.840
sins against his own body.
53:42.840 --> 53:47.560
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have
53:47.560 --> 53:48.840
from God?
53:48.840 --> 53:56.040
You are not your own for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.
53:56.040 --> 54:00.600
I think the error that we make today is we gloss over that for you were not your own
54:00.600 --> 54:02.840
for you were bought with a price.
54:02.840 --> 54:05.280
We just think of it as flowery language.
54:05.280 --> 54:06.280
It's nice.
54:06.280 --> 54:07.280
It's a sentiment.
54:07.280 --> 54:12.840
When Paul wrote this, the audience of his day knew exactly what he meant because he
54:12.840 --> 54:19.520
was writing to believers of all stripes, of all stations, regardless of their race, regardless
54:19.520 --> 54:25.640
of where they were in the social hierarchy, he was saying, you are not your own.
54:25.640 --> 54:31.240
That was a big counter-cultural thing to be saying to some of the wealthy people who were
54:31.240 --> 54:34.040
his own benefactors.
54:34.040 --> 54:39.520
There were some people who were not slaves, who were rich, independent citizens of Rome
54:39.520 --> 54:41.640
and of other nations.
54:41.640 --> 54:46.360
For him to say, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price, I don't want
54:46.360 --> 54:52.760
to say a stings, but it absolutely would cut to the quick for a man who would own perhaps
54:52.760 --> 54:57.920
hundreds, maybe even thousands of slaves and servants for some of the very wealthy ones.
54:57.920 --> 55:02.280
For him to say, you are not your own either, he would know exactly what that went.
55:02.280 --> 55:08.240
And for the slaves, for the household slaves, for the muck slaves, for the highest or the
55:08.280 --> 55:14.360
lowest who were owned as property, they would hear what I had mentioned earlier, that they
55:14.360 --> 55:19.080
are in fact owned twice over, they are owned by their masters and they are owned by God.
55:19.080 --> 55:25.720
And so this notion of ownership of humans that is so antithetical to our years is not
55:25.720 --> 55:28.280
antithetical to the Christian faith.
55:28.280 --> 55:33.480
So I mentioned up front, this is a really important episode because this is not, we're
55:33.480 --> 55:39.000
not talking about something that's this weird anachronism, it's a historical blip, it's
55:39.000 --> 55:42.000
something we got rid of and I'm glad it's gone.
55:42.000 --> 55:48.560
We're talking about the human condition as it relates to our faith and whether or not
55:48.560 --> 55:53.160
slavery exists today, I don't have a position on whether it should come back or not.
55:53.160 --> 55:54.520
I don't care.
55:54.520 --> 55:59.680
I don't think that what we have today is an improvement over what history has shown in
55:59.680 --> 56:00.680
the past.
56:00.680 --> 56:02.760
I think in many ways it's far worse.
56:02.760 --> 56:09.040
So if you want to start making moral arguments apart from slavery being prevented, I would
56:09.040 --> 56:13.320
suggest you not do that because you might lose strictly on pragmatic grounds.
56:13.320 --> 56:19.480
If the employees of Amazon and Jeff Bezos are not slaves and they're literally working
56:19.480 --> 56:25.880
themselves to death in his robot warehouses, I can show you a system where them being slaves
56:25.880 --> 56:31.480
would give better outcomes in their lives than being almost owned by a man who they
56:31.480 --> 56:37.040
can then just dispose of them in a way that scripture would condemn if they were his property.
56:37.040 --> 56:42.560
And because they're not his property, we pretend that they just fall through the cracks.
56:42.560 --> 56:48.560
These are moral matters that are active today, both in pragmatic terms in our lives and how
56:48.560 --> 56:51.640
our workplaces and our societies are structured.
56:51.640 --> 56:56.720
They're also fundamentally important in terms of how we understand the Christian faith.
56:56.720 --> 57:01.560
Because again, if you are slaves to righteousness and if you are not your own because you were
57:01.560 --> 57:09.240
bought with the price of Christ's blood on the cross, that locks you in.
57:09.240 --> 57:10.680
You are shackled by that.
57:10.680 --> 57:14.240
You are in chains for God's sake.
57:14.240 --> 57:18.640
There are things that you could no longer do that you could do before.
57:18.640 --> 57:21.640
You could do them in ignorance that was sinful, it was wicked.
57:21.640 --> 57:22.640
You didn't know.
57:22.640 --> 57:27.280
Now that you know, now that you are slaves to righteousness, you must stop doing them
57:27.280 --> 57:30.080
because you know that you belong to God.
57:30.080 --> 57:35.600
And so the slavery and this ownership stuff, it is not everything that there is to say
57:35.600 --> 57:37.120
about the Christian life.
57:37.120 --> 57:42.560
We don't want to give that impression because ultimately true Christian freedom is understanding
57:42.560 --> 57:43.560
this.
57:43.560 --> 57:48.960
It's freedom in service to Christ, but the freedom is not an unbounded freedom, as Corey
57:48.960 --> 57:49.960
said.
57:49.960 --> 57:55.120
It is freedom that's imperfect in this life because we're still slaves to sin to some
57:55.120 --> 57:56.120
degree.
57:56.120 --> 57:59.680
We're freed by degrees through sanctification.
57:59.680 --> 58:02.760
I don't know how to say that exactly properly.
58:02.760 --> 58:09.440
We have one foot in both worlds and it's why in Romans 7, Paul laments his own struggle
58:09.440 --> 58:13.160
against his flesh where he doesn't do that, which he wants to do, but he does the sin
58:13.160 --> 58:14.720
that is within him.
58:14.720 --> 58:18.880
We all face that and being Christians doesn't end our sinfulness.
58:19.000 --> 58:22.840
What it does end is our absolute slavery to that sin.
58:22.840 --> 58:28.200
The absolute slavery has ended and we instead become slaves to righteousness where we know
58:28.200 --> 58:31.800
how to obey God as he wishes.
58:31.800 --> 58:34.720
These terms need to make a comeback.
58:34.720 --> 58:41.320
Talking about slavery in favorable terms needs to make a comeback, not necessarily just in
58:41.320 --> 58:47.480
spiritual terms, but the notion that as a husband, you are a slave to your family, even
58:47.480 --> 58:49.680
as you are the head, because what can you do?
58:49.680 --> 58:51.880
You can't just go run off and get drunk.
58:51.880 --> 58:54.160
You can't disappear for days at a time.
