The Bible and Slavery.

Christianity will always be flawed according to culture and society. Look at the gay issue right now. That is not to say that it is right to compare homosexuality to slavery, although there are certain parallels that can’t be argued with. The difference is it isn’t speculation that someone is black, whereas modern science has yet to really prove that homosexuality is completely genetic.

What I’m getting at is Christianity is an ideal projected by men, whereas the faith that Christianity follows will always be absolute. The Bible says “Heaven and Earth will pass away but the words in these book will not pass until every word has been fulfilled.” That’s not to say that human interpretation can not skew what is absolute.

It takes people who are true believers to see beyond what society has deemed acceptable. Men whose hearts are convicted for whatever reason, to see the truth of the Bible in that Paul says *“There is no Jew or gentile, no man or woman, no slave or free man.”

It took men who were convicted by their own moral draw not dictated or manipulated by society to see that God wished that men who were enslaved by men would be free.

The Bible says “Let those who are slaves be free from their masters and their masters become slaves to Christ.”

For the most part society tried to “interpret” these verses away until men, driven by their belief of equality and love, did something about that to create a positive change in this nation.

Hope that helps.

*My verses are paraphrased.

Yeah true. There’s no way that Homosexuality is genetic though, because there are testimonies of people changing back to heterosexuality. You cannot destroy information in your genome. If I wanted to not have blue eyes, I couldn’t go into my genetic code and destroy that gene.

But I agree with your stance on this.

I have a question on this topic why did God lead his own poeple into slavery

I never thought about that…
In my research on this topic, people always badmouth the Bible and point out the side of G-d saying that the Hebrews could have slaves. They never, not once showed the side of G-d leading his people into slavery because of their sin.

he lead them into Egypt and it was before the law so why

I would say to show his power.
You know the story when Jesus healed the blind dude? People were saying, “what sin did his parents commit that made him blind?” Jesus said it wasn’t sin, but so the power of G-d could be shown through the event of healing.

theloveprophet: There are testimonies of people living heterosexual lives but you can’t actually prove, one way or the other, that they have gone from homosexual to heterosexual, at least not scientifically, but I digress in that I am going completely off topic.

And oneye is absolutely right regarding the Law of Moses.

Well, I’m not a bossy one, so don’t worry about going off topic. Oh and sorry for my attitude towards you in the other post. It won’t happen again.

your on track prophet no one know who God was before that but a few even moses ask who do I say sent me it was after he delivered them the world came to know God

so thinking along them lines do you think God can us slavery to promote a people without it would black Americans be where they are today in this country

Theloveprophet: Now I am curious to know what you mean by “the other post.” I am not easily offended, as a matter of fact I like to see the sh!t hit the fan. It’s in my nature. :D

I want to hear your thoughts prophet I put my head on the chopping block by saying black Americans may not be were they are without first being slaves

God sent his people to be slaves in Egypt as punishment for their sins. When the right time came, he used the situation to show his power and love for them and brought them up out of slavery through all the miracles of the plagues and the red sea parting. He used these things in an attempt to keep them from turning away from him again. Through these struggles, Israel was able to become a great nation eventually.

for their sin their was no law at the point he lead them in to egypt how did they know what was sin

They knew of sin before then. Adam and Eve committed the first sin and ever since then man struggled with sin. God even destroyed the world due to the sinful man, and spared only Noah and his family. After the flood was over. Noah offered sacrifices to God. Sacrifices in the old testament were a symbol your sins being taken away by the death of that animal.

I think your right in what your saying but I do not beleive he lead them into slavery to punish them

If you look throughout the old testament God punished the Israelites many times for turning away from him. In fact he made them slaves a second time by the Persian and Babylon empires because they turned to foreign gods. Read 2 Chronicles 36:15 and on. Because of there actions, ”... the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. God brought up against them the King of the Babylonians.”

but before egypt they only know one God the God of jacob I do know the bible inside and out but I want poeple to think out side the box stop try to put God in a box

most people think he lead them to egypt because of the famine

oneye1, I’m not trying to put “God in a box”. I’m just expressing my opinion on the matter. And I don’t understand the claim that they only knew one God. The God of Jacob is the same as the God in the new testament. There were many gods back then, the egyptians themselves had numerous gods. And by turning on God you don’t necessarily have to join a different religion. You could be putting yourself before God, and just fail to believe in him altogether. Again oneye1, just an opinion, I’m not demanding you believe everything I say.

