Minotaur, the approach I am coming from is pretty much identical to stardf's. Both of us see the slavery in the proper context as not an abhorrent evil. What I called evil is the same thing you and stardf have called evil: any form of slavery outside that context.

Now to answer your questions. We see several passages of bad things happening in the Bible. We see women raped on several occasions (Tamar and David's daughter by her brother). We see incest (Lot and his daughters) and more. As I mentioned earlier, God did not endorse slavery or create it for the Israelites. He allowed them to use the system they had already established and told them how to work it the proper way. Its the same way God worked within the system of the Israelite monarchy. He didn't deliberately start a new system over, when he could have. He chose not to.

As for your societies, living when I am today, it's easy to pick Society 2. But Society 2 was NOT AN OPTION back then. That concept was completely foreign to the Israelites. It was foreign to the entire world until just recently. Would you have even dreamed of that possibility 3500 years ago? Or even 200 years ago? I highly doubt it. You're comparing apples to celery. I've said this numerous times, all of your arguments have come from a basis of what you know here in America today. I'm trying to approach the argument of what the Israelites knew 3500 years ago. Big difference here.

Now something I have to address.

And again, this is what I think is the ultimate problem. You have convinced yourself, by whatever methods, that God must be real.

There is where we truly are on separate paths. Am I convinced that God is real? Absolutely beyond any shadow of a doubt. I think that is obvious. But that was not by any means of convincing myself, in the same way you have convinced yourself otherwise (by what you said on why you 'de-converted'). I know he is real because of what he has done in my life and simply by the fact that he lives in my heart. I've done all sorts of things that were truly impossible for me outside of God. I was not supposed to live to see my first birthday. My body is built with congenital twists in my legs and extreme tightness in my hip joints that when I was 6, specialists said I would never, ever run and don't expect any improvement. I have fenced for the last 13 years, run several raced, and can run backwards faster and longer than anyone else I know. My list goes on and on. Read back two pages to a post I made about a friend of mine that had a real-live gun pointed right at his face in point-blank range, fired, and not go off...5x. Minutes later, it did go off against Mexican police. Is God real? I would have to purposefully do everything in my power to convince myself otherwise to disbelieve that and even then I doubt I could succeed.

Well, well, well, it seems we have a very lively discussion going.

So, let's start from where we are: what are we to do with Mosaic laws concerning slavery? First, we have to consider these laws in their historical and legal context: first the subject of lending and usury, and second the subject of the uniqueness of Israel.

Imagine yourself a poor Israelite farmer with land and a pile of debt. If you have a bad harvest and can't pay it back, under the laws of the Gentiles, you would be subject to being sold into slavery. However, under Mosaic law, this slavery could last a miximum of seven years unless you wanted it to continue for life. In addition if you were paying back your debt, you couldn't be charged interest---none. Between Israelites, lending was meant to be an act of charity, and indentured servitude a form of restitution for damages.

However, the point has been raised that this didn't apply outside the nation. This is true for a very good reason: it was supposed to draw people in. Much of the point of Israelite law was to set them apart from the nations and to draw them in. The ultimate (hypothetical) goal was that eventually the Gentiles would become children of Abraham too. The Israelites were to see one another as family and look after their own and extend to the nations the chance to join the family. Indeed, we see in cases like Rahab and Ruth the fact that if an individual wanted to join, there was no barrier. And then what happens if you buy a Gentile slave who then becomes an Israelite?

Food for thought,

TBG

I'd like to ditto all of Ithilwen's questions.

Thanks for the responses, Wagga and Stardf.

I think you are trying to box God in too much here. I can think of a way in which an abused slave can take his situation and turn it around for the glory of God, without breaking any of His laws.

I'm very aware that pain and suffering can teach us a lot. Some of the most powerful and beautiful concepts in the universe are finally understood in the darkest hours of one's life.

One of the things, though, that has helped Man time and time again in surviving terrible circumstances mentally and emotionally was the belief that God loved him, cared about him, understood his pains and fears, wanted something good for him, and would not abandon him, no matter how bad it got.

