A lot of truth gets confused in people's heads because of a stigma. For instance, the idea I proposed in my last blog about everyone being a slave to one thing or another. A person can look at that, think of the value they place on freedom because of the country they are in; think then of the contrast, the embarrassingly awful form of slavery that the country that called itself "free" was found guilty of not-so-long ago. After these thoughts, it's easy for a person to convince him or her self that the biblical passages that refer to slavery are archaic or even barbaric. If a person is a Christian already, perhaps an idea such as slavery has become ignored due to the discomfort in addressing it. Many Christians will replace "slave" with "servant" in order that images of abused Africans are not so easily aroused in the western mind.
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)
The Israelites were not historically a slave society (in legislation not in practice).
"Guterbock refers to 'slaves in the strict sense,' apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning 'servant' seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation 'semi-free'. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active." --[HI:HANEL:1.632]
Cultural anthropologists also point out that New World Slavery is historically unique.
"Scholars do not agree on a definition of "slavery." The term has been used at various times for a wide range of institutions, including plantation slavery, forced labor, the drudgery of factories and sweatshops, child labor, semivoluntary prostitution, bride-price marriage, child adoption for payment, and paid-for surrogate motherhood. Somewhere within this range, the literal meaning of "slavery" shifts into metaphorical meaning, but it is not entirely clear at what point. A similar problem arises when we look at other cultures. The reason is that the term "Slavery" is evocative rather than analytical, calling to mind a loose bundle of diagnostic features. These features are mainly derived from the most recent direct Western experience with slavery, that of the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The present Western image of slavery has been haphazardly constructed out of the representations of that experience in nineteenth-century abolitionist literature, and later novels, textbooks, and films...From a global cross-cultural and historical perspective, however, New World slavery was a unique conjunction of features...In brief, most varieties of slavery did not exhibit the three elements that were dominant in the New World: slaves as property and commodities; their use exclusively as labor; and their lack of freedom..." --[NS:ECA:4:1190f]
Clearly, if we are not careful, we can allow to-day's over-distortions of ideas to paint over scripture with a meaning that isn't there. It was evidently commonplace for the servant of an Israelite to decide to stay that way. Especially after so many years of being a servant, a deep relationship is formed between servant and master. There have been some cases in fact, where the servant is elevated to more importance to a family that the children of that house. I'll get back to that in a second.
One thing I notice is that in Genesis 24, in the story of Isaac and Rebecka, (which I will revisit in a later blog you should keep an eye out for) there is a servant depicted throughout. The servant is commonly named Eliezer, meaning "helper" or "God of help," due to the fact that 60 years before the account, Eliezer was Abraham's servant. He MAY have had a different servant by that time. This servant is a servant TO THE CORE. Think less like a farmer's slave, and more like a rich person's butler. He is even trusted by Abraham to go all the way to his homeland to pick up chicks for his son.*
*He also trusted him to "put your hand under my thigh." [Genesis 24:1-4] Some master-servant relationships were REAALLLY close. XD
If you haven't read the blog I wrote just prior to this, you should probably read it before proceeding. I'll wait.
C'mon, hurry up.
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Ready now? Ugh, fine.
Zzzzzz...huh? Alright, where was I?
Oh yes.
So....
As the popular saying goes, "God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way."
This means that in order to become a servant to the benevolent Lord, there is no pretense, no amount of "goodness" you have to achieve before "deserving" it. The sort of transference into "goodness" happens after you've started following God's will, and it happens because you are following God's will. "Goodness" is following God's will. Any moral standard you had in your head beforehand is good and all, but you'll find it's been incomplete and baseless, and much of the time very difficult to motivate yourself properly to achieve.
Nothing you do earns you any right into Heaven (which I have called repeatedly in my blogs "Home;" this is what I am referring to). If you lived a perfect life without sin, hypothetically, you would not have any right into heaven because of it. Housing there is on invite-only. Graciously, everyone's invited. Obviously, not everyone is willing to leave their malicious masters.
In C.S. Lewis's "A Great Divorce" he depicts a bus full of people who went to Hell, who were transported to Heaven to have a look. They were invited to leave their luggage behind; their vices, addictions, selfishness and so on and come to live in there instead. Except for one sex-sinner, every last person made the same decision they made on Earth in their lives: the unwillingness to let go of the "selves" that made them miserable. In the end, it is not really God who "sends" people to Hell, but it is He who learns they will not follow Him into Heaven. He relents and gives them what they think they want, instead of what they really would want, should they see any reason into it.
"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth), we shall not see Heaven. If we accept Heaven, we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned was precisely nothing; that the kernel of what he was really seeking, even in his most depraved wishes will be there - beyond expectation - waiting for him in 'the High Countries.'" --[http://www.jknirp.com/lewis6.htm]
Now, God doesn't just leave us as slaves either. The Bible teaches us that we are to be elevated to His sons and daughters! We are called not just into a master-servant relationship, but a parent-child relationship. This has huge ramifications. It implies a lot about why God might Love in a corrective manner rather than in the manner of passive adoration, as some would have you believe. It means that God is actively conditioning in each of us the traits of His family: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control. Have you ever had someone tell you that they can tell you're a part of your family because of some behavior or mannerism that is similar to another relative? In our Father's family, the greatest trait people can find in you that would indicate that you are a part of it is Love.
"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry "Abba! Father!" It is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." --[Romans 8:15-19]
This is a fact, that I don't deserve to be a son of God and yet God sent his son down to taste death at the hands of his enemies so that in the wholeness of God's selfless love, I should become a son of God myself. this fact brings me to such a gratitude that humbles me out of my pride and gives me confidence beyond all fears.
--J.m. Gatewood
Christian
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