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The “Telephone Game” Myth: Has the New Testament Been Changed Over Time?
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The “Telephone Game” Myth: Has the New Testament Been Changed Over Time?
*** If you prefer, there is a short version of this article on my church’s website here.***
It seems everyone has an opinion about Jesus. Some say he was a wise, moral man; some say he was a myth; some say he was God in the flesh.
But first, how do we even know about Jesus? This seems like a pretty basic question, but before we can answer who Jesus ain’t, we need to understand how we know about him in the first place.
We learn about specific people in the past by documentation, by records that bear witness to that person’s life, and sometimes other archaeological evidence. Obviously, the farther back in history we go, the more difficult it is to prove the existence of a particular person, even someone as famous and powerful as a king or emperor, let alone a poor rabbi from the backwaters of the Roman empire.
So, why is it so hard to conclusively prove the existence of a person from ancient times, even someone as famous and influential as Alexander the Great or Caesar Augustus? First, empirical science is little help; even if we had the assumed body of the ancient person, it’s not like there’s a DNA database we can reference.
Further, there are two types of science: empirical and forensic. Empirical science is used to study present, repeatable events. These events can be replicated in studies and witnessed through our senses. Empirical science doesn’t help us with historical events because those events cannot be repeated. For instance, we can’t use empirical science to prove the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the other hand, forensic science is used to study past, unrepeatable events. With forensic science, one must look at evidence and use logic to draw conclusions. Forensic science is used in archaeology, criminal investigations, cryptology (the study of codes), and even SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
In proving the existence of a historical figure, it all comes down to documentation – historical records. Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus lived before the invention of the printing press and the modern information age. Ancient manuscripts were written on papyrus, made from plant reeds, which lasted only about 10 years before falling apart. Later, ancient manuscripts were written on parchment or vellum, both made from animal skins, which could last much longer than papyrus but were still fragile.
Additionally, a shortage of ancient manuscripts can be partially blamed on the many conflicts and wars of ancient times. Fire was a common weapon for ancient armies. For example, the ancient library of Alexandria, Egypt was renowned for its collection of manuscripts but much of the library was destroyed during several conflicts. Because of the lack of modern means of copying and saving information, sadly, many ancient manuscripts have been lost to us forever.
When we turn to the New Testament, the ancient records about Jesus, we find the individual “books” that compose the New Testament have survived remarkably well compared to other ancient manuscripts.
THE SOURCES
To start, let’s compare the sources for our information about Jesus to sources for two other famous ancient people: Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus. Interestingly, no one raises questions about whether Alexander the Great or Caesar Augustus existed like they do about Jesus, but, as we’ll see, the sources for our information about Jesus compare extremely well against the sources for these two other famous men from ancient times.
Furthermore, Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus were rulers and conquerors of great empires — the most powerful, famous men of their time period — the exact type of persons ancient historians wrote about. The fact that we know anything today about a rabbi from Nazareth is incredible.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
We have two sources for our information about Alexander the Great. Both of these sources were written about 400 years after Alexander the Great lived.
CAESAR AUGUSTUS
We have five sources that give us the information we know about Caesar Augustus. One is a funeral writing, written at his death. One was written 50-100 years after his death. The last three were written 100-200 years after his death.
JESUS OF NAZARETH
For Jesus, we have four sources — the four Gospels found in the New Testament, each individually investigated, each containing both complementary and unique information. The four Gospels were written 25-60 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, which means within the lifetime of those who knew Jesus and witnessed his ministry. (Jesus was crucified in about 30-33 AD, and all of the Gospels were written before 100 AD.) Two of the Gospels – Matthew and John – were written by two of Jesus’ actual original twelve disciples, where the other two – Mark and Luke – were written by disciples of Jesus’ original apostles, Paul and Peter. This means the four sources we have for knowing about Jesus’ life come from eyewitnesses.
Further, we also have Paul’s letters, which are collected in the New Testament, which attest to Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, and deity. The majority of Paul’s letters, historians agree, were written before the four Gospels.
EARLY CREEDS
Historians also agree that Paul recorded several creeds of the early church that existed before he wrote them down in his letters. The earliest is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
This creed is widely accepted by scholars as being dated – at most! – two to five years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Even atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Ludemann believes the creed was created before the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to Paul. Further, some scholars believe the creed appeared within months of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Another early creed appears in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)
THE MANUSCRIPTS
But what about actual physical manuscripts – I mean, manuscripts we can actually hold in our hands and read with our own eyes today. Since we already covered how perishable these ancient manuscripts were, how many have survived until this day?
First, because of the fragileness of ancient manuscripts, as far as we know, no original ancient manuscripts have survived to this day. Meaning, we don’t have the actual first manuscripts written in the hands of the New Testament authors – or any other originals from any other ancient writers for that matter. These ancient writings have survived through the tedious work of scribes, who copied them by hand to preserve these important works for future generations. We do have actual ancient manuscripts that have survived until today, but just not the originals.
So, how does the New Testament compare to other ancient manuscripts?
For Aristotle, we have 49 ancient manuscripts.
For Sophocles, we have 193 ancient manuscripts.
For Plato’s tetralogies, we have 7 ancient manuscripts.
For Homer’s The Iliad, we have 643 ancient manuscripts.
For the New Testament, we have about 5,686 ancient manuscripts in the original Greek, either in part or in whole. Plus, there are about 9,000 other ancient manuscripts of the New Testament books in other languages.
The earliest ancient manuscript piece of the New Testament we have today is a fragment from the Gospel of John (18:31-33, 37-38). This fragment was found in Egypt and has been dated about 125-130 AD, but could be as early as 90 AD. The dating puts it within 40 years of the original writing of the Gospel of John, and the fragment shows that the Gospel had spread as far as Egypt in that short period!