When God is directly communicating laws of the land to Moses like "you can beat a slave so badly they cannot get up for a few days and go unpunished because they are your property, and that's fine and dandy by me," stuff like that wouldn't make a slave feel very loved by God, would it? I have to say, if I believed it true, it would make me want to give up on fairness and goodness and justice, had I been a slave back then. . . at any rate, I wouldn't have believed that any of those things had anything to do with the religion of the people of Israel.

In fact, the only time there are any earthly repercussions for a slaveholder is when he has already permanently harmed you, by the loss of a tooth, or an eye, or your very life. It's a little bit too late by then, isn't it?

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

First off, as wagga mentioned, none of those laws forbade the slaves from trying to escape or "fight the system". In fact, there really aren't too many laws in the Old Testament saying how slaves should act; the laws were more concerned with the ones who were going to own the slaves.

(This is in response to Wagga as well.)

That's one of the things that gets on my nerves so much. There is no protocol for how slaves—a significant portion of the population—are to behave, or deal with abuse, et cetera. I don't understand why God would only give protocol to the slaveholders, but no protocol for the people who have to actually live with the pitfalls of such a system.

The Bible states that the slaves are the slaveholders' property. You cannot try to escape without stealing from the slaveholder, and as we all know, Thou Shalt Not Steal.

So, you're left with only one option if you want to stay within God's law: improving the situation.

Reasoning with a tyrant is often not very effective, especially when maltreatment is perfectly permissible according to the law of the land and there is no real incentive for the slaveholder to change his ways. In those days, the "lowly slave" could have even been punished for trying to speak out and say, "You know, maybe the way you are treating these people isn't very nice." Attempting to stage some kind of resistance would probably result in far worse consequences for everyone involved, especially in a culture where beating is completely acceptable by the culture's god.

Plus, even in the New Testament it is said that slaves must obey their masters, so by being disobedient and resisting, you are breaking another law. Seems like one's hands are pretty well tied, if you ask me.

So, let's keep open the option, and a godly one at that, of rallying against an owner who refuses to "love his neighbor as himself".

I'd actually like to make a quick comment on the "love thy neighbor as thyself" verse. To me, that is a universal law that extends out to all people, regardless of nation, race, religion, et cetera. But yesterday I got curious on what exactly the meaning of "neighbor" was in those ancient times, and ran across this interesting article on a Jewish website.

I cannot say whether it's correct or incorrect because I know next to nothing about the Hebrew language, but I think the idea that "neighbors" only referred to Jews rather lines up with some of what was going on in the Bible at the time. Indiscriminately slaughtering neighboring tribes was hardly "loving thy neighbor as thyself." If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Of course, there is Leviticus 25:33-34, but again, what about the foreign slaves? It cannot apply to them, because in Leviticus 25:44-46, it says that foreign slaves are not to be treated with the same consideration as Hebrew slaves. There seems to be a fundamental problem here.

But even if someone can't quite find a good way to actually fight the system (justice), they can still show love (for other slaves in bad situations ), righteousness (by not returning evil for evil), and mercy (by showing genuine concern for their masters).

I understand that, but if one's God is endorsing cruelty, why and how should the lowly human fight against it, know that it is wrong and that God does not, in fact, approve of people beating you to your knees?

When you read verses like Exodus 21:20-12, one cannot help but think that, according to the God of the Jews, that such abuse was okay.

That's a pretty horrible thing to have to believe, especially when you live in a situation like that. I know it would be pretty effective in breaking my spirit.

You seem to be making some strange assumptions about God in those passages, too. God is never particularly interested in "quality of life", since that oftentimes just leads people to complacency, but the passages themselves (again, allowing room for going "against the system" if the owner is abusing them) do show concern for the slaves, allowing them to get married, have freedom in due time, and even stay with their family if they choose to do so.