58:54.160 --> 58:56.520
You must serve them faithfully.
58:56.520 --> 59:02.240
I think the aspect that's missing from the discussion of master and slave is that the
59:02.240 --> 59:07.080
master is also a slave by degree because the master has obligations.
59:07.080 --> 59:12.520
When you look at the moral obligations in Scripture in joining master's actions, they
59:12.520 --> 59:16.700
become slaves to their slaves, not in the same sense, not in the sense of directing
59:16.700 --> 59:22.860
actions one versus the other, but in the sense that the master has obligations, has
59:22.860 --> 59:30.180
a vocation to preserve the health, the welfare, the spiritual care of those under his household,
59:30.180 --> 59:33.740
those whom he owns.
59:33.740 --> 59:38.300
It's not like you have freedom on one hand and then abject shackled slavery on the other
59:38.300 --> 59:39.300
hand.
59:39.300 --> 59:44.300
There are obligations in every direction because God made us as social creatures.
59:44.300 --> 59:48.140
And a hierarchy is not in opposition to society.
59:48.140 --> 59:51.180
Hierarchy is the way a godly society functions.
59:51.180 --> 59:56.420
In a godly functioning society, hierarchy will have masters and it will have slaves
59:56.420 --> 01:00:05.060
by whatever name, but it is not extraction from the weak and enrichment of the wealthy.
01:00:05.060 --> 01:00:09.220
It's a form of symbiosis, but in a godly fashion.
01:00:09.220 --> 01:00:13.300
These terms are not alien to the Christian faith, but the fact that they become alien
01:00:13.300 --> 01:00:18.020
to our own minds is why we are having so many of these problems today.
01:00:18.020 --> 01:00:25.380
And you started off that section with a quote from 1 Corinthians, but another letter of
01:00:25.380 --> 01:00:27.340
Paul's was making the round same time.
01:00:27.340 --> 01:00:39.100
That's Romans and that of course starts off, the second word is slave, Paul a slave of
01:00:39.100 --> 01:00:40.980
Christ Jesus.
01:00:40.980 --> 01:00:44.660
What is the proper conception of what it means to be a Christian?
01:00:44.660 --> 01:00:50.780
You are a slave of Christ, you are a slave of God because you were bought with a price.
01:00:50.780 --> 01:00:59.980
You belong to God and when you bring up the issue of how employees and others are treated
01:00:59.980 --> 01:01:06.220
under our current system versus slaves, it brings to mind, I don't make it a point of
01:01:06.220 --> 01:01:11.460
necessarily quoting Kipling every episode, but it brings to mind a certain line or call
01:01:11.460 --> 01:01:18.100
too loud on freedom to cloak your weariness because that's really what we're doing.
01:01:18.100 --> 01:01:23.940
Our system allows those who are by virtue of their position and their power, by virtue
01:01:23.940 --> 01:01:29.100
of their authority and means, they are masters and they are masters over slaves.
01:01:29.100 --> 01:01:32.620
You can call them employees, you can call them at will employees, you can call them whatever
01:01:32.620 --> 01:01:38.580
it is you like, but it's just like if you call yourself a president instead of an archbishop
01:01:38.580 --> 01:01:43.020
or a district president instead of a bishop.
01:01:43.020 --> 01:01:46.740
God doesn't care what you call yourself, God cares what your position is, what your duties
01:01:46.740 --> 01:01:54.060
are that flow from that position and so it's going to be the same for these individuals
01:01:54.060 --> 01:01:59.300
who have the role of master in our society, but do not live up to the standard of what
01:01:59.300 --> 01:02:01.620
a master is supposed to do.
01:02:01.620 --> 01:02:06.100
And one of the things a master is supposed to do is see that his slaves, see that those
01:02:06.100 --> 01:02:11.860
under him, those entrusted to his care, see that they are properly instructed in the faith.
01:02:11.860 --> 01:02:17.900
Can you name a single master in the left hand kingdom who does that to any degree?
01:02:17.900 --> 01:02:19.620
It'd be a challenge.
01:02:19.620 --> 01:02:23.180
There may be a few here and there, but it would certainly be a challenge.
01:02:23.180 --> 01:02:27.900
And there's also the consideration that it's largely and quickly becoming illegal in our
01:02:27.900 --> 01:02:33.100
system to do that, but that is a separate issue.
01:02:33.100 --> 01:02:40.300
But I think when you were mentioning the Saint and sinner, the symbol there, what really
01:02:40.300 --> 01:02:44.100
you're touching on is the progressive nature of sanctification.
01:02:44.100 --> 01:02:48.860
We are justified, of course, immediately.
01:02:48.860 --> 01:02:53.340
Justification is a one-time thing, it is immediate, it is not progressive, it is not
01:02:53.340 --> 01:02:58.660
you're justified a little bit now and fully later on, it's not God does a little and then
01:02:58.660 --> 01:03:02.820
you do some or God does a lot and you do some, it's none of that.
01:03:02.820 --> 01:03:08.100
Justification, holy God's work, monogistic, it happens, it's done.
01:03:08.100 --> 01:03:10.300
But sanctification is progressive.
01:03:10.300 --> 01:03:14.420
We get better over time as we remain in the faith.
01:03:14.420 --> 01:03:16.940
No, we're never perfect in this life.
01:03:16.940 --> 01:03:27.380
But as you progress in your faith, you will start to sin less, at least in certain ways.
01:03:27.380 --> 01:03:31.100
There comes with that the recognition of more sins.
01:03:31.100 --> 01:03:34.900
And so you are never going to get at the point where you think, I am the holiest person ever
01:03:34.900 --> 01:03:37.340
to live, I am without sin.
01:03:37.340 --> 01:03:45.060
If you get to that point, you're in a very dangerous place because you've probably apostatized.
01:03:45.060 --> 01:03:50.580
But what you will do is some of those sins that plagued you in the past as you are progressively
01:03:50.580 --> 01:03:55.180
sanctified by the Holy Spirit, those will fall away.
01:03:55.180 --> 01:03:59.660
But the Holy Spirit will point out, well, there's this other thing over here that you're doing.
01:03:59.660 --> 01:04:01.620
And so you'll notice more sins.
01:04:01.620 --> 01:04:09.700
And so the Christian life is, of course, one of constant struggle in this life against
01:04:09.700 --> 01:04:13.900
sin, against the flesh, against the world, against the devil.
01:04:13.900 --> 01:04:16.260
But there is progress.