New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce wrote, “There is better evidence for the New Testament than any other ancient book.”
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
Because of this wealth of manuscripts, scholars can easily compare the ancient New Testament manuscripts through a process called textual criticism and easily identify errors and variants made by the scribes. Expectantly, the scribes, who copied texts by hand, were not perfect, but most mistakes are nothing to be concerned about. The vast majority are spelling mistakes or other simple copying mistakes (like omitting or adding small words or reversing the order of words), which have no effect on how the New Testament is understood.
Often skeptics try to portray the passing on of the New Testament over time like the Telephone Game that you may have played in school as a child. In the Telephone Game, someone whispers a sentence into someone’s ear, and then the second person whispers the sentence into another person’s ear, and so on down the line. When the last person receives the sentence, he says it out loud for all to hear. In the vast majority of cases, the sentence is severely corrupted and changed by the time it reaches the end of the line. But this analogy is downright inaccurate. Anyone who claims this is how the New Testament was passed on to us today is basing that belief on assumption and not research, and they’re illustrating their ignorance of textual criticism.
Instead of thinking of the passing on of the New Testament as a straight telephone line, think of it as a family tree with many branches giving birth to many more branches. A family tree spreads in many directions as it multiplies; it doesn’t move in a straight line. Thus, if one branch becomes corrupted, the many other branches will not be corrupted in the same way.
Further, the Telephone Game analogy utterly fails because the message is only whispered and it cannot be repeated. The New Testament, on the other hand, is a written document; it can be reread and rechecked.
To sum up, the Telephone Game has only one line of transmission; the message is only whispered; and repeating is not allowed. On the other hand, the New Testament was passed on through many lines of transmission; it was written; and, therefore, it can be reread, examined, and compared.
From the Gospel of John (18:31-33, 37-38) – Dated 90AD-130AD
Hey, Here’s a Helpful Illustration
Imagine we had five ancient manuscripts and we notice variations among all five of them in the same sentence. This sounds like a big problem, but see if you can pick which line is the original:
- Christ Jesus is the Savior of the world.
- Jesus Christ is the Savior of the word.
- Jesus is the Savior of the word.
- Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
- Jesus Christ is Savior of the world.
Highlighting and underlining the differences between each sentence will help us narrow the choices down:
- Christ Jesus is the Savior of the world.
- Jesus Christ is the Savior of the word.
- Jesus [Missing: Christ] is the Savior of the word.
- Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
- Jesus Christ is [Missing: the] Savior of the world.
First, we can conclude that the original sentence started with “Jesus Christ,” since only Sentence #1 starts with “Christ Jesus.” Likewise, we can easily conclude Sentence #3 should include the word “Christ” and Sentence #5 should include the word “the” since all the others do.
Notice none of these variations so far affect the meaning of the sentence. Though we don’t show this in this illustration, let me point out again, the vast majority of mistakes in the manuscripts by the scribes are simple spelling and grammar mistakes in the original language of the New Testament, ancient Koine (“common”) Greek, which make no difference when the Greek is translated into English or any other language.
Finally, we have the variation of “world” versus “word.” This is a tougher challenge to solve because this variation does affect the sentences’ meanings and three of the sentences read “world” and two read “word.” If it were the case that some of the manuscripts contained a nonsense word instead, like “Savior of the worl,” the correct choice would be easy. In this case, I think most would agree “world” makes more sense than “word,” and since more manuscripts have “world” than “word,” it’s the safer bet. But how can we be certain?
This is why we’re fortunate to have many, many, many other manuscripts to compare than just these five! Specifically, we can look at those that were written before these manuscripts. The variation or mistake shouldn’t have appeared yet in many of the earlier copies. In textual criticism, the rule of thumb is generally the older the manuscript, the better. In our illustration, it’s likely the vast majority of the manuscripts will read “world.” Thus, we can be confident that the original, correct sentence is Sentence #4: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
This is how textual criticism works. Of course, this is simplified for the sake of illustration, but, as you can see, it’s not all that hard spotting the original wording by comparing the manuscripts.
There was no central power controlling the copying of the New Testament. Churches were simply sharing the writings with other churches, and they would copy them and pass them on and on and on. One church may have the Gospel of Mark, and another church may have three of Paul’s letters, so they would share and copy and pass on. Archeological evidence proves the New Testament spread rapidly across the ancient world. Thus, in ancient terms, this means the New Testament went viral! And because of this, we have a wealth of ancient manuscripts that can be compared to and contrasted against each other.
Textual criticism has found only 1% of the variants have any effect on the meaning of the text, and none of these come close to affecting any Christian beliefs. Textual critics are positive the New Testament we read today is 99% accurate to the originals.
Further, the early church fathers, who lived between 90-160 AD shortly after the events recorded in the New Testament, quoted the New Testament so extensively that the majority of the New Testament can be reconstructed from their sermons and writings alone. So, even if we had no ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, we’d still have much of it preserved in the writings of the early church fathers. Obviously, these early church fathers were quoting from manuscripts written earlier than their own writings.
SO, WHAT DOES THIS TELL US?
First, our current New Testament is faithful to the originals. Despite a lot of assumptions about the Bible being corrupted over time, the evidence says otherwise.
Secondly, even secular historians consider the New Testament an excellent historical source, but the supernatural events the New Testament reports make them skeptical of its historical accuracy. Because of this, many non-Christian historians gladly use it to learn of Jesus and the time period but ignore the supernatural aspects of it. You see, their view of the New Testament has nothing to do with the evidence itself, but with their way of understanding the world, their worldview. If someone’s worldview is that God doesn’t exist, then of course he’s not going to believe in the supernatural parts of the Bible. But if someone does believe in God, then believing in the miracles of the Bible isn’t difficult at all.