He's interested in the "quality of life" of the slaveholders, isn't he? So much that he communicated an entire scroll of laws to Moses about what they should and should not do, and what should be done if they wrong someone or someone wrongs them. Something like that for the slaves would have been great.

Also, the possibility of freedom only applies to Hebrew slaves.

And I have absolutely no idea where you got the idea that God was only concerned with the wealthy and their finances.

I apologize if some of the statements I made in my post seemed random and unconnected; I was trying to condense down a few days' contemplation into a post that wasn't a city block long.

When I read verses like Exodus 21:31-32. . .

31 The same regulation applies if the ox gores a boy or a girl. 32 But if the ox gores a slave, either male or female, the animal’s owner must pay the slave’s owner thirty silver coins, and the ox must be stoned.

All other issues aside, I find myself wondering why on earth God would find the time to put a price on a human's life in order to protect a slaveholders financial situation, but not one single word is breathed about the owner of the ox apologizing to the victim's family?

According to my research (and I am new to this; if anyone has any verses to offer that counter my argument, I would appreciate seeing them), the concept of apologizing barely even appears the Old Testament. Even if the misfortune was far beyond your control, it is always good to say, "I am sorry for your loss."

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't help but hope that God would be more or at least equally concerned with how we treat each other in times of trouble than the recompense of a slaveholder upon the killing of a slave.

I think the reason why this is so startling to me is that when someone dies, Christians (though these gestures are hardly exclusive to Christianity) are quick to send their sympathies, gather around and support the family that is left behind. Yet according to my research, this concept doesn't even seem to be present in the Old Testament. Again, if anyone has any verses that counter this assumption, I would very much like to see them.

I know that supposedly the needs of the slave's family were taken care of (in terms of room and board), but still, it is common decency to extend your condolences to someone who has suffered a loss, especially if you had anything to do with the person's death.

Why was thirty shekels so important that it was included and a lesson on basic human kindness was not? I am aware that this section is about law, and that moral lessons are not usually found in lawbooks, but I really don't understand why at least few guidelines for how to respond kindly to such a situation, or something about how to be kind to one's fellow man, are not included in this part of the Bible.

God is Love, not money.

Looking a grieving family in the eye is something that most humans would be all too ready to avoid, and that's exactly why God's silence on this surprises me.

Can you imagine the pain of the loved ones left behind when the owner of the ox comes to pay thirty shekels to their master, as if that is all that matters? No attempt to apologize and sympathize with the grieving wife and children, or the elderly parents, or the brother or sister to whom their sibling was everything? And these are supposed to be the chosen people of a God of love, mercy, and justice?

It makes my blood run cold, to be honest.

My apologies for the long tangent, but this is extremely disturbing to me. Again, I would appreciate any thoughts/verses on this issue.

In fact, I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at with your post at all. So maybe, as an alternate question (and no wrong answers for this one): what are your feelings towards God after reading those passages?

It doesn't change my feelings toward God one iota, but it certainly modifies my feelings on the Book of Exodus.

I probably should have introduced myself in my first post, but I was trying to keep that from becoming so long. Since it just ended up spilling into this post, so I might as well just go for broke on this one.

I was raised in a Christian household, and I have very strong faith in God, a being that embodies love and mercy and justice, because God has had a strong presence in my life and kept me going when nothing else could. I consider myself a Christian because I love and admire Jesus and His teachings, and there is nothing that I revere more than unconditional love.

Bible study was never much of a part of my life, though, nor was the idea of it being 100% the inerrant word of God a concept that was discussed throughout my childhood. I don't even think I came into contact with that idea until I was a young teenager, to be honest. At this stage in my walk with God, I'm trying to learn as much as I can (and I have a long way to go, I'll be the first to admit that), discover exactly what my spiritual beliefs are and how to view the Bible, and see if I can fit into any of Christianity's denominations.

I'm very open minded, so I've always been curious about the idea that the Bible is indeed the infallible word of God. Mostly because so many people around the world believe it, so I know there has to be something to it, I just don't know what that something is yet. But the more I learn, the more questions and issues arise, especially when it comes to the Old Testament, and just the logic of God putting such important information in a form (writing) that most of his children throughout history would be barred from in some way or another.