01:04:16.260 --> 01:04:18.140
It's not a standstill.
01:04:18.140 --> 01:04:19.980
It's not stagnation.
01:04:19.980 --> 01:04:24.540
You are getting better as you live as a Christian.
01:04:24.540 --> 01:04:28.300
The next passage that I want to read is from Ephesians 6.
01:04:28.300 --> 01:04:31.580
And this is one that is mirrored very closely in Colossians 3.
01:04:31.580 --> 01:04:34.820
I'm not going to read both for time, but you should go read both.
01:04:34.820 --> 01:04:39.300
The reason I'm pointing out that it's repeated is that Paul uses some of the same words verbatim,
01:04:39.300 --> 01:04:41.180
some of the same phrases.
01:04:41.180 --> 01:04:45.460
This highlights this passage from Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3.
01:04:45.460 --> 01:04:50.660
It's not just an aside when he says slaves obey your earthly masters here in a second.
01:04:50.660 --> 01:04:54.740
It's not just, I'm thinking about this now, so I'm just going to mention it.
01:04:54.740 --> 01:04:58.780
This was clearly a core part of Paul's preaching.
01:04:58.780 --> 01:05:04.300
It was a core part of his ministry to those to whom he was reaching with the gospel.
01:05:04.300 --> 01:05:09.260
And so the fact that we would see phrases repeated verbatim, I think is significant.
01:05:09.260 --> 01:05:10.580
But there's not a whole lot of them.
01:05:10.580 --> 01:05:15.700
It's almost like you have almost a synoptic epistle here with this passage.
01:05:15.700 --> 01:05:18.060
So in Ephesians 6, Paul writes,
01:05:18.060 --> 01:05:22.660
Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you
01:05:22.660 --> 01:05:27.740
would Christ, not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ
01:05:27.740 --> 01:05:32.940
doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and
01:05:32.940 --> 01:05:38.100
not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord whether
01:05:38.100 --> 01:05:40.460
he is a slave or is free.
01:05:40.460 --> 01:05:44.820
Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their
01:05:44.820 --> 01:05:50.220
master and yours in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.
01:05:50.220 --> 01:05:54.700
So again, Paul is highlighting when I mentioned earlier that you were bought with a price
01:05:54.700 --> 01:05:59.300
will hit both the master and the slave in different ways, but very profoundly.
01:05:59.300 --> 01:06:05.380
And so I think we today, we gloss over this, we don't think in term of master and slave,
01:06:06.380 --> 01:06:10.860
but I think I firmly believe they proper understanding of the Christian faith, which
01:06:10.860 --> 01:06:12.780
again can only come from scripture.
01:06:12.780 --> 01:06:15.620
Like we're not making anything new up here.
01:06:15.620 --> 01:06:18.100
We're going through all of these passages.
01:06:18.100 --> 01:06:24.100
They repeat over and over again, slaves, your slaves, be good slaves, masters, your masters,
01:06:24.100 --> 01:06:25.540
be good masters.
01:06:25.540 --> 01:06:28.420
There's never any commandment for a slave to run away.
01:06:28.420 --> 01:06:32.140
There's never a commandment for a master to free his slaves, and we'll get to Philemon
01:06:32.140 --> 01:06:37.180
here at the end, but we're saving that for last for a reason, but while it is an argument
01:06:37.180 --> 01:06:42.620
from silence, that works when you're talking about God, because if God doesn't condemn
01:06:42.620 --> 01:06:46.940
something as sin, we can't come along later and say, well, God just forgot to mention
01:06:46.940 --> 01:06:47.940
it.
01:06:47.940 --> 01:06:49.540
That's not how the Christian faith works.
01:06:49.540 --> 01:06:52.860
As I said last week, we don't get to discover new sins.
01:06:52.860 --> 01:06:58.220
So we deal with the tax that we're given because scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit for
01:06:58.220 --> 01:07:00.660
us to receive these things.
01:07:00.660 --> 01:07:05.060
If it's not there, you don't get to believe it, and when God doesn't condemn something,
01:07:05.060 --> 01:07:06.540
you have to assume that's for a reason.
01:07:06.540 --> 01:07:08.540
You must believe that's for a reason.
01:07:08.540 --> 01:07:10.660
That's not a wild assumption.
01:07:10.660 --> 01:07:15.260
That is listening to the voice of God, and when he's silent, you know that you don't
01:07:15.260 --> 01:07:16.820
have to worry about that.
01:07:16.820 --> 01:07:20.540
If it were sin, God would tell you in no uncertain terms.
01:07:20.540 --> 01:07:24.100
So slaves obey your earthly masters all by itself.
01:07:24.100 --> 01:07:30.740
If that were the only passage in scripture, that would be condoning slavery, cross-slavery.
01:07:30.740 --> 01:07:35.100
And so when a Christian sees a modern Christian at least, sees that we're going to discuss
01:07:35.100 --> 01:07:42.700
the topic of slavery, probably the first book that jumps to mind is Philemon, because Philemon
01:07:42.700 --> 01:07:47.020
deals specifically with a runaway slave.
01:07:47.020 --> 01:07:55.300
And so many modern exegetes, really iceegetes in most cases, will use the book of Philemon
01:07:55.300 --> 01:08:03.300
in an attempt to argue that slavery is sinful because reasons.
01:08:03.300 --> 01:08:07.980
The problem is, if you actually read Philemon, and you have no excuse not to read Philemon,
01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:13.100
I'm looking at it right now, open on my computer, it takes up less than my screen.
01:08:13.100 --> 01:08:16.780
It is a very short letter.
01:08:16.780 --> 01:08:23.060
If you read Philemon, there is no condemnation of slavery in it.
01:08:23.060 --> 01:08:28.440
And if you are familiar with scripture, you should of course know that, coming to Philemon,
01:08:28.440 --> 01:08:32.260
because scripture never contradicts scripture.
01:08:32.260 --> 01:08:36.820
God does not change, and so if you are familiar with the Old Testament, you know that God
01:08:36.820 --> 01:08:44.100
not only permitted slavery, but gave slaves to the patriarchs and to others, Job for instance,
01:08:44.100 --> 01:08:45.800
as a reward.
01:08:45.800 --> 01:08:50.840
He blessed individuals with slaves, with that form of property.
01:08:50.840 --> 01:08:57.240
And so Philemon cannot possibly argue against slavery, quaslavery.