Interestingly, scholars say that the time between the events of Jesus’ life and the writing of the New Testament is much too short to allow legends and myths to develop, especially considering that people who witnessed Jesus were still living at the time of the writing of the New Testament. The writers present the New Testament as a historical record and provide names and other information so their contemporaries could investigate and confirm their claims about Jesus.
Where one can argue that this alone doesn’t prove the truth of the New Testament, it must be recognized that the New Testament doesn’t have the unspecific, “other-world-ness” of mythology; it is grounded in a historic time and place.
Lastly, no evidence of an early record of a strictly “human-only” Jesus or any other alternative view of Jesus exists. I’ve often heard skeptics say they don’t believe in God because of a lack of evidence. Yet, when it comes to Jesus, many people (even some professing Christians) ignore the best evidence and base their ideas about who Jesus is on creations of their own mind.
There is also mention of Jesus outside of the Bible in ancient writings by non-Christians, but these were all written later than the New Testament. Even if someone doesn’t believe in God or that Jesus is the Son of God or that the New Testament is the inspired Word of God, he or she – after evaluating the evidence – should still recognize that the New Testament is our best, most reliable source for learning about Jesus.
How do we know about Jesus?
We know about Jesus from the reliable, well-preserved record of the New Testament.
This is an excerpt from Who Jesus Ain’t by Steve DiSebastian:
Is the Bible Any More Accurate than Other Religious Texts?
How Do We Differentiate Between What is Scripture & Other Ancient, Religious Writings?
Who Jesus Ain’t: Jesus Ain’t a Hippy, Your Homeboy or a Wimp
The New Paganism (Part 1) Pluralism: Are There Many Paths to God?
Pluralism = The New Paganism
In many ways, Western Christians are living in a culture that is increasingly like the first culture that the first Christians lived in: a pagan culture. Christianity was born and spread within the Roman Empire, a place of many gods and many ways of worshiping, where most* religions were seen as equally valid. Today, we call this pluralism.
(*I say “most” because Christianity went through periods of persecution by the Roman government for its first 300 years until it was officially legalized by Emperor Constantine. Christians – like the Jews – wouldn’t worship any Roman gods or the emperor, who was considered a god. Christians were even called “atheists” by Romans because they believed in only one God, and an invisible one at that. Appropriately, Christians’ convictions have made them unpopular again in many parts of the West today.)
As our culture becomes more post-modern—as well as post-Christian—in mindset, religious pluralism has grown into the popular spirituality of our day. Both established, traditional religions and unambiguous atheism are being rejected by many and an undefined spirituality—a fuzzy spiritual agnosticism—has been embraced, which lives by the axiom, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” For all practical purposes, these pluralists live as atheists within secular society but still embrace some self-defined form of spirituality, which has little – if any – impact on their lives. Basically, it’s OK to believe spiritual things as long as you don’t take them too seriously.
Sadly, this pluralistic mindset has even made its way into Christian circles, and not just in liberal mainline denominations but also in Bible-believing, evangelical churches.
As our world grows “smaller,” more people today have been introduced to worldviews and religions foreign to their own by neighbors, coworkers, and friends (and the Internet and modern media) than perhaps at any other time in history. This is a positive thing in many ways, but those raised to believe that salvation comes only through Christ Jesus may begin to question whether their neighbors —perhaps loving parents and spouses and contributors to the community — will be eternally separated from God because they’re not followers of Christ. Christians have always understood the Bible to teach that the only way to have salvation from sin is through belief in the work and person of Jesus Christ. This is often called exclusivism.
Furthermore, biblical illiteracy has led to unfamiliarity with what the Bible teaches. Not only has Western culture grown more secular and fewer people grow up in churches, but even those in Christian families and churches spend little time closely reading and studying Scripture.
Because of these reasons, new understandings of God’s salvation have developed that are much different than the traditional Christian understanding of Scripture. Some of these new understandings simply disregard Scripture. Others claim they’re actually more loyal to Scripture than the traditional stance. Because of these reasons, we need an accurate understanding of what the whole of the Bible teaches about salvation.
The Alternatives
Alternatives to exclusivism include pluralism and inclusivism. Where pluralism validates that all (or most) religions lead to God, inclusivism is more nuanced. Inclusivism believes that Jesus Christ is the only savior, but one does not have to believe in him to be saved. In short, Jesus Christ was absolutely essential in saving humanity from damnation, but one doesn’t have to believe in Christ specifically to benefit from that salvation. In inclusivism, one may be saved through another religion or through general revelation even if they never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
General revelation is the idea that one can know certain things about God through their innate senses (since we are all made in the image of God) and/or through nature (since God created all things). The Bible confirms general revelation, but also that one cannot be saved from sin by general revelation alone.
For salvation, one needs special revelation. Special revelation includes all the unique, supernatural works of God throughout history, which are recorded in the Bible, including God the Son becoming human as Jesus of Nazareth (and his death and resurrection), the work of the Holy Spirit, and even the Bible itself – as the Bible is the written, “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) revelation of God.
The Bible confirms all humans know of God through general revelation, yet do not seek him out. Instead they invent their own religions and worship their own idols. These may be literal idols or the “idols” of secular society (such as money, sex, self-centered independence). In essence, all know there’s a true God, yet they want to remain god of their own lives, so they exchange the truth for a lie.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (Romans 1:18-23)
In the book Faith Comes By Hearing, Christopher Morgan explains that there is a spectrum of diversity within this new paganism [1]. For example, some versions of universalism teaches that the whole world (even Satan! [2]) will ultimately be saved through Christ.
QUICK REVIEW:
Pluralism – All (or many) religions lead to God and salvation.
Exclusivism – The traditional Christian view that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ’s free gift of salvation; thus, biblical Christianity is the only true path to God.
Inclusivism – Jesus Christ’s life and work achieved salvation, but one does not have to know of or believe in Christ to be saved. One can be saved by faithfully following another religion or general revelation.
