If God himself be for me, / I may a host defy;
for when I pray, before me / My foes, confounded, fly.
If Christ, my head and master, / Befriend me from above,
what foe or what disaster / Can drive me from his love?
—Paul Gerhardt, “If God Himself Be For Me” (TLH 528)
The New Testament Scriptures are replete with imagery of Christians being described as slaves (Greek: douloi) of Christ. For those too squeamish due to modern race-based lies and ressentiment about the estate of slavery in America and its Scriptural basis, a survey through the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) on the matter is a necessary antidote for modern allergies to Godly truths. Key to our survey will be analyses of verses regarding (1) Slavery, (2) War, and (3) Kidnapping, Human Trafficking and Merchants. Only when we read God’s Word on these topics comprehensively with our modernity-colored glasses removed shall we then be able to see and boldly confess Jesus Christ as our Master, ourselves His slaves.
We begin our treatment on the Scriptural matter of slavery first in the Epistle to the Romans written by Saint Paul as inspired by the Holy Spirit. At the close of chapter 7 he writes
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin. For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me.
I find then the principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
v.14-25, Legacy Standard Bible
This passage is an epitome of the conditions of slavery in the antiquity, and therefore also demonstrates the terms in which God chose for His people to conceive of enslavement — to either Him or sin. It will be from these verses in particular that we build up and extrapolate further what are the Biblical conception of slavery and its concomitant conditions, causal and correlative (no.s 2 & 3 above). A word study of each of the bolded phrases will suffice for introduction.
Romans 7:14, Having been sold into bondage – πεπραμένος, pepraménos
This phrase is derived from the Greek verb πιπράσκω, pipráskō, which means to sell into bondage or slavery. We see this verb elsewhere in the New Testament in Matthew 18, when in the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave the slave’s master orders him and his family to be sold before the slave successfully begs for forgiveness despite then going on to earn his unforgiving namesake. In the Septuagint, the verb is used in Leviticus 25:39, Deuteronomy 15:12, Deut. 28:68 all to describe the sale of humans as slaves. (nota bene, the verb is not exclusively used in this sense, and is used elsewhere as merely to sell) We see, then, that connected in the Scriptural account of slavery is the act of commerce associated with the acquisition of slaves. We shall return to this aspect later.
Romans 7:23 Waging war against – ἀντιστρατευόμενον, antistrateuómenon & Making me a captive – αἰχμαλωτίζοντά, aichmalōtízonta
War was a fact of life in antiquity and is ever present today. A common collateral effect of war regarding which modernity has been particularly naïve is that of slaves acquired as bounty or spoils. And yet God’s Word on the matter is clear and honest on this aspect of our fallen world. Indeed, as Saint Paul writes earlier in Romans,
Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
6:16-18, Legacy Standard Bible
That is to say, no matter our condition — saved or unsaved, Christian or heathen — we are irregardless in a state of slavery, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness… though you were slaves of sin… you became slaves of righteousness. As made clearer by Romans 7:23, this condition of slavery, whether to sin or to righteousness, is resulted from whether the law of God in the inner man or the law of sin which is in our members successfully captures us in the war daily waged in the regenerate Christian life between the Old Adam drowned in our baptism and the New Adam, Christ, in Whom our hearts have been circumcised (Colossians 2:11, Romans 2:29).
Saint Paul continues in Romans 6:
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
v.19-23, Legacy Standard Bible
Truly, amen! we are now freed from sin and enslaved to God, … leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. Thanks be to God. But, one might say, aha! Paul is speaking merely in human terms, all this talk of slavery is therefore a mere figure of speech, a matter of expression! Allow me, then, to exegete the phrase
Romans 6:19 I am speaking in human terms – ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, anthrópinon légō
You may first notice that, what was rendered as a six-word phrase in the English is only two words in the Greek. It is truly a wonderful function of the Koine and other ancient Greek dialects to have such a conciseness of expression, and this is possible due to the syntactical-grammatical rules of the language. It is also what allows for opportunities for variated translations depending on the desired emphasis of the translator: For our present purposes, to demonstrate that Saint Paul is not undermining what he goes on to say, but merely framing his statements on Christian slavery to Our Lord.
