# Slaves trying to gain their freedom



## Pergamum (Mar 7, 2014)

Is it just for a slave to run away from his master?


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## Edward (Mar 7, 2014)

What does scripture say?


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## yeutter (Mar 7, 2014)

If I read Philemon correctly, the answer is no.


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## py3ak (Mar 7, 2014)

Running away may not be just, but harboring runaways appears to be: Deuteronomy 23:15.


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## Jack K (Mar 7, 2014)

Wouldn't the circumstances of the slavery enter into the answer? For example, a person captured and forced into slavery by an act of war or kidnapping would seem justified to fight back, which might include running away. At what point, if any, does he cease to be a prisoner of war or a crime victim and start being the sort of slave who's morally bound to obey his master? It's a complicated question requiring an analysis of the particular situation in light of the whole of Scripture.


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## Matthew1344 (Mar 8, 2014)

Yeah what about sex trafficking. It seems crazy to say "they are not allowed to escape. They must continue to be raped 95 times every day".


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## Pergamum (Mar 8, 2014)

Man-stealers are condemned. This would seem to prohibit any participation in the slave-trade from Africa whatsoever. Also, Christian masters are instructed not to abuse their power over their slaves (Colossians 4:1). What constitutes a "lawful use of power" versus "abuse of power" however?

Christian slaves seem to be encouraged to obtain their freedom, if possible (1 Corinthians 7:17-24). However, if they are not able to obtain their freedom then they are to submit to their masters and trust God with the results (Colossians 3:22-25, I Peter 2:18-25). 

-Would an American slave in the South have sinned if he escaped and used the Underground Railroad north? Was Spartacus and his slave revolt just? If captured in war in Africa and sold onto a slave ship, would it be okay to mutiny and escape? Would it be permitted to do physical harm if some tried to prevent your escape (in the name of self-defense)?


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## earl40 (Mar 8, 2014)

Depends on how a "slave" is defined.


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## earl40 (Mar 8, 2014)

yeutter said:


> If I read Philemon correctly, the answer is no.



Onesimus was probably not a slave as the slaves were in the civil war, really not sure here BTW. I doubt Paul advocated slavery at all, in the civil war sense, and I suspect he expected Philemon be be set free and he did so in love. In my most humble opinion if they did not do such he would have commanded them to do such.


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## Matthew1344 (Mar 9, 2014)

In my most humble opinion what does this mean?


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## Edward (Mar 9, 2014)

In my most humble opinion In my most humble opinion (as opposed to In my humble opinion - In my humble opinion). Used when one wants to pontificate and knows that there is no factual basis for the opinion expressed. 

See the Urban Dictionary here: Urban Dictionary: In my most humble opinion 
and for In my humble opinion here: Urban Dictionary: In my humble opinion


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## Pergamum (Mar 9, 2014)

earl40 said:


> yeutter said:
> 
> 
> > If I read Philemon correctly, the answer is no.
> ...



It would seem the slave-owners in the American South were involved in the sin of man-stealing. But I think I remember reading about some justifications based on slaves being born into slave families (i.e. not bought or sold, but born as slaves), and I want to know what the bible's prohibition against man-stealing says about those born into slavery, too.

I know many state that biblical slavery was more like "indentured servitude" rather than the "chattel slavery" of the American South, but can someone give me the evidences of this?


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## Free Christian (Mar 9, 2014)

Im amazed at how much slavery still goes on today. And in western civilised cultures too! It is reported, factually, that in London alone today there are thousands of slaves being held! That slavery was abolished or stopped and a thing of a dark past is just an illusion, it still goes on the world over.


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## Pergamum (Mar 9, 2014)

Brett: Wherever slavery exists and in whatever numbers it is a tragedy, but I think the "modern-day slavery" issue is over-hyped. The Roman Empire had 50-60 million true slaves and the American South had many as well.


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## Mushroom (Mar 9, 2014)

My limited understanding of Biblical slavery was that those of the House of Israel could sell themselves and their families into slavery for a limited period of seven years, to be extended only by mutual agreement and signified by an awl through the ear. There were slaves taken in battle or bought of heathen nations that were regarded differently. 

How that would apply today through the principle of general equity I'm not sure. It seems likely that nobody, whether impressed or born into slavery, would consider it anything other than theft of their existence, if it was anything other than willing servitude. And there are different types of slavery. Debt, tax, conscription, and incarceration slavery come quickly to mind. Is it appropriate for Christians to pursue freedom from those types as well? The American founders thought so, and strangely, many Christians advocate subservience and submission to the magistrates in that nation who have subverted the emancipations those forefathers fought for and won. Funny, none of them ever offered me an awl...


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## Edward (Mar 9, 2014)

Pergamum said:


> and the American South had many as well.



Not sure why you want to limit it to the South. Stripping out the slaves in Delaware, Kansas, and Nebraska, but leaving in the border states (since I'm not sure where you want to draw the line) the 1860 numbers show 3,948,713 slaves. In NO state did more than half the families own slaves, in only 5 states did more than a third of the families own slaves.


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## Andres (Mar 10, 2014)

Pergamum said:


> earl40 said:
> 
> 
> > yeutter said:
> ...