Universalism – One way or another, everyone (or almost everyone) will ultimately be saved through the work of Jesus Christ.
General Revelation – One can know certain things about God through nature and/or their innate senses.
Special Revelation – The unique supernatural works of God throughout history, including miracles, Christ himself, and the Bible.
The Incomprehensibility of Pluralism Within a Biblical Worldview
As one moves from exclusivism towards views like pluralism and universalism, one moves away from traditional Christianity, and the more one moves away from traditional Christianity, the more the divine authority and reliability of the Bible is questioned or even completely abandoned.
Abandoning the Bible is the only option open to the pluralist as Scripture is so clearly exclusivistic. Verses like John 14:6, Acts 4:10–12, and 1 John 5:11–12 (see below) so clearly teach that salvation comes through Christ alone that pluralists and universalists must have a low view of Scripture in order to continue to hold their views, as does John Hick, who represents the pluralist view in the book Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World.[3]
The pluralist must deny that the Bible is the preserved Word of God since Jesus’ first followers were certainly exclusivists:
Peter said,
“…let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this [formerly crippled] man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10-12)
John wrote,
“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11-12)
And Jesus himself was absolutely clear that he was not a pluralist or universalist:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
Even if we didn’t have these extremely clear verses from the New Testament, the exclusivist nature of the Bible is seen throughout the Old and New Testaments. There are constant warnings against following false religions and gods and regular statements about salvation coming only through the one true God. Plainly contrary to the universalist idea that all (even Satan) will eventually be saved through Christ, Revelation 19 and 20 clearly shows the horrible fate of those hostile to God, including Satan.
Further, some other obvious issues are raised concerning pluralism:
1. Religious Contradictions
All religions can’t be correct simply because they have contradictory teachings. And where there are contradictions, someone has to be wrong. The only way a pluralist can affirm all religions are correct is to discard key aspects of those religions – just like how they have to discard key parts of the Bible. Furthermore, anyone who claims all religions are basically the same has little understanding of what different religions teach.
The pluralist may try to get around this by saying that all (or many) religions have some truth within them. This isn’t a problem for the Christian; a Christian can confirm that there is some truth in other religions, yet none but biblical Christianity are wholly true or lead to salvation.
Also, pluralists still have a problem: How do they know what is religious truth or error? By what standard do they judge?
2. Only Jesus Could Win Us Salvation
The Bible teaches that God is perfectly good and holy, all people have sinned, and all people are alienated from God by that sin. Only Jesus, who is uniquely fully human and fully God, could repair this chasm-sized rift between God and man. No amount of “good works” or rituals can bridge that chasm. Only Jesus could live a sinless life, and only Jesus could die an unjust death. Only someone fully human could represent humankind, and only someone fully God could cover the sins of all humankind. Christians are exclusivists because only Jesus – the only person to ever be complete man and completely God – could achieve for us salvation, plain and simple.
3. Jesus Died For Nothing
Jesus died a horribly brutal death on a Roman cross for the sake of all those who would believe in him to be saved from their sins. Jesus did this willingly, yet also prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and crucifixion, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). God the Son went willingly to the cross, but he also was well aware of the high price he would pay to complete the task he became flesh to accomplish. In Gethsemane, he essentially asks God the Father if there’s any other way to accomplish this, then spare him from the cross. But there was no other way, so he goes willingly.
Here’s the thing: If salvation could be won by any other way, then Jesus didn’t have to die. If there were any other way – even one – for God to accomplish salvation from sin, Jesus died for nothing. In other words, if there were a Plan B for saving the world from sin other than Jesus dying on the cross, Jesus wouldn’t have died on the cross. He would’ve said, “See Plan B.” And if Jesus’ death on the cross were Plan B, he would’ve said, “Plan A works just fine.”
We also have this issue: if there were any other way for God the Father to reconnect with his created people and overlook their sins and God the Father still put Jesus to death on the cross, then Jesus’ death was needless brutality. In other words, if God the Father knew forgiveness of sins could be achieved through humans simply following some rules or completing some rituals or being “nice” or doing X, Y, and Z, why would God the Son need to become a man and die? If pluralism and universalism are true, then God the Father and God the Son both made extremely illogical decisions to allow an act of absolute brutality for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
Dismissing the validity of pluralism and universalism is easy from a biblical standpoint, so what about the more nuanced view: inclusivism?
NEXT: Is knowledge of Christ required for salvation? The Nuanced View: Inclusivism.
WORKS CITED
[1] Faith Comes By Hearing, edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, see Chapter 2.
[2] Faith Comes By Hearing, Kindle, Loc 334.
[3] Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, edited by Stanley N. Gundry, Kindle, Loc 3601.
Check out Who Jesus Ain’t and other books by GFTM here.
Slavery & the Bible (Part 9) Did Christianity End Slavery? What History Tells Us.
ONE LAST QUESTION CONCERNING THE NEW TESTAMENT APPROACH TO SLAVERY:
DID IT WORK?
In the last several articles of this series, we examined the New Testament and what its writers had to say about slavery. (See a list of past articles below.) But did the New Testament writers know what they were talking about? Did their guidance to slaves and slave-owners of their time end slavery in Rome? In fact, did the Christian way spread past the Roman Empire and end slavery in other cultures, even future ones, such as slavery in the United States?
As sociologist Rodney Stark writes in his book The Triumph of Christianity,
“All classical societies were slave societies – both Plato and Aristotle were slave-owners, as were most free residents of Greek city-states. In fact, all known societies above the very primitive level have been slave societies – even many of the Northwest American Indian tribes had slaves long before Columbus’s voyage. Amid this universal slavery, only one civilization ever rejected human bondage: Christendom.”