Anthrópinon légō is a two word phrase comprised of a verb, légō, and an adjective, anthrópinon. Within Greek verbs the subject of the verb can be implicitly expressed, and so therefore with légō we know that it is Saint Paul who is the first person singular subject of the verb at hand. “I am speaking,” “I am saying,” are to thus be translated from légō. The tricky part, then, of the phrase is the adjective anthrópinon. For one, it is a singular adjective, so “terms,” plural, is a bit of a stretch to translate. If anthrópinon is a singular adjective, the question then becomes, what is the singular noun it is coördinately modifying? The answer, in fact, is found also within the verb légō. For verbs in Koine Greek are capable of not only supplying the implied subject, in this case the first person singular “I” referring to Saint Paul, but are also capable of expressing an implicit, cognate direct object. The English translation of the cognate direct object of légō would therefore be “I am speaking a speech,” or “I am saying a saying,” speech or saying being the options to render the cognate direct object of the verb légō. Therefore, applying the adjective anthrópinon to this cognate direct object we get the translation “I am speaking a human speech,” “I am saying a human saying.” What Saint Paul therefore meant by anthrópinon légō is that he was speaking in human terms, i.e, was addressing a core matter about what it means to be human, a son or daughter of Adam. A refined, smoothed out translation for this two-word Greek phrase could therefore be, “Anthropologically speaking.” For Saint Paul is speaking anthropologically because of the weakness of your flesh, i.e, due to our very existence and the weakness of our flesh, which is what it means to be a descendant of Adam, anthropologically speaking,— we must therefore either be slaves to sin or slaves to Christ.
But what of Menstealers, Human Traffickers, Merchants?
A common stumbling block to understanding the doctrine of Christian slavery arises from the supposed condemnation of the institution in 1 Timothy 1:10 by certain mistranslations and erroneous preachings of a Greek word. An accurate translation will read something like
But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and godless, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for sexually immoral persons, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.
v.8-11, Legacy Standard Bible
A cursory look through the handy Biblehub verse comparison search will show the range of translations: enslavers, slave traders, menstealers, and kidnappers. I argue that while the former two options are not necessarily inaccurate, the latter two really get to the heart of the matter and are less susceptible to false preaching. For the translated word here in the original is
1 Timothy 1:10 kidnappers – ἀνδραποδισταῖς, andrapodistaís
The translation kidnapper, or menstealer, for the original Greek andrapodistaís is in fact a translation of a compound noun comprised of two words, andra, “man,” and pous, “foot.” Kidnapper, or menstealer, is a particularly apt translation when it is understood that etymologically andropodistaís means in its most literal sense “one who brings men to their feet.”
So, if being a kidnapper, a menstealer, is one of the examples of ungodly, sinful, unholy and godless types who do not use the Law, what then of the institution of slavery itself? Need the institution be abolished and all its victims emancipated? Surely not, or else Saint Paul would not speak of our fallen anthropological state in such terms and use it to describe our relation to either God or sin, nevertheless God Himself of His people — the Church, Spiritual Israel — as He does in 1 Corinthians 7
You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.
v.23-24, Legacy Standard Bible
Yet this still leaves us with the supposed “problem” as to what exactly is meant by the condemnation of andropodistaís, kidnappers in 1 Timothy. Further context is given elsewhere in the Word, such as Revelation and Ezekiel.
“And the merchants of the earth cry and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo anymore— cargo of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from precious wood and bronze and iron and marble, and cinnamon and amomum and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargo of horses and carriages and human beings and human lives.
18 v.11-13, Legacy Standard Bible
Revelation 18:13 human beings and human lives – σωμάτων καὶ ψυχάς ἀνθρώπων, sōmátōn kaì psuchàs anthrópōn
Here we have another instance of a smoothed-out translation, where the original Greek reflects a much more visceral meaning: sōmátōn kaì psuchàs anthrópōn literally means “bodies and the souls of humans.” Now, Scripture frequently uses the word “soul” to mean one’s life, but the fact that the body itself is commodified by the merchants mourning over fallen Babylon starts to help us shed light upon 1 Timothy 10. Let us continue on to Ezekiel 28,
The word of I AM came again to me, saying, “Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, ‘Thus says Lord I AM,
“Because your heart is lofty
And you have said, ‘I am a god;
I sit enthroned in the seat of gods
In the heart of the seas’;
Yet you are a man and not God,
Although you make your heart like the heart of God—
Behold, you are wiser than Daniel;
There is no secret that is a match for you.
By your wisdom and understanding
You have acquired wealth for yourself
And have acquired gold and silver for your treasuries.
By your great wisdom, by your trade
You have increased your wealth,
And your heart is lofty because of your wealth—Therefore thus says Lord I AM,
‘Because you have made your heart
v.1-10, Legacy Standard Bible, with the mistransliterated tetragrammaton rather translated from the Septuagint’s ἐγώ εἰμί
Like the heart of God,
Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you,
The most ruthless of the nations.