I have lots of questions and am extremely interested in the answers, so I'm hoping to stick around and post some of my other issues and hopefully learn more about the Bible and the many facets of Christianity.

I find this stuff fascinating; I wouldn't have followed these threads since Teens on Christianity if I didn't.

The best argument that Minotaur and others would seem to have is that the Bible is self-contradictory, advocating a particular kind of slavery/indentured servitude in the past, while at the same time instilling principles of love and freedom, etc.

But it seems a bit odd to argue that this is immoral and thus the Bible collapses as a guide of morality — and primarily a written revelation inspired by the God Who desires, and demands, His creation's love and allegiance.

I would ask, then: if Scripture is wrong, slavery is "immoral" according to what, exactly?

Rose-Tree Dryad, we need to step back a bit here and ask what the purpose of the OT law was. Parts of it (like the Ten Commandments) are meant as codes of personal morality. Others (like dietary laws, etc) have to do with the holiness of the community. Some are religious regulations. And some are the penal and civil codes for the nation. What we are dealing with here is the penal and civil code of a nation in a context that took slavery for granted as a fact of life. Now these may seem harsh or archaic today, but consider the context: in the ancient world, all slaves were considered property, whereas in the OT law, it's very clear that only foreign slaves are to be bought and sold like property. By the standards of the day, this is radical in its implications.

What the code civil could not do was to induce kindness of attitude. Apology must come from a genuinely repentant spirit---which law is powerless to give. A legislated apology is no apology at all---it's empty words. Read Psalm 51 for an OT example of true penitence.

Now these may seem harsh or archaic today, but consider the context: in the ancient world, all slaves were considered property, whereas in the OT law, it's very clear that only foreign slaves are to be bought and sold like property. By the standards of the day, this is radical in its implications.

I suppose I could say I'm glad that they were starting to come around a tiny little bit, but discrimination is hardly pleasing. These very slight "improvements" seem a lot more like the evolution of Man's moral code, not the timeless moral code of God.

What the code civil could not do was to induce kindness of attitude. Apology must come from a genuinely repentant spirit---which law is powerless to give. A legislated apology is no apology at all---it's empty words. Read Psalm 51 for an OT example of true penitence.

I realize that. I'm not wishing for such a thing to be made law, because it would be pointless. What I would love to see, on the other hand, is God encouraging his people to do so because it is the Right Thing to Do.

EDIT:

Whoops, missed Doc Ransom's post.

I would ask, then: if Scripture is wrong, slavery is "immoral" according to what, exactly?

My initial thoughts (and I'll elaborate later if need be) on this is because it conflicts directly with free will, a right I believe that everyone should be entitled to regardless of religion. It's about having respect for your fellow man, and slavery encourages oppression and cruelty and discourages the advancement of individuals and their rights. It's about not destroying each other, and not discriminating against people. It's about love. I consider those to be universal laws.

I don't agree with the idea that once you take the Bible out of the equation, you lose all moral code. (If that was what you meant?) To be honest, I've had a very difficult time filtering out a clear moral code from the Bible as a whole.

You might open a whole can of worms mentioning 'free will' in the direction of TBG or Dr. Ransom.

Again, this is what I have been pointing out this whole time. We are addressing the issue of Biblical slavery under the context of "We the People..." in the Declaration of Independence. Our Founding Fathers of America listed several 'rights' and that all men were created equal. They also listed 27 Biblical violations that England had done upon the colonies (taxation without representation was #11, not #1 as textbooks indicate). And this is something we can't do when looking at Scripture.

As TBG said, these laws had to do with how to function within the established system they already knew and had. Now here is an interesting thing to think about. If the Law had been passed down to us in America, would these civil code laws be the same? I don't think so. There would be laws that address civil authorities, laws that address punishments for crimes, laws about taxation, loans, and interest, and other stuff that applies to us. Slavery would not be brought up because it is no longer in our system. If the Law came to America prior the Civil War, there would be. It's something to think about.