A large factor would be how the master/owner treated the slaves. If I had a master that was beating, raping, murdering my family, as regularly occurred with black slaves in the U.S. in the 19th century, then you better believe that I am going to do everything in my power to get my family out of there, including running away.


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## Free Christian (Mar 10, 2014)

Hello Pergamum. I wonder, what defines a "true slave"? Is there a slave that is not a "true slave". Say, the children taken from their families in Africa to work against theirs and their families will or those in other countries, today, as opposed to those who were slaves in the Roman times and Americas slave period and elsewhere in the past? Are those of today not as "truer" slaves as they were? Apart from it being then and then it being now I cannot see any difference!


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## timmopussycat (Mar 10, 2014)

Pergamum said:


> I know many state that biblical slavery was more like "indentured servitude" rather than the "chattel slavery" of the American South, but can someone give me the evidences of this?



Biblically the indentured servitude provisions applied to Hebrew slaves of Hebrew masters. A man could sell himself into servitude but he would be released in the jubilee unless he wanted to stay with his master. See Deut. 15:12-18.


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## Free Christian (Mar 10, 2014)

According to the 2013 Global slavery Index there are 29.8 million slaves in the world today. That's more than the entire population of Australia which is around 23 million.


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## Pergamum (Mar 11, 2014)

Brett:

While human-trafficking and unjust contracts are awful, it was only recently that these things began to be classified also under the category "slavery" as a means of raising awareness against these practices (_*"HEY! Slavery STILL exists!*_) Many of the "modern-day slavery" websites readily admit, "though the forms of slavery have changed over the years...." before they begin to speak of the present "epidemic" of slavery that still exists. 

In the past, in addition to the horrors of true slavery, there also existed child-brides, child labor, forced inmate labor, unfair contracts, forced prostitution, etc., but these were not usually named as "slavery." In the Roman Empire alone at the time of Christ there was an estimated 50-60 true slaves, and that at a time when world population was much smaller. Today, if we accept estimates of 30 million currently-existing slaves, that is a mere fraction of what it used to be. Even if we broaden the definition of slavery to include so many other evil things as well (things that are, indeed evil, but are not exactly slavery in the historical sense of the word) it is still accurate to summarize the last hundred years of world history as seeing slavery eliminated as a common-place social institution.

I would prefer to speak of child child labor with the term "child labor" and human-trafficking with the term "human-trafficking."

Several websites mention Third World employees who subsist without "a safety net" or "job security" or "who are forced to work for meager wages" as being "slaves". While these things are awful, every awful thing is not slavery. Broadening the definition too broadly trivializes the term.

Here is an Al Jazeera article about modern slavery: Slavery: A 21st century 'epidemic' - Inside Story - Al Jazeera English 

Here is another article as to why we should be cautious to dub things as "slavery": On Trafficking and Slavery | Springtide Resources


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## Free Christian (Mar 11, 2014)

Is then a child taken from its home and forced to work then a child labourer? Not forced into slavery? So am I right in thinking that you don't consider a stolen child forced to work and live somewhere else as a slave? Or someone forced to work in prostitution then a forced prostitute not a sex slave? That the numbers from years gone by were more makes the crime no less abhorrent today. It may well have been much much more but 29 mill is no small number. Ill ask again, what do you define as "true slaves"? As opposed to stolen children and others forced to do things and held against their true will? And forced into slavery!
I have no doubt that many of the millions in the past could have been re-categorized as they are today that were once then seen generally as a slave. Perhaps it was/is the modern day act of calling slavery something else, child labourer or sex worker that is the thing amiss making the fact that they are simply slaves look like they are not. Your opening post said "is it just for a slave to run away from its master". What then type of slave are you referring to? Or did you mean "was" it just. Is, implying present tense, was, implying past.


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## Pergamum (Mar 11, 2014)

Brett:

Maybe we can start another thread comparing/contrasting human trafficking and slavery. 

What I had in mind was legal slavery that was done in the open and was a commonplace social institution in the Roman Empire and the American South. Regarding the OP, it would seem a common-sense answer that anyone kidnapped ought to try to gain their freedom. But less clear-cut is the morality of slaves trying to acquire their freedom when they are bought and sold legally under the laws of their land or common social institutions of their own day.

In Roman slavery and for slaves in the American South, the buying and selling was done in markets (in the open), bills of sale were made, slaves were legal property, laws of the land and governing documents accepted slavery as a fact, and courts protected the rights of slave-holders over their "property."


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## Free Christian (Mar 11, 2014)

Hi Pergamum. This threads fine by me, but if you feel the need to open a new one by all means do so, I don't mind either way. 
With the children. You say they are just Child labourers, "a child labourer is a child labourer", not classified as slaves. But I wonder how that differs from them and those who were the so called "true slaves" in America. The ones in Americas past were stolen and forced into servitude, as were their descendants. As so are the children today and no one can tell me there is any difference in that! Is it that you define a slave, not as the original stolen person forced into servitude (slavery by my standards), but their descendants that were born as one? So the original slaves in America were not slaves, the first arrivals, they were instead human traffic or adult labourers but their offspring became slaves? So if the children today are stolen, in the same way, they are really child labourers but their offspring will become slaves?


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