Love trumps justice
This week's verses are on 1 Timothy 6:1-2:
At first glance, these verses seem to be in support of slavery. But at closer glance, they're no more in support of slavery than advocating for clean needles for addicts would be advocating drug use, or decriminalising treating the complications from a botched abortion would be supporting abortion as a practice. And yet people have used these verses to justify slavery, or to condemn Christianity for what appears to be an endorsement of injustice.
If a minister were to speak out along the lines of what Paul did on this issue nowadays, it would be shocking. Scandalous, even. CNN would have headlines on how Christianity supports hatred, and racism, and oppression, and sexism, and any other despicable thing it could pin on their words and try to make stick. Imagine a nationally famous pastor telling South Africa during Apartheid to just go with the flow, or telling people working in a third world sweatshop to just do a good job and try not to get hurt. They'd be crucified! It's even hard for me to type those words without fighting them!
But Paul is not speaking out in support of slavery as a practice at all, especially not the multigenerational, lifelong, inherited, institutional slavery practised for awhile in North and South America. Elsewhere in his letters, Paul respectfully asks slave owners to free their slaves. So why does he tell slaves here to embrace slavery?
What Paul is talking about here, and where Christianity best addresses the social ills of mankind, is on a level above the practice of slavery itself. He addresses the position of being a slave from a viewpoint of Christlike love: "Given that you are in the unfortunate position of being a slave, what is the most loving way that you can live out your life and demonstrate God's goodness?"
The modern response to legally sanctioned slavery would probably be to protest outside the slaveowner's place, throw some rocks at him, encourage the slaves to revolt, and then demonise the slaveowner for the rest of his life on social media. But is that a loving response? In the context of slavery in Paul's day, it's actually incredibly naïve.
In ancient times, slavery was often a sort of combined bankruptcy and debt-collection service. Much as you might wash dishes in a restaurant if you came up short on your dinner bill, if you owed someone ten years of wages, you might find yourself washing dishes for ten years to pay off your debt. As Christianity began to catch on, some slaves were like "Wait a minute. If all of my debts are forgiven, why am I still working for this guy? I'm a new man right?"
But look at it from the perspective of the slave owner, particularly a Christian one. You are owed a large sum of money, or more likely you paid someone else a large sum of money to cancel the slave's debt in order to secure a block of labour. Imagine you were running a small business and you paid an employee a ten year advance on their salary, and then three years in they're like "Yeah I'm leaving. See you later." What happened to your investment? You have a legal right to that labour, and are counting on it to make ends meet. So from the slave owner's perspective, the slave is actually wronging his owner more by walking out than the owner has wronged the slave by buying him and putting him to work.
Imagine the reputation Christianity would have if it was going around encouraging people to walk off the job site with years' worth of wages in their pockets. The Romans already hated Christians for not worshiping their pagan gods. This would have discredited them even more!
But Paul takes it further. He doesn't just tell them to stay enslaved, but tells them to love and respect their masters, particularly if the master is Christian. If you were a slave, and believed your debts to be forgiven, you would probably start to really resent that slave owner who says "Sorry you still have 25 years left on the contract. I don't care about your religion. Business is business."
And how much more so would you resent that owner if he was a Christian who should "know better?" You'd probably be dragging your feet and quoting chapter and verse at him on how he needs to forgive your debt and set you free. But is that loving your owner, or is it forcing them at their expense to treat you the way you feel you deserve to be treated? An act of "love" performed under duress isn't an act of love. Consent matters.
"Justice" would demand the unconditional emancipation of all slaves. But in doing so, it would simply transmute the injustice of slavery into a different form of injustice. Love is much more simple than justice. And much more powerful. If you're a slave, and you truly love your master, does the fact that he bought you like you were a cow matter to you as much as love does? Not at all! Love forgives, and pours itself out to bless others. Just as Jesus paid the price of our injustice, you are absorbing the cost of the injustice of your master. You're loving the "sinner", your master, not the injustice of being enslaved.
If your master is a Christian, this becomes even more important because there is a temptation amongst Christians to expect special treatment of one another. We're supposed to look out for each other, but it is wrong to demand to be treated that way. We see this a lot with Christians who have businesses, who are asked to cut special deals for other Christians and then have to endure tantrums and icy stares if they don't. "So and so is a pastor, so he and his family need to eat for free in your restaurant. Why would you make them pay the same as if they were infidels? Don't you know the sacrifices they've made?"
So if you're a Christian slave with a Christian master, there's a real temptation to manipulate him using your shared faith. "C'mon, we both know this is wrong. Why won't you obey God's will on this and set me free? Don't you have faith that he'll provide the $50,000 left on my contract? If not, why should I be working for such a fake Christian anyway?" Manipulation isn't love any more than physically dragging someone where you want them to go is love.
If you're someone who owns slaves, and you're struggling with whether or not it is right, which approach is more likely to make you set them free and not buy any more slaves? Having slaves walk out and leave you with the bill? Having slaves that murmur and snigger about you behind your back and sabotage their work? Having slaves that are constantly trying to pressure you into letting them go, who go out of their way to make you feel bad about the position you're in? Or having slaves that really show themselves to be good loving people, better than you, certainly deserving to be free? Which is more likely to make you look favourably on Christianity? Love is a lot more effective at achieving true justice than justice is on its own.
So while these verses usually get browsed past in modern times while we mumble "bla bla slavery, doesn't apply to us," they are actually a really powerful example of how we should be loving each other and the world around us. They are the gold standard to how we as Christians should approach injustice in the world around us, not with demands and threats and hard or soft power, but with love and service. If a slave is asked to love and respect his master, which of our relationships and which of our issues today are exempt from our love?