This is really good discussions. The Bible does tell us to test God and see if he is good. He tells us to meditate on his Word day and night. That means think about it. Wrestle with it. If we just take the Bible on blind faith (which many of us are accused of doing and actually do) then that's what it is: blind faith. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as "evidence" of things unseen. When we test Scripture and seek its mysteries out, we will see the evidence that backs up our faith.

No worries, Fencer; I'm content to avoid the tangent about whether man's free will is limited by God's. That's definitely an inter-Christian topic, anyway, limited to those who already profess belief in the Gospel, personal repentance, and faith in Christ the God-Man.

My initial thoughts (and I'll elaborate later if need be) on this is because it conflicts directly with free will, a right I believe that everyone should be entitled to regardless of religion.

That sounds great. However, that is a religious belief of your own.

I say, "I ought to have the right to enslave another human." (I don't believe this to be right at all, of course, yet this is an example.)

You say: "I believe all people should have free will."

... What makes your morality supersede mine? I am exercising my free will, after all, to want to enslave someone else.

Would you then try to stop me? If so, I call foul: this is my Free Will.

Another example: I want to do something really original in Ethical Question scenarios, such as take over the world, or rob banks; I forget.

You want to stop me.

You are therefore impeding my Free Will for some reason you feel is more important than my Free Will exercise — a superior morality.

Based on what? Your own belief claims? Majority opinion?

If so, I could persuade most others to agree with me and lock you up.

I'm just saying folks may certainly have morality, and even the right kind, but the Christian would suggest not that you're immoral, but that your morality is ultimately groundless and without consistency. Even more importantly, no one follows perfect even his own (perceived) morality. And that, the Christian would say, is the point of the Bible: not just to Give Directions, but to Give Revelation — about Christ, the Personal, not Ethical, reason for living. We were made not just to Be Good, but to worship/enjoy Him forever.

Plus, even in the New Testament it is said that slaves must obey their masters, so by being disobedient and resisting, you are breaking another law.

Okay, so Colossians 31. If you look at the entire passage, you see a series of "trade-offs" for three types of relationships.

- Wives are to submit to their husbands, and husbands should love their wives and not be harsh to them.
- Children should obey their parents in everything, and parents should not provoke their children or discourage them.
- Slaves should obey their masters, and masters should treat their slaves justly and fairly

In a way, each of those first parts could and has been twisted to the others' benefits. But then you look at their following parts and you see that by no means does Paul condone domestic or child abuse, and also by no means does he condone slave abuse.

(I should note that, with Paul's words in Col. 4:1, I'm starting to really doubt that slavery will automatically make masters into evil tyrants. Maybe you should check your assumptions on slavery as something that inherently corrupts those who are masters? We have examples from history, but you really have to be careful applying examples as rules, especially once you get into different cultures and time periods.)

Now, there is a question brought up here: what does one do if, say, a husband, parent, or master is being abusive? Does this nullify the wife/child/slave's requirement of being submissive/obedient? I would say it certainly at least redefines what it means to be submissive/obedient. In each case, a certain amount of God-honoring "rebellion", done out of love for the other person, is applicable. A wife can set boundaries with her husband and even separate from him until he changes his behavior. A child can confide in other adults so that they can interfere on his behalf. And a slave can band together with other slaves to try to get a master to change, or barring that, attempt escape, knowing who his true Master is.

What I would love to see, on the other hand, is God encouraging his people to [have an attitude of kindness] because it is the Right Thing to Do.

This is an interesting statement to make, and I'd like to perhaps challenge it in a way.

Say you had two friends, and you asked them, "If I gave you a baseball bat, would you hit me in the head with it?"

Friend A answers, "No, because that is not the right thing to do."
Friend B answers, "No, because that would hurt you."