In another book, For the Glory of God, Stark writes, “[O]nly in the West did significant moral opposition ever arise and lead to abolition” and, except for some Jewish sects, “Christian theology was unique in eventually developing an abolitionist perspective.”
SLAVERY: A UNIVERSAL HUMAN EVIL
All early civilizations, including Babylon, Egypt, China, and India, used slave labor extensively, but the Greeks and Romans were the first true slave societies. Major Roman markets were capable of handling 20,000 slaves a day.
No records exist of any protests against slavery in the ancient Middle East cultures like Babylon or Assyria. In fact, the Code of Hammurabi (1750 B.C.) says helping a slave to escape is punishable by death.
No famous Greek philosopher every condemned slavery. Aristotle argued that it was the slave’s nature to be a slave, and thus, it was to the benefit of both society and the slave for the slave to remain a slave. He argued that “a slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate slave. Therefore there can be no friendship with a slave as slave” (Nichomachean Ethics 8.11). Plato thought no differently, felt slaves should be treated harshly, and owned at least five slaves at the time of his death.
No record of any pagan Roman protest against slavery exists or any evidence of any move to eradicate slavery either. In fact, several histories point out that even the semi-successful famous slave revolt involving Spartacus never had ending slavery as a goal. Personal freedom was their goal; eradicating the institution of slavery was not even on their radar.
About 600 years after Christ, Mohammad bought, sold, captured, and owned slaves. Thus, long before European slave-trading in the Americas, Muslim slave-trading began. Slavery didn’t officially end in Muslim nations until recently (some only because of pressure by Western nations) and still continues “unofficially” in some.
Stark’s book, For the Glory of God, includes a photo taken in 1900 of a Muslim Moroccan merchant with his new African slave. At least 1.2 million slaves were transported into Muslim nations between 1800 and 1900. Saudi Arabia didn’t legally abolish slavery until 1962, and Mauritania didn’t abolish it until 1981!
I took this picture at the Muhammed Ali Center in Louisville, KY. Sadly, many black Americans who embrace Islam see the racism of “Christian” America as a reason to reject Christianity. If only they knew the history of Islam and the correct biblical view of racism and slavery.
Furthermore, Islamic and European slave-buyers were dependent on native African suppliers because “slavery and slave-trading were well established in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans.” Most, if not all, precolonial African societies had systems of slavery, and it continues in parts of Africa today, including in Sudan, Africa’s largest country.
Let’s not forget, some Native American cultures practiced slavery too.
Ethiopia had slavery until 1942; Peru until 1964; and India until 1976.
In modern thinking, abolitionism finds itself lacking champions too in the secular philosophies. Stark states a “virtual Who’s Who of ‘Enlightenment’ figures fully accepted slavery.” This includes Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, who even “dismissed abolitionists as religious fanatics.”
So who were these “religious fanatics” fighting against slavery? And where in the world did they get such a crazy idea in a world where slavery was a normal part of almost all human civilizations?
CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE:
The First Several Centuries
Steven Weinberg in “A Designer Universe?” wrote that Christianity “lived comfortably with slavery for many centuries.” Not exactly.
First, we have to remember that Christianity for its first 300 years until it was legalized by Emperor Constantine was an often-persecuted religious minority with no political power.
Once Constantine and Rome began to embrace Christian values and its high view of human life, things like gladiator fights and the common practice of abandoning for dead unwanted newborns soon disappeared. Likewise, slavery, a pillar of Roman civilization, eventually faded from Christendom and was replaced with the medieval feudal system.
It’s impossible to know how many, but Christian clergy in the early church were known for freeing slaves. Evidence shows that the early church, long before Constantine, considered slaves as equal worth to all people. The early church was know for baptizing slaves into Christ’s church.
The earliest known record about Christians by a Roman (Pliny, a pagan Roman senator, written in about 111 A.D.) tells of interrogating two slave women who were Christian deaconesses. This, along with the New Testament itself (as we’ve seen), shows that slaves (and women) have always been part of Christ’s church and even held positions of prominence within the church.
Augustine (354-430), who is still renowned today by Christians, wrote in his classic work The City of God (19.15) that slavery was the product of sin and opposed to God’s divine plan, and many of the clergy under him in Hippo freed their slaves. Chrysostom (349-407), another influential father of the early church, proclaimed that “in Christ Jesus there is no slave,” and he encouraged Christians to buy slaves, teach them a skill with which to support themselves, and then set them free (Homily 40 on 1 Corinthians 10).
In the 400s, St. Patrick fought against slavery in Ireland. In the 600s, Saint Bathilda (wife of King Clovis II) campaigned to stop slave-trading and to free all slaves. In 851, Saint Anskar began efforts to stop the Viking slave trade.
The Anti-Slavery Popes
The great Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) pronounced slavery a sin, and a series of popes beginning in 1435 said the same thing. Sadly, biases against the Catholic Church by secularists and even Protestant Christian historians have ignored the fact that many popes were the first of influential Christians to take strong stands against slavery in official church documents. (As a Reformed Protestant, I’m no fan of the Catholic Church or the papacy, but let’s be fair; this is a matter of historic fact.)
Pope Paul III in 1537 made three major pronouncements (called “bulls”) against slavery, imposing excommunication for anyone involved in slavery. The popes were encouraged to stand against slavery by many Catholic missionaries who were witnessing the evils of slavery firsthand. Later, Pope Pius VII (1815) and Pope Gregory XVI (1839) demanded the end of the slave trade.
As Starks puts it: “The problem wasn’t that the Church failed to condemn slavery; it was that few heard and most of them did not listen. In this era, popes had little or no influence over the Spanish and the Portuguese,” and if the pope had little influence in Europe, he had even less in the New World colonies. So, the problem wasn’t that the Catholic Church stayed silent; the problem was so-called Catholics weren’t listening.
