Did Paul support slavery?

Regard Their Masters as Worthy of All Honor?

Why is an article like this important? Many unbelievers think the Bible supports even promotes slavery. We all agree slavery is wrong. Therefore, the Bible should not be ignored as a guide to life. With that rejection in mind, this was the basis taken by an Australian Prime Minister to legislate Homosexual marriage - Kevin Rudd ignored all homosexual sanctions in the Bible based on the Bible's supposed support of slavery. A convenient method to wash one's hands of any responsibility.

Look closer, Kevin.

Paul issues his command to “bondservants” who are “under a yoke” and have “masters.” The word translated as “bondservants” is the Greek term doulos, the standard term for slaves used throughout the NT. These particular slaves are “under a yoke.” A literal yoke is a “frame used to control working animals” (BDAG, s.v. ζυγός). The word appears here and elsewhere to describe the condition of slaves in the Roman world. Such slaves were the property of their masters and were required to do whatever their masters told them to do. If they failed to do their master’s bidding, the master could use coercive violence to compel them to do the task. In Roman slavery, a master had the power of life and death over his slave. The master could take his slave’s life if he so desired because his slave was his property to do as he pleased.

At first glance, Paul’s words may appear to endorse human slavery, but they are not. Elsewhere, he states that slaves should pursue their own freedom if at all possible and forbids free Christians from becoming slaves (1 Cor. 7:21–23). In this way, Paul seems to suggest that slavery is a sinful institution to be avoided.

However, in 1 Timothy 6:1–2, Paul does not state systemic injustices and social inequality. Nor does he intend to offer a moral evaluation of the institution of slavery. Instead, he instructs Christian slaves on how to follow Christ in the situation in which they find themselves. Faithfulness to Christ does not require slaves to mount an armed rebellion against their oppressors, nor does it require them to pursue a massive reformation of the institution of slavery. These kinds of opportunities were not available to slaves in the Greco-Roman world, and modern readers need to be careful not to read their own democratic expectations into the strictures of a first-century slave’s life. Paul seeks to spell out for the slaves in the congregation how they may remain faithful to Christ in a tough situation.

Paul directs his command to slaves, those who are “under a yoke.” They must “honour” their masters. Commentators such as George Knight are correct to contend that “under a yoke” indicates an oppressive situation, one in which a slave is treated as little more than an ox with a yoke about his neck.1 Such language implies that Paul means to address slaves serving non-Christian masters in verse 1.

These servants are to regard their masters as worthy of all honour. Paul does not say that such masters deserve all honour, only that the servant must treat this authority as if he were. Thus, Christians who find themselves with an unbelieving authority over them must serve that authority respectfully. They are not allowed to disrespect or mistreat the authorities in their lives merely because they do not like them or because the masters do not believe as Christians do. On the contrary, Christians must honour unbelieving authorities precisely because Christians seek to persuade those authorities to believe the gospel.

This does not mean that slaves must obey everything that human authorities tell them to do. As Paul makes clear elsewhere, human authorities are not ultimate (Rom. 13:1–2)—only God is. If a human authority instructs a Christian to do what God forbids or forbids a Christian from doing what God commands, the Christian must defy that authority, as Peter and the other apostles did when they said, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

But when it is possible to follow human authority without breaking God’s law, Christians do all they can to honour that person’s position “so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.” The “name of God” is his reputation; the “teaching” is the gospel. These Christian slaves must not give any occasion for unbelievers to disrespect God or ignore his gospel. When a slave renders difficult obedience, he presents a powerful testimony that can serve as a compelling witness to his master. He imagines the suffering Christ himself underwent (1 Pet. 2:18–21).

The Bible and Slavery

Some people read this text and believe that because Paul tells slaves to honour their masters, he must be endorsing slavery. But is this view correct? The answer is no for several reasons.

1. Telling someone to submit to an authority does not imply that the authority is morally approved.

God told the Israelites to seek the good of the city while they lived under the authority of Babylon, as all the while, God planned to destroy Babylon for its wickedness. Peter tells wives to submit to a husband’s authority, even those who “do not obey the word” (1  Pet. 3:1–2). He also instructs Christians to submit to governing authorities, even if those authorities are persecuting them (1 Peter 2). God condemns any exercise of authority that is contrary to his holy will. And many elements of both Roman slavery and American slavery were against God’s law. Treating persons as property without recognizing their dignity as image-bearers of Almighty God is sinful and is condemned everywhere in the Bible. And yet, that feature was endemic to both Roman and American slavery. So, telling someone to submit to an authority cannot automatically be an endorsement of the one wielding that authority.