Who would you rather give the bat to?*

God will not encourage people to do something because it is somehow "the right thing to do". That is a Law-based morality, and the Law can only bring death. What Christ did, then, is to free us from the Law, so that we can move to a Love-based morality. Once we are freed from the Law, we can look at how our actions affect other people and how they affect God, and through empathy realize what we need to do.

So if you're wondering what the moral code of the Bible is, Jesus says it clear: love the Lord your God with all your heart/mind/soul/strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. (And if maybe in the past that only applied to other Jews, it certainly didn't when Christ came into the picture, as He extended it to everyone, even the then-despised Samaritans.)

(It should also be noted that some non-believers have tried to get away with only having the "love your neighbor as yourself" as their claimed morality ground... but without the all-powerful God to love first and foremost, a "love your neighbor" morality is ultimately still groundless. And by the same token, if you claim to love God but don't love your neighbor, one would have to question your love for God. The two are connected like that.)

*Edit: This dilemma is taken from Changes That Heal by Dr. Henry Cloud. Which, I should add, is a good book.

I suppose I could say I'm glad that they were starting to come around a tiny little bit, but discrimination is hardly pleasing.

If you want to argue this line, then every legal system ever has violated it. Every nation has laws elaborating different rights for its own citizens than for foreigners.

These very slight "improvements" seem a lot more like the evolution of Man's moral code, not the timeless moral code of God.

But what they provide is the application of God's moral law in a particular society at a particular time.

What I would love to see, on the other hand, is God encouraging his people to do so because it is the Right Thing to Do.

As others have said, "The Right Thing to Do" is a rather poor motive. One thinks of the character of Javert from Les Miserables. Søren Kierkegaard maintained that really, it is better to act out of a love for a person (the person of God) than out of slavish adherance to law. Therefore He calls us to repent before Him and each other so that we might be forgiven.

I will briefly toss two more cents into the conversation . I find it amusing that several in here are looking, as I said earlier, through the lense of modern sensibilities. We each have it and we all do it to a certain extent. Like I said before, man's views, opinions, and laws are constantly changing to fit the scenario, but God's is everlasting and unchanging. Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if one day, maybe 100-200 years from now, someone looks back at us and says "I can't believe they did that. Those evil people! Why that Rose-Tree Dryad actually went and did that with a clear conscience!" (probably talking about being a UNC fan, no doubt ), whereas, ironically, it'll be the ones like stardf, Fencer, and the others who will stick up for you and say to view it as the people who lived it did and not to jump to morally self-indulgent conclusions.

You might open a whole can of worms mentioning 'free will' in the direction of TBG or Dr. Ransom.

Haha, I've seen that topic wrestled about on these threads quite a few times over the years.

That sounds great. However, that is a religious belief of your own.

When I'm looking at the definitions for "religious" in the dictionary, I don't see how that qualifies as a religious belief. Can you elaborate on that, please?

I say, "I ought to have the right to enslave another human." (I don't believe this to be right at all, of course, yet this is an example.)

You say: "I believe all people should have free will."

... What makes your morality supersede mine? I am exercising my free will, after all, to want to enslave someone else.

I would be inclined to think it would be because it doesn't harm others.

Would you then try to stop me? If so, I call foul: this is my Free Will.

It's also my free will to try to stop you, and you'd be more than welcome to "free will" right back at me if I attempted to do so.

Another example: I want to do something really original in Ethical Question scenarios, such as take over the world, or rob banks; I forget.

You want to stop me.

You are therefore impeding my Free Will for some reason you feel is more important than my Free Will exercise — a superior morality.

Based on what? Your own belief claims? Majority opinion?

No, the fact of the matter is I don't enjoy seeing innocent people getting hurt at the hands of other humans. That doesn't have anything to do with beliefs, it has to do with being tenderhearted. That's the crux of it.

I'm not claiming that my way of looking at life is the right way, or that I know better than anyone else. What I'd really like is for God to play an active role in human life and make no bones about what is Right and Wrong. At this time, the Bible doesn't do that for me at all.