And they will draw their swords
Against the beauty of your wisdom
And defile your splendor.
They will bring you down to the pit,
And you will die the death of those who are slain
In the heart of the seas.
Will you still say, “I am a god,”
In the presence of the one who kills you,
Though you are a man and not God,
In the hands of those who slay you?
You will die the death of the uncircumcised
By the hand of strangers,
For I have spoken!’ declares Lord I AM!”’”
We see in this prophecy just how hand-in-hand with Ithobaal III’s hubristic wisdom went with his trade. Indeed, we are told that by becoming so haughty in his commerce so thus the Phoenician king was able to think himself a god. Among the list of wares mentioned in the preceding chapter that built up his wealth so were the lives of men paid by Javan, Tubal and Meschech (Ezekiel 27:13). A final return to Revelation 13 shall bring the groundwork heretofore laid toward understanding the condemnation of kidnappers in 1 Timothy 1:10 to completion.
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and he was speaking as a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he does great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which were given to him to do in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who *had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, that they be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of man; and his number is 666.
v.11-18, Legacy Standard Bible
In the bolded verses 16-17 we are given further information as to the relation of Antichrist with market forces. Not only is it the evil spirit of Babylon which dominates the merchants of the earth, but all men are made to suffer the mark of the beast in order to make a living.
So, to review, we are given the following information from Scripture:
- Menstealers, kidnappers, human traffickers are condemned in their sin (1 Timothy 1:10)
- The institution of slavery itself is not sin (1 Corinthians 7:23-24)
- The merchants of the earth who mourn Babylon sell cargo of human bodies and souls (Revelation 18:11-13)
- God condemned Ithobaal III king of Tyre for his hubris in calling himself a god, partially on account of his accrued financial prowess through trade (Ezekiel 28:1-10)
- Antichrist brands his mark upon all men in order to live and participate in the economy (Revelation 13:11-18)
To synthesize all these points we must be careful not to overcorrect too much on any single one. It is too easy, for example, to read Revelation 13:11-18 and argue for the abolishment of market economies altogether — which are certainly an inescapable truth of commerce that must rather be reckoned with according to the economic guidance as given us by the Lord elsewhere in Scripture (e.g Leviticus). But it is especially those merchants who mourn Babylon among whose wares are counted human bodies and souls in their most visceral description. Indeed God does not wish to abolish either slavery or market economies, but it is the hubris of men seeking to bring men to their feet in the act of kidnapping and human trafficking that Our Lord especially hates. It is such an abhorrent violation of the Seventh Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Steal, to steal another’s very own person in the act of kidnapping and making a profit off it. Indeed, even those whose main occupation is slave-dealing is fraught with the condemnation of human trafficking — he is unexcused even if his wares of bodies and souls were acquired by war bounty, those having been made captives. For God certainly blesses His people with the bounty, but their being sold is another question altogether.
The sons of Reuben and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, consisting of men of valor, men who bore shield and sword and shot with bow and were learned in the ways of battle, were 44,760, who went out for military duty. They made war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab. They were helped against them, and the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hand; for they cried out to God in the battle, and He was moved by their entreaty because they trusted in Him. They took captive their cattle: their 50,000 camels, 250,000 sheep, 2,000 donkeys; and 100,000 men. For many fell slain, because the war was of God. And they lived in their place until the exile.
1 Chronicles 5 v.18-22, Legacy Standard Bible
A final comment regarding the evils of excess, unrestrained market forces will suffice to close the argument regarding God’s condoning of the institution of slavery and the condemnation of the trading in human bodies and lives. At the start of the discussion the verb πιπράσκω, pipráskō was reviewed as being used in Scripture not only for the sale of humans as slaves but also in the plain sense of “to sell.” This verb, pipráskō, is in fact merely an alternative form of the verb πέρνημι, pérnēmi, also meaning “to sell.” Furthermore, it is from pérnēmi that we get the words πόρνη, pórnē, “prostitute” and πορνεύω, porneúō, “to commit sexual immorality.” While indeed God regulates certain forms of debt slavery within intended contractual limits, permits the purchasing of slaves from the heathen, and blesses His people with the gain of war bounty in His Word, none of this means that He must therefore condone the rampant excesses of the institution of slavery, which entail human trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, and the such. Indeed, Our Lord has His place for hierarchy carefully delineated in His Word, and nowhere in it does He permit true evil to exist. It is in this mature, robust understanding of Scripture that we can confidently confess Christ as our Master, ourselves His slaves.