In one case, Pope Urban VIII’s bull against slavery was read publicly by Jesuit priests in Rio de Janeiro and the pro-slavery locals in turn attacked the local Jesuit college and injured several priests. In Santos, a mob trampled a Jesuit for trying to publish the anti-slavery bull and the Jesuits were forced out of Sao Paulo all together.
It’s sadly ironic that once the Europeans became involved in slave-trading, the French and Spanish colonies gave slaves more rights and treated them much more humanely than the British because of their Catholic beliefs. It seems the French and Spanish allowed their religious convictions to have some superficial impact on their anti-biblical practice of slavery, where the Protestant British (and also the Dutch) shamefully ignored their supposed Christian faith all together and treated slaves harshly.
Sadly, there were prominent Christians throughout history that kept slaves and even approved of slavery, including Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Pope Paul III. So, we have to ask: Which group of Christians were influenced by their culture and which were influenced by God’s Word?
If you have been following this series, I think it’s clear God’s Word does not condone slavery. And where we’re not denying that those that called themselves Christians sometimes approved of slavery and even at times tried to use the Bible to justify slavery, history shows that Christians who faithfully studied God’s Word and tried their best to live accordingly fought against slavery (as we have seen and will see more as we continue).
In America: Quakers, Puritans & More
America’s first formal proclamation against slavery was written in 1688 by Franz Daniel Pastorius, a German immigrant, a lawyer, and a Mennonite. But the American abolitionist movement was really started by the Quakers at a yearly meeting in Philadelphia, prompted by the 1746 anti-slavery pamphlet by Quaker John Woolers. In it, he quotes Matthew 25:40 (And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’), saying to enslave anyone is to enslave Christ.
The following year, the Quakers published their own anti-slavery tracts, stating if you profit from slavery “the influence of the Holy Spirit is not the prevailing principle in you.” Shortly after, several Quaker meetings on the East Coast prohibited members from owning slaves under penalty of exclusion. The well-organized and influential Quakers were essential to the anti-slavery movement.
Further, in 1790, every state in the U.S. had slavery except Massachusetts and Maine because the Puritans had made it illegal in those states in 1771. On June 19, 1700, Samuel Sewall, a devout Puritan, had published the first abolitionist tract written in America, The Selling of Joseph.
Abolition groups and publications sprang up everywhere, all clearly connected to devout Christians and their biblical beliefs, including the American Anti-Slavery Society, which appointed traveling agents to specific territories. Fifty-two percent of the traveling agents were ordained ministers, and 75% of local agents were clergy. “Two-thirds of the abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen,” writes Alvin Schmidt in How Christianity Changed the World.
Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian clergyman, is considered the first martyr of the abolitionist movement, killed by pro-slavery rioters at his printing office in 1837. An ally of Lovejoy, Edward Beecher (another Presbyterian clergyman) was a promoter of abolition and the president of Illinois College, which allowed black students to attend. He was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is considered a major force leading to the Civil War. Stowe’s Christian faith is evident throughout the novel. Their father, Lyman Beecher, an evangelistic preacher, was also an influential Christian leader in the anti-slavery movement.
Finally, we can’t forget the huge contributions black churches gave to the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement.
Sadly, major schisms occurred within Protestant denominations between anti-slavery and pro-slavery people. (This led to the founding of the very denomination I belong to, the Southern Baptists, who were, shamefully, pro-slavery and have since publicly repented of this clear sin.) Regardless, abolitionism spread throughout the North through Christian churches.
In Britain: More Quakers, Wesley & Of Course, Wilberforce
The American Quakers influenced their cousins in Britain, so the Quakers in Britain kicked off the anti-slavery movement there (though documents show a London church council condemning slavery as early as 1102.) With this, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denomination, began a preaching campaign against slavery and wrote anti-slavery tracts.
Of course, the juggernaut of the abolition movement in Britain was William Wilberforce. A strong Christian, Wilberforce led the anti-slavery movement in the House of Commons. At the same time, Thomas Clarkson, another Christian, mobilized public opinion, started a petition campaign, and started calling on Parliament to end the slave trade. These petitions gave Wilberforce “powerful ammunition” in Parliament.
In 1791, on his deathbed, John Wesley wrote to William Wilberforce, “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be won out by the opposition of men and devils; but if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Be not weary in well-doing.”
In 1807, a bill to abolish the slave trade throughout the British colonies was approved overwhelmingly in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons thanks to Wilberforce’s and Clarkson’s efforts. Then, in 1833, just a month after Wilberforce’s death, an act was passed ending slavery in all of the British empire.
Meanwhile, Methodists and Baptists continued to be heavily involved in the anti-slavery movement both in Britain and the U.S. Unfortunately, the violence against anti-slavery preachers caused some of them to quiet down.
And So…
Today, Christian groups like Christian Solidarity International buys slaves in Sudan and sets them free. Many Christian groups are also involved in fighting the underground slave trade (human trafficking), including within the U.S., such as Love True.
As I stated before, the question isn’t whether “Christians” supported slavery. There were certainly people who claimed to be Christian who supported and practiced slavery and probably even true Christians who allowed themselves to be influenced by things other than God’s Word. But the question is, Who was truly following their faith?
If I did my job well in this series, you would have seen that anyone who believes the Bible is the Word of God cannot condone slavery. While there has been Christians who have supported slavery, they have not done so consistently with their faith’s teachings. As this short history has shown, the Bible inspired Christians who worked to obey the God’s Word faithfully to become the essential force in ending slavery.
Stark writes, “The larger point is that the abolitionists, whether popes or evangelists, spoke almost exclusively in the language of Christian faith. And although many Southern clergy proposed theological defenses of slavery, pro-slavery rhetoric was overwhelmingly secular — references were made to ‘liberty’ and ‘states’ rights,’ not to ‘sin’ or ‘salvation.'”