01:08:57.240 --> 01:09:04.920
And it doesn't, because if you look at Philemon, the core of the letter is Paul returning the
01:09:04.920 --> 01:09:10.000
runaway slave Onesimus to his master.
01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:13.040
That is the core of what this letter is.
01:09:13.040 --> 01:09:20.440
Now there's more to the letter, to the specifics of how Paul is dealing in the letter with
01:09:20.440 --> 01:09:27.440
Onesimus' master, etc., but the core of the letter is Paul returning a runaway slave.
01:09:27.440 --> 01:09:32.680
There is no way you can conceive of or argue that this letter is a condemnation of the
01:09:32.680 --> 01:09:33.800
practice of slavery.
01:09:33.800 --> 01:09:36.680
It's an absolutely insane position to take.
01:09:36.680 --> 01:09:40.800
And that's why historically, no one has taken that position.
01:09:40.800 --> 01:09:42.840
That is a modern innovation.
01:09:42.840 --> 01:09:49.060
It is seeking for a conclusion that was predetermined and then attempting to shoehorn it into scripture
01:09:49.060 --> 01:09:53.740
instead of reading what is actually on the page.
01:09:53.740 --> 01:09:58.580
One of the things that leapt out to me this past time that I was reading through it was
01:09:58.580 --> 01:10:03.120
in the second to last paragraph, he says, So if you consider me your partner, receive
01:10:03.120 --> 01:10:05.200
him as you would receive me.
01:10:05.200 --> 01:10:10.440
If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account.
01:10:11.320 --> 01:10:14.920
I found that interesting as I was reading through this in the context of this discussion
01:10:14.920 --> 01:10:20.280
because what Paul is describing there is fundamentally transactional.
01:10:20.280 --> 01:10:23.920
He is saying, Onesimus is your property.
01:10:23.920 --> 01:10:29.320
He is not his own, for he was bought with a price, the price that Philemon paid for him.
01:10:29.320 --> 01:10:33.160
And Philemon, as you mentioned, is a very rich man.
01:10:33.160 --> 01:10:35.800
You can tell from the context of the letter that he has a large household.
01:10:35.800 --> 01:10:39.280
So for one thing, Onesimus would not be his only slave.
01:10:39.280 --> 01:10:43.240
And that is one of the profound arguments from silence we find here.
01:10:43.240 --> 01:10:51.640
If this were Paul just trying to be politely correcting the sin of effectively a parishioner
01:10:51.640 --> 01:10:56.340
slash patron, he would have said, Hey, man, you need to free all of your slaves.
01:10:56.340 --> 01:11:00.040
Don't you know that you're sinning by owning another man?
01:11:00.040 --> 01:11:05.760
Not only does he not do that, but he effectively says in that passage, I'll buy him for you.
01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:10.200
Oh, by the way, you also owe me a great deal.
01:11:10.200 --> 01:11:13.960
So if we want to talk about money, maybe you want to call it even, but I'll leave that
01:11:13.960 --> 01:11:15.080
up to you.
01:11:15.080 --> 01:11:18.760
So it's very friendly, it's very loving, but it's also very slick.
01:11:18.760 --> 01:11:24.280
And I don't say that in a condemning fashion, but Paul is saying, look, this guy who in
01:11:24.280 --> 01:11:29.040
all likelihood ran away, there are different theories about how Onesimus ended up in the
01:11:29.040 --> 01:11:31.400
same place as Paul.
01:11:31.400 --> 01:11:33.960
There's questions surrounding, did he steal something?
01:11:34.080 --> 01:11:37.480
Did he steal and perhaps the money is part of that?
01:11:37.480 --> 01:11:41.920
I think the one thing that cannot be disputed, the one thing that is clearly in the text
01:11:41.920 --> 01:11:46.840
by necessary inference is that Onesimus stole himself.
01:11:46.840 --> 01:11:49.400
He violated the 10th commandment.
01:11:49.400 --> 01:11:54.000
He stole his master's property by leaving because he was not his own.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:57.360
He was bought with a price, the price the philemon paid.
01:11:57.360 --> 01:12:02.640
And so Paul is acknowledging that in the end of this letter saying, if he owes you anything,
01:12:02.640 --> 01:12:07.760
charge it to my account, which by the way has a substantial credit, so maybe I don't
01:12:07.760 --> 01:12:14.480
need to actually pay you any money, but this is fundamentally transactional and not moral.
01:12:14.480 --> 01:12:20.400
A little bit of context is necessary here for most modern readers because most modern
01:12:20.400 --> 01:12:28.480
readers are going to miss some of the subtext here because they don't understand Roman slavery.
01:12:28.480 --> 01:12:35.600
First off, under the system of Roman slavery, a slave was not a person persona in Latin.
01:12:35.600 --> 01:12:41.960
A slave was a race, a thing, a piece of property.
01:12:41.960 --> 01:12:48.800
Legally that was the status of a slave and masters had more or less absolute authority
01:12:48.800 --> 01:12:50.520
over their slaves.
01:12:50.520 --> 01:12:55.960
There were some reforms here and there in the Roman system that required, for instance,
01:12:55.960 --> 01:13:02.000
a reason to beat your slave to death because originally you didn't even need a reason,
01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:06.960
but that was the sort of nature of the reforms that you would have in the Roman system.
01:13:06.960 --> 01:13:13.040
And so the ordinary course of events, if a runaway slave were returned to his master,
01:13:13.040 --> 01:13:18.440
if Onesimas were returned to Philemon, is that Philemon would choose between killing
01:13:18.440 --> 01:13:25.080
him outright or literally branding his forehead with the Latin word for runaway slave from
01:13:25.080 --> 01:13:31.640
which we get fugitive, fugitivus, usually just fvg because Latin used the v instead
01:13:31.640 --> 01:13:33.760
of the u.
01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:36.520
And so those were the two options.
01:13:36.520 --> 01:13:40.800
And if he had been subjected to the latter option, he would have been branded and then
01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:47.800
kept as a menial slave doing manual labor most likely for the rest of his life.
01:13:47.800 --> 01:13:50.120
And so that's the subtext you have here.
01:13:50.120 --> 01:13:55.960
Paul is saying, I recognize the rights that you have under the law to dispense with your
01:13:55.960 --> 01:13:57.480
property.
01:13:57.480 --> 01:14:04.080
I am asking you to forego those because of this man's service to me and my captivity
01:14:04.080 --> 01:14:06.240
because he is now a brother in Christ.
