1. What kind of slave owner was Philemon?

2. SLAVE
A person recruited, transported or compelled to work by force, fraud or coercion. Victims cannot leave on their own will.

3. The Bible seems to allow it.

4. The Bible seems to allow it.
O.T. – No objection.
N.T. – No command to release.

5. The Bible seems to allow it.
O.T. – No objection.
N.T. – No command to release.
Does the Bible approve something that seems so obviously wrong?

6. The Bible seems to allow it.
O.T. – No objection.
N.T. – No command to release.
Does the Bible approve something that seems so obviously wrong?
Hebrew – “Eved” – servant 46 time in O.T.
KJV always servant except Jer. 2:14.

7. The Bible seems to allow it.
O.T. – No objection.
N.T. – No command to release.
Does the Bible approve something that seems so obviously wrong?
Hebrew – “Eved” – servant 46 time in O.T.
KJV always servant except Jer. 2:4.
Greek “Doulos” – servant; always translated servant in KJV.

8. Why does NT seam to approve slavery?

9. Why does NT seam to approve slavery?
It doesn’t.

10. Why does NT seam to approve slavery?
It doesn’t.
God can allow something
without approving it.

11. Polygamy – allowed in OT.
Mark 10: 5-8

12. Polygamy – allowed in OT.
Mark 10: 5-8
Eph. 5 – Paul compares the husband/wife relationship to church.

13. Polygamy – allowed in OT.
Mark 10: 5-8
Eph. 5 – Paul compares the husband/wife relationship to church.
I Tim. 3: 2; Titus 1: 6 - Elders must be husbands of 1 wife.

14. Divorce

15. Divorce
Mal. 2:16 – God hates it.

16. Divorce
Mal. 2:16 – God hates it.
Matt. 19: 8-9 – God allowed it.

17. Slavery during Roman times
Represented 20-50% of population.
2 major ways to become a slave
Conquest 2/3
Bond servant 1/3

18. Major premise Not the purpose of the Gospel.
May not benefit the slave.
To release that many would be catastrophic!

19. Slavery of America Began 1619
11 million kidnapped, imprisoned, transported by ship.
Major driver – Sugar & cotton.
All slaves were African (black). “Barbarity” indefensible.

20. Eye Witness Account…
Olaudah Equiano

21. Alexander Falconbridge, Surgeon
“It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation to itself more dreadful or disgusting.”

22. Little or no regulation.
Slaves sold like cattle (usually stripped naked).
Families separated.
Treated as subspecies.
Clearly slavery in American was different from Biblical times.

23. Differences of Slavery America vs. Bible
Exodus 21: 16
He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or it be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

24. Differences of Slavery America vs. Bible
Exodus 21: 16
He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or it be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
Exodus 21: 27
And if he smite out his man-servant’s tooth, or his maid-servant’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.

25. Deut. 23: 15-16
A runaway slave could stay with his new master.

26. Deut. 23: 15-16
A runaway slave could stay with his new master.
I Tim. 1: 10 – menstealers (ASV); kidnappers (NASV) – condemned by Paul as lawless, unrighteous, sinners.

27. You have to ignore a lot of plain teaching to say slavery as we know it is not condoned by God!
Matt. 7: 12 – “Golden Rule”
Phil. 2: 3-4 – …esteem others better than himself.
Gal. 5: 22 – …fruit of the Spirit…

28. How Did Change Occur? Pennsylvania Quakers 1745. Seeds of change.
I Tim. 1:10 – menstealers KJV
I Cor. 7: 21 – KJV …but it thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
Gal. 3: 28

29. William Wilberforce – M.P.
1786 to 1806 with
John Newton

30. In America, about 60 years later in 1863, Emancipation Proclamation.
At a cost of over 600,000 lives.

31. If you pull the church out of the whole equation, it's highly likely that there never would have been a Civil War.
Harry Stout, Prof. History, Yale

32. SLAVERY TODAY

33. SLAVERY TODAY
21-40 million

34. SLAVERY TODAY
21-40 million
Greed – $150 billion industry

35. SLAVERY TODAY
21-40 million
Greed – $150 billion industry
US – 400,000

36. SLAVERY TODAY 21-40 million Greed – $150 billion industry US – 400,000
Marginalized groups usually

37. There has always been slaves.

38. There has always been slaves.
Slavery is an abomination.

39. There has always been slaves.
Slavery is an abomination.
There is nothing remotely “Christian” about it.

40. There has always been slaves.
Slavery is an abomination.
There is nothing remotely “Christian” about it.
It ignores the dignity of the individual and takes away all basic human rights. It is driven by green with reckless abandon of right and wrong and the word of God.

41. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
Letter to Albert Hodges (April 4, 1864)

43. So what kind of slave owner was Philemon?

44. We are ALL to be servants of God.
Paul – Rom. 1: 1; Tit. 1: 1
James - Jam. 1:1

45. Luke 17: 10
So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say we are unworthy slaves, we have done only that which we aught to have done.