Steven J. Keillor in his book This Rebellious House states, “Where [Christian] doctrine and economics conflicted, the [plantation owners] insisted that the church back down.”
I think it’s safe to say “Christian” slave-owners were influenced by money much more than their faith in Christ.
Stark goes on to point out that the Christian worldview was a “necessary basis” for the anti-slavery movement because “only those religious thinkers working within the Christian tradition were able to reach anti-slavery conclusions.”
NEXT: We wanted examine slavery and the Old Testament, but this series has already gone on much longer than we originally intended, so we will be taking a break from slavery for a time but we will return to address the Old Testament later. In the meantime, the first article of this series did address some of what the Old Testament says about slavery.
Slavery & the Bible GFTM Series…
Read Part 1: Cherry Picking, Worldview & Consistency
Read Part 2: Not All Types of Slavery are Equal
Read Part 3: American Slavery & Bearing God’s Image
Read Part 4: Slavery Ain’t Always Slavery: The New Testament & Roman Slavery
Read Part 5: Roman Slavery & the Lack of Christian Revolt
Read Part 6: The New Testament Response & Problem Verses
Read Part 7: Another Type of Slavery & Freedom in the New Testament
Read Part 8: Why Didn’t Jesus Free the Slaves?
NEXT SERIES:
Check out Who Jesus Ain’t and other books by GFTM here.
Slavery & the Bible (Part 8) Why Didn’t Jesus Free the Slaves?
Read Part 1: Cherry Picking, Worldview & Consistency
Read Part 2: Not All Types of Slavery are Equal
Read Part 3: American Slavery & Bearing God’s Image
Read Part 4: Slavery Ain’t Always Slavery: The New Testament & Roman Slavery
Read Part 5: Roman Slavery & the Lack of Christian Revolt
Read Part 6: The New Testament Response & Problem Verses
Read Part 7: Another Type of Slavery & Freedom in the New Testament
TWO LAST BIG QUESTIONS
So, we’ve spent the last few articles exploring the New Testament response to slavery. Before we move on to the Old Testament, there are two last, big closing questions we need to answer:
#1 – Why didn’t Jesus or the writers of the New Testament simply tell Christian slave-owners to free their slaves?
#2 – Did it work? — Meaning, did the New Testament response to slavery effectively fight against slavery?
RESPONSE TO BIG CLOSING QUESTION #1
Why didn’t Jesus or the writers of the New Testament tell Christian slave-owners to free their slaves?
Slavery was so prominent in the Roman Empire we can be fairly certain that many of the first people to become Christians were slave-owners. So, why didn’t Jesus ever say or his first followers ever write in the New Testament something like, “Hey, if you’re a slave-owner who is now following Christ, free your slaves”?
First Timothy 6:1-2 reads, “Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants [slaves, servants, “doulos”] regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.”
We’ve already discussed 1 Timothy 6:1-2 and also how doulos has a wide range of meanings, so we can’t be certain Paul is addressing true slavery here and not something like a worker under contract or an indentured servant. But, for the sake of this exercise, let’s assume doulos means slave here — as in true owning-another-person-as-property slavery. If this is the case, then here in 1 Timothy 6, Paul confirms that there were Christian slave-owners.
So, why didn’t Jesus or the Apostles who wrote the New Testament simply tell Christian slave-owners to free their slaves?
The short answer: They didn’t have to.
Think of it this way: In Ephesians 5:28-29, Paul clearly tells Christian husbands to love their wives. In fact, he says they should love their wives like Christ loves the church. Don’t forget, Christ died to create his church. Now, if Paul says this, does he also have to say, “Oh yeah, don’t beat your wives either”? In the same way, the Bible tells us we’re all made in God’s image and we have inherent eternal worth to God. In fact, God became a man and then died for us all – man, woman, Jew, gentile, slave, freeman – so we could spend eternity with him. Considering this, do the Bible’s writers really have to specifically tell us, “Oh yeah, don’t own someone else like a piece of property”?
The longer Answer:
Both the New and Old Testaments are saturated with teachings that run counter to the mindset that would condone slavery (as we saw in earlier articles). If one is truly following Christ, they will reach the logical conclusion that the literal ownership of another image-bearer of God is against God’s design.
To hammer this home, there is actually one more section of the New Testament we haven’t looked at yet that has something else to teach us about slavery. It’s another letter by Paul, which we call the Book of Philemon.
Philemon is actually a very short letter written by the Apostle Paul to a Christian named Philemon. Based on the context of the letter, it appears that the letter was delivered from Paul to Philemon by Philemon’s runaway slave, Onesimus. After running away, Onesimus had become a Christian, and one way or another, ended up meeting Paul. As we discussed before, the life of a runaway slave was bleak; the Roman Empire stretched far and wide, and runaway slaves were dealt with harshly.
Instead of telling Onesimus to continue to run, Paul sends him back to Philemon. Interestingly, in his letter, Paul points out that he’s one of Jesus’ apostles so he could easily use his place of authority to command Philemon, a Christian, to “do what is required” – to do the right thing – but he goes on to say “for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you” to welcome back Onesimus not as a fugitive runaway slave and “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.” Paul is saying: I’m not going to force you to do what is right because I know you’ll freely do the right thing, which is to treat Onesimus as your brother.
Now, someone may still gripe and say, Paul still didn’t tell him to free Onesimus! But let me ask the obvious question: If Paul tells Philemon to love Onesimus like a brother, does he really have to say that he should free him? I don’t think so.
Why didn’t the writers of the New Testament explicitly tell Christian slave-owners to free their slaves?
They didn’t have to.
Benjamin Reaoch writes in Women, Slaves, and the Gender Debate, “[Paul] does not attack the institution of slavery. But something even deeper and more radical is happening here. In Christ, slaves and masters become brothers.”