I’m not saying there were no other gods if you look back the one true God Jesus’s daddy was called the God of Jacob before egypt only Jacob’s family know him and I can tell you know the bible I’m just saying God uses things like slavery for a much bigger plan after he delivered them the whole world know who God was because he rased egypt up made them the greatest nation on earth at that time all eyes were on egypt then God delivered his people

I agree with you. And speaking of that, have you seen all those pictures that divers have found at the red sea crossing of chariot wheels, and the bones of horses and people. It is pretty wild that they have found the exact place where the Israelites crossed out of Egypt.

ya it is are you in the service

No, but my father is.

tell him thanks for me and thank you

Thank you, I really appreciate that. I will.

and keep studying the word you find something new everytime

Don’t look just at the Bible; look at how both slave owners and abolitionists used what the Bible says to argue over whether slavery was right or wrong. There’s a lot more historical value in that, and it really illuminates the current wrangle over gay people—you can almost draw direct parallels.

Yeah. Like Ephesians 6:9, 1 Timothy 6:1, and Luke 12:47. Those are all scriptures that deal with slavery.

Some of my Rhetoric suggests that the Greek words that closest describe our word for slave are still too different.
The Greek words describe a household servant or a slave captured in war. They don’t describe someone who was captured and mistreated because they were black…
Therefore, the writers of the Bible couldn’t have condemned slavery as the colonials practiced it because they didn’t even have a word for it.

Technically, the Israelites weren’t led into Egypt as slaves. Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, eventually (through God’s favor), becoming the second most powerful man in Egypt. It was due to his position as Pharaoh’s right hand man that he was able to bring his family into Egypt, saving the budding Israelite tribe as well as all of Egypt from starvation. As he said upon his reconciliation with his brothers, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.”

It wasn’t until generations later, when the Egyptians had forgotten how the once-enslaved Israelite had saved their nation, that they enslaved the Jews.

The evil in the world isn’t due to God’s malevolence, but man’s.

Thank you. G-d worked within the fallen system that man will forever regret inventing…

@poser so God lead them to egypt to feed they my question is after he delivered them where did they get their food from for the next 40 years

I don’t think I understand the question. Forty years from when?

after God lead them out of egypt

According to Biblical accounts, God sent them manna and quail.

Notice to all oneye1 has been booted and says by to Fluther and to pass on to Poster, “if He fed them after why would he need to lead them in to begin with?” Read prior post for my theory. God’s more concerned with the redemption of the world than the comfort of the world.

I’m surprised nobody has mention the book of Philemon yet.

could you elaborate?

The book of Philemon is written by Paul to a slave-owner named Philemon (a Christian) on behalf of Onesimus, a slave who had run away from Philemon to escape punishment. Onesimus had converted to Christianity through Paul. Paul points out the incongruity of Christianity with slavery. Philemon accepts Onesimus and frees him.

No piece of art or writing can be separated from the time and place of its creation. In the days that the books of the Bible were written, slavery was an accepted practice in most parts of the world, and the vast majority of slaves were spoils of war. The racial slavery of the US didn’t happen until the late 1600s, when plantation owners (who were usually in their states’ legislatures as well) came up with chattel slavery as a way to get cheap labor for their vast properties.

It was easier to use black people because they were darker and wouldn’t blend in with the white population as runaway Scots-Irish indentured servants could. Further, they were already exposed to the diseases of the Old World and wouldn’t die off in the numbers that the non-exposed indigenous population had. The first Africans brought here to Virginia by the English weren’t slaves, either, but indentured servants.

Look up the curse of Ham, which is a story in the book of Genesis about Noah and his son Ham and what those shenanigans were about; this story was used in justification for the enslavement of Africans based on the color of their skin. Funny, that same Bible has the Lord himself striking Moses’ sister Miriam with leprosy for making fun of Moses’ Ethiopian wife. I imagine the slaveowners tended to skip over that bit.

Pretty much since the beginning of time slavery has been an acceptable practice. I’m not saying its necesarry in modern times, but in the bible slaves were a common thing. Even outside of moses, you see many references to the slave boy or the slave girl. In many cases people actually sold themselves into slavery because it was just a comfortable life. They never had to worry about food or having a place to stay or having to learn a trade. Most people were very happy like this.