01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:07.960
He's not saying to free him.
01:14:07.960 --> 01:14:13.080
He's saying don't kill him or brand him and make him dig ditches the rest of his life.
01:14:13.080 --> 01:14:17.520
And that's a subtext that a modern reader is going to miss if you are not familiar with
01:14:17.520 --> 01:14:22.480
Roman slavery with the system in which Paul is writing this letter and operating.
01:14:22.480 --> 01:14:26.640
And that was something that if you happen to get your hands on the Philemon commentary
01:14:26.640 --> 01:14:32.400
from Concordia Publishing House for a letter that's basically one page, the commentary
01:14:32.400 --> 01:14:33.400
is hundreds of pages.
01:14:33.400 --> 01:14:39.440
And there's a lot of great historical context for what slavery was like in this period.
01:14:39.440 --> 01:14:44.720
And that's why I said early on when people hear stories about slavery in the Americas,
01:14:44.720 --> 01:14:46.760
they think, oh, that's the worst it could possibly be.
01:14:46.760 --> 01:14:50.960
No, that was many of those slaves were treated quite well.
01:14:50.960 --> 01:14:52.160
Some of them were treated poorly.
01:14:52.160 --> 01:14:55.760
Some were horribly mistreated, which is expressly condemned by scripture.
01:14:55.760 --> 01:14:58.760
No one's okay with that because God says it's sinful.
01:14:58.760 --> 01:15:03.400
And even someone who didn't have faith would know that some treatment is well beyond the
01:15:03.400 --> 01:15:08.200
line of what is permissible to another human being.
01:15:08.200 --> 01:15:15.680
The commentary by Norling from CPH, interestingly, directly contradicts the statement that we
01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:23.880
read last week from the Missouri Senate Corporation discussing pro-slavery being an abomination.
01:15:23.880 --> 01:15:31.040
What the CPH commentary says is that our modern notions are completely anachronistic.
01:15:31.040 --> 01:15:34.160
We don't even understand slavery as itself.
01:15:34.160 --> 01:15:36.240
We understand the Hollywood version of it.
01:15:36.240 --> 01:15:41.640
And when you look at historical slavery, it was fundamental to human civilization.
01:15:41.640 --> 01:15:46.320
And so the book goes into great detail on many different facets of different degrees
01:15:46.320 --> 01:15:48.760
and categories and ranks of slaves.
01:15:48.760 --> 01:15:54.080
There were some slaves who were far richer than anyone who will ever listen to this podcast.
01:15:54.080 --> 01:16:00.000
They're literally millionaires by gray stretches, some more than that perhaps, yet they were
01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:03.880
still slaves, meaning they were still owned by other men.
01:16:03.880 --> 01:16:09.480
So this modern notion that we have been fed that if you're a slave, you're basically
01:16:09.480 --> 01:16:10.480
an animal.
01:16:10.480 --> 01:16:12.120
There's nothing lower than that.
01:16:12.120 --> 01:16:13.840
That's not what slave means.
01:16:13.840 --> 01:16:15.280
That's what mistreatment means.
01:16:15.280 --> 01:16:17.200
That's what dehumanization means.
01:16:17.200 --> 01:16:21.840
There are words for those things, but the word is not slave.
01:16:21.840 --> 01:16:26.480
Enslavement doesn't necessarily mean that a sin has occurred.
01:16:26.480 --> 01:16:31.080
When Solomon took slaves, he was permitted to do that.
01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:35.240
We don't have the legal regime for today, and so it's not a question that we need to
01:16:35.240 --> 01:16:36.240
deal with.
01:16:36.240 --> 01:16:38.280
How might one become a slave today?
01:16:38.280 --> 01:16:42.280
But as Corey mentioned, anyone in prison is functionally a slave.
01:16:42.280 --> 01:16:46.520
If they're doing forced labor, they're getting paid out like 25 cents a day or something,
01:16:46.520 --> 01:16:48.160
like it's nominal.
01:16:48.160 --> 01:16:49.160
They're slaves.
01:16:49.160 --> 01:16:50.160
It's slave labor.
01:16:50.160 --> 01:16:53.720
And the 13th Amendment permits it because we didn't abolish slavery.
01:16:53.720 --> 01:16:56.440
We abolished non-state slavery.
01:16:56.440 --> 01:17:04.680
So these notions have been buried and they, yes, which is the other form of slavery we
01:17:04.680 --> 01:17:07.080
still have.
01:17:07.080 --> 01:17:11.360
This is Sparta in the least cool way possible.
01:17:11.360 --> 01:17:18.600
And so the Philemon commentary goes a great length to describe all the various myriad
01:17:18.600 --> 01:17:23.520
fashions of enslavement and how some of them had very high social status.
01:17:23.680 --> 01:17:30.440
Again, the right-hand man in a household was usually going to be a slave.
01:17:30.440 --> 01:17:32.080
He would have very high station in life.
01:17:32.080 --> 01:17:33.480
He would be paid.
01:17:33.480 --> 01:17:36.400
These were slaves who were not just given quarters in food.
01:17:36.400 --> 01:17:40.720
They were also remunerated, which was something that was done in the West as well.
01:17:40.720 --> 01:17:46.480
It's not alien to the concept of a man owning another man, just as today when Jeff Bezos
01:17:46.480 --> 01:17:48.880
almost owns someone, he pays him something.
01:17:48.880 --> 01:17:51.000
It's not nearly enough.
01:17:51.960 --> 01:17:54.960
Owning a man is not per se sinful.
01:17:54.960 --> 01:17:57.120
Scripture never makes that case.
01:17:57.120 --> 01:18:04.440
And even in the one epistle that is directly dealing with a slave, there's no playing around
01:18:04.440 --> 01:18:08.520
that Onesimus was a bondservant or he was this or that.
01:18:08.520 --> 01:18:09.520
He was a slave.
01:18:09.520 --> 01:18:10.920
He was runaway property.
01:18:10.920 --> 01:18:14.800
He sinned against Philemon by stealing himself.
01:18:14.800 --> 01:18:18.320
And as Corey said, the punishment was death or disfigurement.
01:18:18.320 --> 01:18:22.920
Paul was saying, he was a useless slave to you, but now that he has become Christian,
01:18:22.920 --> 01:18:24.440
I'm getting some use out of him.
01:18:24.440 --> 01:18:31.680
So let's get this useless slave off your books and let's put him to work as a slave to righteousness.