Those who are under the yoke as slaves must regard their own masters as deserving of full respect. This will prevent the name of God and Christian teaching from being discredited. But those who have believing masters must not show them less respect because they are brothers. Instead they are to serve all the more, because those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved.
Teach them and exhort them about these things.
At first glance, these verses seem to be in support of slavery. But at closer glance, they're no more in support of slavery than advocating for clean needles for addicts would be advocating drug use, or decriminalising treating the complications from a botched abortion would be supporting abortion as a practice. And yet people have used these verses to justify slavery, or to condemn Christianity for what appears to be an endorsement of injustice.
If a minister were to speak out along the lines of what Paul did on this issue nowadays, it would be shocking. Scandalous, even. CNN would have headlines on how Christianity supports hatred, and racism, and oppression, and sexism, and any other despicable thing it could pin on their words and try to make stick. Imagine a nationally famous pastor telling South Africa during Apartheid to just go with the flow, or telling people working in a third world sweatshop to just do a good job and try not to get hurt. They'd be crucified! It's even hard for me to type those words without fighting them!
But Paul is not speaking out in support of slavery as a practice at all, especially not the multigenerational, lifelong, inherited, institutional slavery practised for awhile in North and South America. Elsewhere in his letters, Paul respectfully asks slave owners to free their slaves. So why does he tell slaves here to embrace slavery?
What Paul is talking about here, and where Christianity best addresses the social ills of mankind, is on a level above the practice of slavery itself. He addresses the position of being a slave from a viewpoint of Christlike love: "Given that you are in the unfortunate position of being a slave, what is the most loving way that you can live out your life and demonstrate God's goodness?"
The modern response to legally sanctioned slavery would probably be to protest outside the slaveowner's place, throw some rocks at him, encourage the slaves to revolt, and then demonise the slaveowner for the rest of his life on social media. But is that a loving response? In the context of slavery in Paul's day, it's actually incredibly naïve.
In ancient times, slavery was often a sort of combined bankruptcy and debt-collection service. Much as you might wash dishes in a restaurant if you came up short on your dinner bill, if you owed someone ten years of wages, you might find yourself washing dishes for ten years to pay off your debt. As Christianity began to catch on, some slaves were like "Wait a minute. If all of my debts are forgiven, why am I still working for this guy? I'm a new man right?"
But look at it from the perspective of the slave owner, particularly a Christian one. You are owed a large sum of money, or more likely you paid someone else a large sum of money to cancel the slave's debt in order to secure a block of labour. Imagine you were running a small business and you paid an employee a ten year advance on their salary, and then three years in they're like "Yeah I'm leaving. See you later." What happened to your investment? You have a legal right to that labour, and are counting on it to make ends meet. So from the slave owner's perspective, the slave is actually wronging his owner more by walking out than the owner has wronged the slave by buying him and putting him to work.
Imagine the reputation Christianity would have if it was going around encouraging people to walk off the job site with years' worth of wages in their pockets. The Romans already hated Christians for not worshiping their pagan gods. This would have discredited them even more!
But Paul takes it further. He doesn't just tell them to stay enslaved, but tells them to love and respect their masters, particularly if the master is Christian. If you were a slave, and believed your debts to be forgiven, you would probably start to really resent that slave owner who says "Sorry you still have 25 years left on the contract. I don't care about your religion. Business is business."
And how much more so would you resent that owner if he was a Christian who should "know better?" You'd probably be dragging your feet and quoting chapter and verse at him on how he needs to forgive your debt and set you free. But is that loving your owner, or is it forcing them at their expense to treat you the way you feel you deserve to be treated? An act of "love" performed under duress isn't an act of love. Consent matters.
"Justice" would demand the unconditional emancipation of all slaves. But in doing so, it would simply transmute the injustice of slavery into a different form of injustice. Love is much more simple than justice. And much more powerful. If you're a slave, and you truly love your master, does the fact that he bought you like you were a cow matter to you as much as love does? Not at all! Love forgives, and pours itself out to bless others. Just as Jesus paid the price of our injustice, you are absorbing the cost of the injustice of your master. You're loving the "sinner", your master, not the injustice of being enslaved.
If your master is a Christian, this becomes even more important because there is a temptation amongst Christians to expect special treatment of one another. We're supposed to look out for each other, but it is wrong to demand to be treated that way. We see this a lot with Christians who have businesses, who are asked to cut special deals for other Christians and then have to endure tantrums and icy stares if they don't. "So and so is a pastor, so he and his family need to eat for free in your restaurant. Why would you make them pay the same as if they were infidels? Don't you know the sacrifices they've made?"
So if you're a Christian slave with a Christian master, there's a real temptation to manipulate him using your shared faith. "C'mon, we both know this is wrong. Why won't you obey God's will on this and set me free? Don't you have faith that he'll provide the $50,000 left on my contract? If not, why should I be working for such a fake Christian anyway?" Manipulation isn't love any more than physically dragging someone where you want them to go is love.
If you're someone who owns slaves, and you're struggling with whether or not it is right, which approach is more likely to make you set them free and not buy any more slaves? Having slaves walk out and leave you with the bill? Having slaves that murmur and snigger about you behind your back and sabotage their work? Having slaves that are constantly trying to pressure you into letting them go, who go out of their way to make you feel bad about the position you're in? Or having slaves that really show themselves to be good loving people, better than you, certainly deserving to be free? Which is more likely to make you look favourably on Christianity? Love is a lot more effective at achieving true justice than justice is on its own.
So while these verses usually get browsed past in modern times while we mumble "bla bla slavery, doesn't apply to us," they are actually a really powerful example of how we should be loving each other and the world around us. They are the gold standard to how we as Christians should approach injustice in the world around us, not with demands and threats and hard or soft power, but with love and service. If a slave is asked to love and respect his master, which of our relationships and which of our issues today are exempt from our love?
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