2. The Bible often condemns how slaves were taken as slaves.

In the first century, slavery was not race-based, as it was in the American South. People were taken as slaves through several means, including warfare, piracy, highway robbery, infant exposure, and punishment of criminals. In all of this, the issue of kidnapping persons to enslave them was always prevalent. What does the Bible say about kidnapping?

In 1  Timothy 1:10, the apostle Paul says that kidnapping or man stealing is against God’s law. Most interpreters recognize that this manstealing was for the purpose of slavery. This is why the ESV translates the relevant term as “enslavers” (cf. ESV mg.). The background for Paul’s command is the OT law, which states, “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” (Ex. 21:16). 

Who is to be put to death? The one who takes the man and the one who holds him. This is significant, for some have made the case that while the Bible does condemn slave trading, it does not denounce slaveholding. If this view were correct, there would not necessarily have been any moral problem with Christians owning slaves in the American South before and during the Civil War.

But Exodus 21:16 says that both the kidnapping and the enslavement are punishable by death. This is the background of Paul’s thinking in 1 Timothy. The entire system of Southern slavery was based on kidnapping persons from Africa. The slave-traders stuffed these Africans into shipholds, where they suffered and died by the thousands. That slave trade was an abomination. 

And it is fallacious to suggest that the slaveholders were not morally implicated in the slave trade. One cannot defend those who participated in the slave trade, nor can one defend those slave owners who created the market for manstealing.

So the Bible definitely condemns how slaves were taken as slaves—especially kidnapping, which was punishable by death.

3. The New Testament forbids Christians from using coercive violence against slaves.

Ephesians 6:9 states, “Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.” At the very least, this text confirms that there were Christian slave owners in NT times. Yet Paul says that the slave owners were not allowed to threaten their slaves with violence. 

And obviously, if they were not allowed to threaten with violence, they were not allowed to do violence against their slaves. It may have been permissible under Roman law for a master to abuse or even kill his slave, but it was not acceptable under God’s law to do such things. Some might call that slavery in some sense, but what kind of slavery is it that does not allow the master to coerce his slave through violence? It is certainly not Roman slavery. Nor is it like slavery in the American South.

4. The New Testament commands Christians to treat slaves like brothers.

When Paul writes to the slave owner Philemon about his runaway slave Onesimus, he tells him to receive Onesimus “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother. . . . If you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me” (Philem. 16–17).

What kind of slavery is it that tells a master to give up threatening and to treat his slave like his brother? Again, this is not Roman slavery or slavery as in the American South. So, the Bible does not endorse either of those types of slavery. This is something else entirely. And this is why slavery cannot continue where the kingdom of God holds sway. The Bible completely undermines all of the defining features of slavery: kidnapping, coercive violence, and the treatment of people as property instead of as brothers created in the image of God.

5. The Bible encourages slaves to get out of slavery if they can.

First Corinthians 7:21 says, “Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)” If the Bible were endorsing slavery, it would not tell slaves to take opportunities to become free. Yet that is precisely what Paul does.

6. The Bible forbids Christians from voluntarily entering into slavery.

First Corinthians 7:23 states, “You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” This command could not be clearer. If the Bible were endorsing slavery, it would not forbid Christians from becoming slaves.

7. The Bible condemns racism.

As mentioned above, slavery in the NT was not race-based. But slavery in the American South was. The Bible forbids treating others as less than human because of their race. God created humans in his own image—all humans—not just white or black or any other racial group. Because of that, every person—not just some people—has inherent dignity and worth as an image-bearer of Almighty God. For this reason, the diversity of races is not an evil to be abolished but a glory to be celebrated. God intends to gather worshipers for himself from every “tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). And we know that in Christ “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).

In conclusion, the Bible does not endorse slavery nor the evils inherent in slavery. On the contrary, it abolishes them in the name of Jesus. Although the gospel of Jesus Christ does not command us to take up arms in a violent revolution to abolish slavery, it does introduce a new kingdom into the world that will one day overthrow all unjust authorities. And we are called as the church to be an outpost of that coming kingdom. Wherever the church goes, slavery must flee because the kingdom of Christ will not abide unjust authorities.

When the critics assail Scripture, they often make confident assertions about things about which they know very little (1 Tim. 1:7). In this case, when they rail against the Bible’s alleged endorsement of slavery, they are misrepresenting what the Bible actually teaches. Every word of God is pure and good and wise and right for us—including what he says to us about those under the yoke.

Notes:

George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 245.

This article is by Denny Burk and is adapted from ESV Expository Commentary: Isaiah–Ezekiel (Volume 6).