01:18:31.680 --> 01:18:35.280
See, Paul was not asking for Onesimus' freedom.
01:18:35.280 --> 01:18:40.800
He was asking for the slave to righteousness that he had already become in Christ to be
01:18:40.800 --> 01:18:46.000
his sole vocation, so that he was no longer divided between his obligations to God and
01:18:46.080 --> 01:18:51.680
in serving Paul and whatever his master Philemon may have still required of him.
01:18:51.680 --> 01:18:53.200
It was transactional.
01:18:53.200 --> 01:18:59.600
It was for the sake of the church and in no way does it in any fashion condemn the institution
01:18:59.600 --> 01:19:02.680
of slavery itself by any means.
01:19:02.680 --> 01:19:09.400
There was far worse slavery that occurred in those days and Scripture remains silent
01:19:09.400 --> 01:19:14.040
except for saying, masters don't do horrible things to your slaves.
01:19:14.080 --> 01:19:18.920
That's the Christian approach, not abolition, but let's treat them well.
01:19:18.920 --> 01:19:24.760
I want to read briefly just because it's directly related to this from 1 Peter 2.
01:19:24.760 --> 01:19:29.360
Servants, and this is one case where the ESV is not butchering as I left servant here.
01:19:29.360 --> 01:19:33.280
It's using a different word, but basically it's the highest form of slave.
01:19:33.280 --> 01:19:36.840
Servant here basically means the house slave, so it's still not a free man.
01:19:36.840 --> 01:19:39.800
We're not talking about a butler in a tuxedo.
01:19:40.760 --> 01:19:47.080
We're not talking about Alfred in Batman.
01:19:47.080 --> 01:19:49.320
We're talking about someone who's owned by his master.
01:19:49.960 --> 01:19:54.120
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle,
01:19:54.120 --> 01:19:55.960
but also to the unjust.
01:19:55.960 --> 01:19:58.520
For it is a gracious thing when mindful of God,
01:19:58.520 --> 01:20:01.400
one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.
01:20:01.400 --> 01:20:05.720
For what credit is it if when you sin, you are beaten for it, you endure?
01:20:05.720 --> 01:20:08.520
But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure?
01:20:08.520 --> 01:20:10.760
This is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
01:20:10.760 --> 01:20:15.320
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you,
01:20:15.320 --> 01:20:18.440
leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
01:20:18.440 --> 01:20:21.880
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
01:20:21.880 --> 01:20:24.760
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
01:20:24.760 --> 01:20:26.680
When he suffered, he did not threaten,
01:20:26.680 --> 01:20:30.040
but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
01:20:30.680 --> 01:20:33.880
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
01:20:33.880 --> 01:20:36.600
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
01:20:36.600 --> 01:20:40.680
By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep,
01:20:40.680 --> 01:20:43.800
but now have been returned to the shepherd in oversee of your souls.
01:20:44.760 --> 01:20:48.040
The reason I read that whole passage, even though the second half
01:20:48.040 --> 01:20:51.080
doesn't have anything to do with slavery, is that it does.
01:20:51.080 --> 01:20:52.120
That's the gospel.
01:20:52.760 --> 01:20:57.880
Christ was a slave for the sake of our righteousness by imputing his to us.
01:20:59.000 --> 01:21:02.360
The act of sacrifice that God gave on the cross
01:21:03.160 --> 01:21:05.000
was an act of submission.
01:21:07.000 --> 01:21:10.520
When Christ is given as a model of slavery to slaves,
01:21:11.560 --> 01:21:16.120
and we say, ah, slavery is bad, how is that not a condemnation of Christ?
01:21:16.680 --> 01:21:18.680
That's why this is a gospel issue.
01:21:18.680 --> 01:21:21.720
That's why this is how Christians need to return to talking.
01:21:21.720 --> 01:21:24.680
If you were afraid to say that slavery is good,
01:21:25.320 --> 01:21:27.800
how do you deal with passages like this?
01:21:27.800 --> 01:21:31.000
How do you deal with the fact that when Paul is a slave,
01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:35.640
and Christ is described as suffering as an example to slaves,
01:21:37.480 --> 01:21:41.080
the only way a Christian faithfully deal with these passages
01:21:41.080 --> 01:21:45.400
is to set aside the enlightenment priors that condemn these things,
01:21:45.400 --> 01:21:47.720
and to embrace that which is holy,
01:21:47.720 --> 01:21:51.560
and then to condemn that which God condemns as he condemns it.
01:21:51.560 --> 01:21:53.400
God condemns cruelty.
01:21:53.400 --> 01:21:55.560
He condemns being merciless.
01:21:55.560 --> 01:21:57.800
He condemns being unjust and unfair.
01:21:58.440 --> 01:22:03.320
What he does not condemn is that slavery is, per se, any of those things.
01:22:03.320 --> 01:22:05.800
Slavery can be some or all of those things.
01:22:05.800 --> 01:22:08.520
Slavery can also be none of those things.
01:22:08.520 --> 01:22:12.120
And if and when slavery exists as a human institution,
01:22:12.760 --> 01:22:16.680
we are not permitted to say, well, God doesn't want that either.
01:22:16.680 --> 01:22:19.240
That is no longer speaking in God's name,
01:22:19.240 --> 01:22:25.080
and this sort of morality has become the norm among us and is truly destructive.
01:22:25.080 --> 01:22:27.000
Again, that's why stone choir exists.
01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:31.080
We're talking about these things that many pastors are deathly afraid to talk of,
01:22:31.080 --> 01:22:32.280
for good reason.
01:22:32.280 --> 01:22:35.880
There may be people in their parishes and their pews and their congregations
01:22:35.880 --> 01:22:39.800
who will revolt, who either attack them, try to get them fired,
01:22:39.800 --> 01:22:43.080
or just never come back, stop giving money like any matter,
01:22:43.080 --> 01:22:46.440
any number of bad things may happen socially,
01:22:46.440 --> 01:22:51.240
organizationally, when someone in the pews hears what God says about slavery.
01:22:52.440 --> 01:22:54.920
We don't have to deal with those problems immediately,
01:22:54.920 --> 01:22:57.640
so we're free to speak in these terms.
01:22:57.640 --> 01:23:01.480
But we need to get as a church back to the point that all Christians are speaking
01:23:01.480 --> 01:23:03.720
in the same terms that God uses.
01:23:03.720 --> 01:23:06.680
If you can't talk like God, you can't be godly.
