SHORTCUT TO WEEK 1: DAY 1 - DAY 2 - DAY 3 - DAY 4 - DAY 5
WEEK 4 - DAY 4
Read Ephesians 6:5-9
Some things that really stuck out to me as important from this passage are:
A truth in this passage that I will reflect on all day today is:
Why is it important for me to reflect on this truth from question 2 all day?
Some things today I didn’t understand from this passage are:
It is obvious that with the teachings of Jesus it is impossible to say that slavery is acceptable. You need to look no further than in Matthew 7:12 when Jesus said, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” or the second great command in Mark 12:31 where Jesus says, “Love you neighbor as yourself.” These easily place slavery as an impossible reality for anyone that is seeking Jesus and not something that is supported by Christianity. But this passage seems to be addressing the reality of slavery. So what is going on?
Slavery in Paul's day was different than the American slavery we know. It was not racial, and it was not always lifelong. It has been estimated that there were 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. They didn't just do menial work, they did it all. Everything from oversight to management. Some slaves were even more educated than their owners. Slaves could own property and were allowed to buy their freedom. No slave class existed, for slaves were present in all but the highest economic and social strata. I feel it is important to show that slavery in Rome was much different than American slavery. People became slaves for many different reasons: by birth, parental abandonment, captivity in war, or inability to pay debts.
This passage is addressing a present reality, not supporting a system. Paul is seeking to blow up and explode the system of slavery, but he has a unique and powerful approach to doing that. Paul wrote the book of Philemon that is about a runaway slave named Onesimus. Onesimus himself was a slave when he was converted. Paul sent him back to Philemon who had been his master and was a Christian, and he said, "I am sending him back as a brother. Honor him." I think that kind of spiritual dynamic is intended to explode the system.
Another thing to explode the system is when Paul says to masters in our passage today, "Do not threaten them, remembering that you too have a master." So he puts the command of neighborly love and do unto others as you would have them do unto you—in the place of the right of the master to threaten. And if you don't threaten, what do you do? You win by love, and that transforms slavery into employment.
Paul’s tactic of blowing up the sinful elements of slavery is the same as Jesus’ tactic for blowing up sin’s power over the world. To go into the system, live incarnate among the people, and allow the gospel to transform lives until sin and also by relation slavery, no longer has power or place in this world.
What do you think about Paul and God’s approach to abolish slavery in the 1st Century?