NEXT: The Christian Response to Slavery: Did it Work? What history tells us.
Read Part 1: Cherry Picking, Worldview & Consistency
Read Part 2: Not All Types of Slavery are Equal
Read Part 3: American Slavery & Bearing God’s Image
Read Part 4: Slavery Ain’t Always Slavery: The New Testament & Roman Slavery
Read Part 5: Roman Slavery & the Lack of Christian Revolt
Read Part 6: The New Testament Response & Problem Verses
Read Part 7: Another Type of Slavery & Freedom in the New Testament
Check out Who Jesus Ain’t and other books by GFTM here.
Slavery & the Bible (Part 7) Another Type of Slavery & Freedom in the New Testament
Slavery & the Bible GFTM series…
Read Part 1: Cherry Picking, Worldview & Consistency
Read Part 2: Not All Types of Slavery are Equal
Read Part 3: American Slavery & Bearing God’s Image
Read Part 4: Slavery Ain’t Always Slavery: The New Testament & Roman Slavery
Read Part 5: Roman Slavery & the Lack of Christian Revolt
Read Part 6: The New Testament Response & Problem Verses
ANOTHER TYPE OF SLAVERY & FREEDOM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
So, to quickly review our last two articles: Why didn’t the New Testament writers tell Christian slaves to revolt? Because rebellion against the Roman Empire meant one likely outcome: death. So, what could Christian slaves do? Well, they could conduct themselves as Christians, even when slaves, by living out these biblical principles:
- The Christian Work Ethic: Honor Christ in All You Do
- Be a Light to the World… Glorify God… Humble Your Enemies
- Love Your Enemies
- Personal Sacrifice for the Good of Others
Benjamin Reaoch in his book Women, Slaves, and the Gender Debate points out, “The mere fact that slaves are addressed directly [in the New Testament] is significant. In this way Paul and Peter implicitly recognize the personhood of slaves and grant them the dignity of moral responsibility… The instructions to these individuals would have challenged the cultural norms of the day, and if heeded, would radically transform the master-slave relationship… we find that slavery is an assumed reality, and one that is being transformed by the power of the gospel.”
Or think of it this way: Christian slaves were already saved from eternal separation from God; they would spend eternity with Christ. Their non-Christian slave-masters could not say the same thing. Thus, in the New Testament worldview, that means the Christian slave is free and the non-Christian slave-owner is enslaved. In the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, their statuses are inverted and there is a clear dichotomy: You’re either a slave to sin or freed by Christ.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:34-36)
Only in Jesus Christ — the Son — is true freedom found.
But we also find the slave-to-sin vs. free-through-Christ dichotomy put another way in the New Testament: slave-to-sin vs. slave-to-Christ. No one can have two masters (Matt. 6:24); everyone worships something, and you’re either ruled by sin or ruled by Christ. It’s either one or the other. Paul even calls himself a slave (“doulos“/servant/bondservant) of Christ (Rom. 1:1), and he writes elsewhere:
For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant [“doulos”/slave] is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant [“doulos”/slave] of Christ. (1 Corinthians 7:22)
So, in Christ, the believing slave is made free (from the condemnation of sin) and the believing freeman is made a “slave” (through willing obedience to Christ). Here we see a deep truth in paradox: Christians are ruled by Christ as their master, but in doing so they experience true freedom. Everyone is ruled by something, and to be ruled by anything else other than our Creator leads to destruction. You can be a slave to a cruel master (sin) or you can humble yourself before a kind master (Christ), who rules with love and mercy. But, have no doubt about it, you will be ruled by something. Christians obey our master not because of fear of hell, as many who don’t understand true biblical Christianity accuse Christians of from time to time, but because we love God because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
So, the literal Christian slaves of the Roman Empire were already free in the most important way possible: They were free to live in the reality of God’s eternal kingdom. And once a slave is free in this way, he’s free to willingly put himself second, to love his enemies, and to witness to the truth and freedom of Christ to those around him — even to his human slave-master.
After all, Christians’ ultimate example to follow is their Lord and Savior, the second person of the Trinitarian Godhead, who made himself a slave to all for the sake of all the world:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant [“doulos,” slave], being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3-8)
Now, what is more likely to lead the unbelieving slave-masters to salvation — Christian slaves following the Christian principles listed above or Christian slaves openly hating their masters? Christ wins people to him by changing their hearts. Christianity isn’t an outside to inside movement, but an inside to outside movement. Christ didn’t conquer with a sword, but by humbling himself by dying for the world. In the eyes of the Roman world, the slave should be pitied, but to the Christian slave, it’s the unsaved slave-owner that should be pitied — even loved — praying that these sinful people will find God’s mercy and enter into Christ’s eternal kingdom.
Once again, Paul lays out the comparison for us:
“… you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more 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. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:16-23)
When Jesus chose a metaphor to describe the spreading of his kingdom, he didn’t use the metaphor of a conquering army, but of a mustard seed:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches”(Matthew 13:31-32).
Jesus conquers with love and changes society not by the swiftness of the sword, which is always short-lived, but by changing hearts, the only sure way to change something as deeply ingrained and evil in a culture as slavery was in Rome.
NEXT: The two BIG questions: Why didn’t Jesus tell Christian slave-owners to free their slaves? and The Christian Response to Slavery: Did it Work?
Read Part 1: Cherry Picking, Worldview & Consistency
Read Part 2: Not All Types of Slavery are Equal
Read Part 3: American Slavery & Bearing God’s Image
Read Part 4: Slavery Ain’t Always Slavery: The New Testament & Roman Slavery
Read Part 5: Roman Slavery & the Lack of Christian Revolt
Read Part 6: The New Testament Response & Problem Verses
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god from the machine 