01:23:07.400 --> 01:23:13.240
And so I think we'll close out this episode by refuting one salient argument,
01:23:14.520 --> 01:23:17.880
not sound but salient argument from the other side.
01:23:18.840 --> 01:23:26.200
And that is the hyper-focus on one Greek word in 1 Timothy 110.
01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:31.000
And the word is mistranslated in the ESV as enslavers.
01:23:32.520 --> 01:23:36.920
Now, it is worth noting first, this is a hapax legomenon.
01:23:36.920 --> 01:23:40.600
It appears once in Scripture, and that's right here.
01:23:41.560 --> 01:23:45.800
There are some other places where the equivalent concept appears,
01:23:45.800 --> 01:23:51.000
but it is obvious that it is the equivalent concept only if you know what the term means.
01:23:51.880 --> 01:23:56.520
And so in this case, to figure out what the term means,
01:23:56.520 --> 01:24:01.160
it is entirely proper to turn to extra biblical materials,
01:24:01.160 --> 01:24:05.560
because this word appears once again, appears one time in Scripture.
01:24:06.680 --> 01:24:08.280
The term is andropodistase.
01:24:09.080 --> 01:24:12.920
But I went ahead and looked this term up in various Greek writings.
01:24:13.000 --> 01:24:17.560
I looked it up in Plato, Polybius, and Philo, and the term means kidnapper.
01:24:19.000 --> 01:24:27.320
And it is worth noting that actually the Lutheran Study Bible gets this one absolutely correct.
01:24:27.960 --> 01:24:32.920
In the footnote for 1 Timothy 110, the Lutheran Study Bible,
01:24:32.920 --> 01:24:35.880
unlike the leadership of Synod right now,
01:24:36.520 --> 01:24:42.120
notes that this term actually means kidnappers involved in illegal slave trade.
01:24:42.680 --> 01:24:44.040
And that's absolutely what it means.
01:24:45.320 --> 01:24:48.760
It does not mean enslavers, it does not mean slave dealers,
01:24:49.720 --> 01:24:54.440
because obviously if Scripture permits slavery, slave dealing can't be a sin.
01:24:55.320 --> 01:24:57.320
That would be a wildly incoherent argument.
01:24:58.680 --> 01:25:02.680
And so what this is saying is you cannot set upon your neighbor in the dead of night,
01:25:03.480 --> 01:25:05.400
bind him and sell him into slavery,
01:25:05.960 --> 01:25:08.600
because that was something that happened in the ancient world.
01:25:09.160 --> 01:25:11.960
That is a sin, you are not permitted to do that.
01:25:11.960 --> 01:25:15.800
That is what is being banned here in 1 Timothy 110.
01:25:15.800 --> 01:25:18.600
And so when someone tries to make the argument that,
01:25:18.600 --> 01:25:20.680
well, Scripture says you can't be an enslaver,
01:25:20.680 --> 01:25:23.400
and so you can't have slavery because you can't have slave dealing,
01:25:24.520 --> 01:25:27.160
point out the actual sense of this term,
01:25:28.040 --> 01:25:29.960
and the fact that it appears once in Scripture,
01:25:30.920 --> 01:25:35.960
you cannot make an argument about a doctrine from Scripture,
01:25:35.960 --> 01:25:40.760
about a fact from Scripture that relies on a term that appears once.
01:25:41.720 --> 01:25:46.120
If that argument that you are making is contrary to the balance of Scripture,
01:25:46.680 --> 01:25:48.280
you know that obviously you are wrong.
01:25:48.280 --> 01:25:50.920
As stated earlier, Scripture does not contradict Scripture.
01:25:51.480 --> 01:25:56.520
So Scripture permits slavery, as we very clearly demonstrated it does in many places,
01:25:56.520 --> 01:25:57.800
does not condemn slavery.
01:25:58.360 --> 01:26:01.080
This one word, this Greek word that appears once,
01:26:01.080 --> 01:26:05.160
cannot possibly be an argument for condemning slavery qua slavery.
01:26:05.720 --> 01:26:10.280
It condemns kidnapping and selling into slavery in an improper way.
01:26:10.280 --> 01:26:13.720
This is not a condemnation of taking captives in war,
01:26:13.720 --> 01:26:15.800
that is permitted in the Old Testament.
01:26:15.800 --> 01:26:19.720
It is arguing against this one specific ancient practice
01:26:20.360 --> 01:26:22.360
that still does occur in some parts of the world,
01:26:23.000 --> 01:26:25.240
not as much of a problem in the Western world,
01:26:25.240 --> 01:26:26.840
but it still occurs in some places.
01:26:28.040 --> 01:26:30.840
That is what is mentioned here in 1 Timothy.
01:26:30.840 --> 01:26:33.640
And so that is how you respond to that particular argument
01:26:33.720 --> 01:26:37.880
that does unfortunately get raised by some who have
01:26:38.920 --> 01:26:43.400
will a mercenary approach to Scripture in order to seek the end they want.
01:26:44.040 --> 01:26:46.440
And that's exactly what we see when these questions come up.
01:26:46.440 --> 01:26:49.160
We've criticized repeatedly in past episodes,
01:26:50.200 --> 01:26:52.040
men will take modern morality,
01:26:52.040 --> 01:26:54.440
they will cherry pick one or two proof texts,
01:26:54.440 --> 01:26:57.000
and nullify the entire history of the Christian faith.
01:26:57.560 --> 01:27:00.520
The reason that this term only shows up once in Scripture
01:27:00.520 --> 01:27:02.280
is that it wasn't that common.
01:27:02.360 --> 01:27:07.160
In an environment where slavery of all kinds was universal.
01:27:07.800 --> 01:27:11.480
So on its face, the notion that what they are saying
01:27:11.480 --> 01:27:15.080
is the origin of all slavery condemns all slavery,
01:27:15.080 --> 01:27:19.240
just mathematically, it's a blatant lie.
01:27:19.240 --> 01:27:21.640
And that's the only response that's necessary to such a claim.
01:27:23.080 --> 01:27:25.240
I think to wrap up here, I just want to reiterate that
01:27:26.440 --> 01:27:29.480
this is a more important subject than some of the others.
01:27:29.480 --> 01:27:31.320
It's more important than the racism subject,
01:27:31.320 --> 01:27:33.640
which was also talking about a made-up sin,
01:27:33.640 --> 01:27:35.960
because this is a much more fundamental one
01:27:35.960 --> 01:27:38.440
in terms of the direct attack on the faith.
01:27:39.240 --> 01:27:43.240
As we said at the beginning, this could have been a 20-hour episode.
01:27:43.240 --> 01:27:46.600
We could have done a marathon just on the verses dealing with it.
01:27:46.600 --> 01:27:48.440
We barely scratched the surface,
01:27:48.440 --> 01:27:51.400
and we really rushed through dealing with the text we talked about,
01:27:51.400 --> 01:27:53.080
because we wanted to keep it under 90 minutes,
01:27:53.080 --> 01:27:54.680
which we're right at at this point.
01:27:54.680 --> 01:27:55.560
So I'm just going to say,
01:27:56.520 --> 01:27:59.240
there's no way for a Christian to read the Bible
01:27:59.240 --> 01:28:01.320
and come away thinking of the slavery sin.
01:28:01.320 --> 01:28:02.280
Full stop.
01:28:02.280 --> 01:28:04.920
If someone comes to you and says that slavery is a sin,
01:28:04.920 --> 01:28:07.800
either they haven't read the Bible or they despise it.
01:28:07.800 --> 01:28:09.560
Those are the only two options.
01:28:09.560 --> 01:28:11.400
And when it's a Christian who has a collar,
01:28:11.400 --> 01:28:12.760
you know they've read the Bible,
01:28:12.760 --> 01:28:15.400
which means that the only option is they despise it.
01:28:15.400 --> 01:28:21.080
And that is a crucial emergency for us facing all of our denominations today,
01:28:21.080 --> 01:28:24.280
because, again, we're importing this evil from the world.
01:28:24.280 --> 01:28:25.800
Stonkware exists to point out,
01:28:25.800 --> 01:28:28.280
hey, maybe we believe Scripture,
01:28:28.280 --> 01:28:31.000
and if our modern institutions disagree with it,
01:28:31.000 --> 01:28:33.400
we figure out what problem we need to solve there.
01:28:33.400 --> 01:28:35.400
But we begin and end in Scripture,
01:28:35.400 --> 01:28:39.080
because that is what God has given to us for the preservation of the faith.
01:28:39.720 --> 01:28:42.120
And if you want a one word, not a one word,
01:28:42.120 --> 01:28:47.800
but a one-line response to anyone who tells you that slavery is a sin,
01:28:49.400 --> 01:28:51.400
Jesus Christ is a slave master.
01:28:51.640 --> 01:28:55.080
And if you want to follow up,
01:28:55.640 --> 01:28:59.640
the thing that you want to hear from him when you get to the judgment room,
01:28:59.640 --> 01:29:04.520
when you get to the throne, is well done, good and faithful slave.
01:29:05.320 --> 01:29:07.080
I do want to mention one last thing.
01:29:07.080 --> 01:29:08.840
I forgot to mention this earlier.
01:29:08.840 --> 01:29:10.840
Lord is synonym with master.
01:29:11.480 --> 01:29:14.120
Every time you read Lord in Scripture,
01:29:14.120 --> 01:29:18.440
if you replace that in your head with master, it is a synonym.
01:29:18.520 --> 01:29:22.360
When you pray the Lord's prayer, you're praying the master's prayer.
01:29:22.360 --> 01:29:24.280
It means exactly the same thing.
01:29:24.280 --> 01:29:25.640
We are owned by God.
01:29:25.640 --> 01:29:26.840
We have a master.
01:29:27.400 --> 01:29:29.960
Just as unbelievers have a master,
01:29:29.960 --> 01:29:31.480
their master is Satan.
01:29:31.480 --> 01:29:32.920
Our master is Christ.
01:29:32.920 --> 01:29:34.200
Our master is God.
01:29:34.760 --> 01:29:37.400
So when you say Lord, Lord,
01:29:37.400 --> 01:29:39.080
and you mean it faithfully,
01:29:39.080 --> 01:29:42.120
you are saying master, master as someone who is above you.
01:29:42.760 --> 01:29:46.840
It's not, you know, we've criticized neighbors being this nebulous thing.
01:29:46.840 --> 01:29:48.920
Lord is not a nebulous thing.
01:29:48.920 --> 01:29:51.480
It is not just a cozy relationship.
01:29:51.480 --> 01:29:53.960
We have a loving relationship with God
01:29:53.960 --> 01:29:56.040
because we are adopted as sons of Christ,
01:29:56.040 --> 01:29:58.200
as sons of God through Christ's blood.
01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:01.880
However, Lord remains a master
01:30:01.880 --> 01:30:07.160
and that relationship is the reason for the loving relationship that we had.
01:30:07.800 --> 01:30:09.960
He owns us and he loves us.
01:30:09.960 --> 01:30:11.800
He could own us and hate us.
01:30:11.800 --> 01:30:14.600
And he hates our sin and he hates the evildoers
01:30:14.600 --> 01:30:16.840
who will not repent of their sin.
01:30:16.840 --> 01:30:21.640
He wishes simultaneous that they become believers through the gospel.
01:30:22.280 --> 01:30:24.680
If we cannot speak clearly in these terms,
01:30:24.680 --> 01:30:28.200
if we cannot call a Lord, Lord, any master, master,
01:30:28.200 --> 01:30:29.560
and realize that they're the same,
01:30:30.280 --> 01:30:33.080
we're losing sight of the God that we claim to confess.
01:30:33.720 --> 01:30:35.720
Because you can use all the words,
01:30:35.720 --> 01:30:38.440
you can quote the Bible passages,
01:30:38.440 --> 01:30:40.360
and you cannot believe in your heart.
01:30:40.360 --> 01:30:42.040
That's what we're facing in our churches.
01:30:42.040 --> 01:30:44.440
People who say the words, they mouth them.
01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:46.760
But when you say God is your master,
01:30:47.480 --> 01:30:48.600
they rebel and they say,
01:30:48.600 --> 01:30:50.360
I have no gods, I have no masters.
01:30:52.520 --> 01:30:53.480
It's one or the other.
01:30:54.200 --> 01:30:57.400
We all have a master and either it's sin in the devil
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or it is God in his righteousness.
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And as Christians, we are blessed to be able
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to continue to choose God's righteousness
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because that is a gift that comes solely from God,
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not through any merit or worthiness in ourselves.
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It is given to us freely
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and as our duty to share that gospel with others
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so that they too can become slaves to God's righteousness.