Okay, so Colossians 31. If you look at the entire passage, you see a series of "trade-offs" for three types of relationships.

- Wives are to submit to their husbands, and husbands should love their wives and not be harsh to them.
- Children should obey their parents in everything, and parents should not provoke their children or discourage them.
- Slaves should obey their masters, and masters should treat their slaves justly and fairly

But did the concept of "mutual slavery" even exist in the time of Moses?

They're nice ideas, but they sure look like they were designed for perfect humans. Are there any verses that indicate what you should do when these ideal scenarios fail?

Also, it's one thing if you're looking at the Bible as a finished product and applying later scriptures to past events, but I can imagine it was a lot harder actually having to live through the centuries that its books span, when large portions of it hadn't even been written or even imagined yet.

(I should note that, with Paul's words in Col. 4:1, I'm starting to really doubt that slavery will automatically make masters into evil tyrants. Maybe you should check your assumptions on slavery as something that inherently corrupts those who are masters? We have examples from history, but you really have to be careful applying examples as rules, especially once you get into different cultures and time periods.)

Well, what I tend to get from many Christians is that we're already evil tyrants. If one believes that, one has to also imagine that we are pretty poor candidates to rule over anything, let alone another human being.

Even if someone had the terrific luck to land a benevolent master, suppose that changes? He could develop a brain tumor that could cause him to become violent, start abusing alcohol, or become "possessed by a demon," et cetera. There is no guarantee that a good person will remain so, and there is nothing a slave can do about it. The one thing that you can always expect from life is change, and that everything earthly—especially good things, it would seem—is temporary.

Now, there is a question brought up here: what does one do if, say, a husband, parent, or master is being abusive? Does this nullify the wife/child/slave's requirement of being submissive/obedient? I would say it certainly at least redefines what it means to be submissive/obedient. In each case, a certain amount of God-honoring "rebellion", done out of love for the other person, is applicable. A wife can set boundaries with her husband and even separate from him until he changes his behavior. A child can confide in other adults so that they can interfere on his behalf. And a slave can band together with other slaves to try to get a master to change, or barring that, attempt escape, knowing who his true Master is.

Are there any scriptures that support this, other than the theory that if someone is not living up to the ideals of Colossians 31, then they can "break" the contract? And furthermore, do those ideas appear in the Old Testament anywhere in any way?

Let me see if I understand what you mean here. Are you saying that if a slaveholder is beating a slave unjustly in the time of Moses, the slave can then try to escape/resist/rebel because that is "wrong," regardless of the fact that it says in the scriptures of the time that there is no punishment—no reason for anyone to believe that it was wrong and should be stopped—for a man beating his slave because they are his property?

Again, I go back to the issue of being unable to escape because you are stealing someone else's property, and stealing is forbidden. In order to come to the conclusion that this is not right and try to escape while "knowing who one's true Master is," you are apparently having to go against the scriptures from that same Master.

You're forced to seek something that is not supported by the holy writings of that era. Deviating from the religion of the ancient Jews, which is supposed to be the true, "real" one.

That does not make sense to me at all.

This is an interesting statement to make, and I'd like to perhaps challenge it in a way.

Say you had two friends, and you asked them, "If I gave you a baseball bat, would you hit me in the head with it?"

Friend A answers, "No, because that is not the right thing to do."
Friend B answers, "No, because that would hurt you."

Who would you rather give the bat to?

I would love it if a Friend C would materialize who understood both concepts.

Interesting question. You know, I would probably say Friend A, because sometime Friend B might get mad at me. If they only know not to do that because it will cause me pain, then a day may come when they hit me over the head with it because they do know it will hurt me. Sinful human nature and all that that makes us naturally inclined to do brutish things to each other, of course.

But if you start thinking about if it's the right thing to do or not, and if doing it would please God, you start loosening the hold that intrinsically sinful nature has on you just by thinking some Bigger, Better Thoughts. Thinking about something other than yourself.

I'm not sure if that is what you were trying to get across with that example, though.

God will not encourage people to do something because it is somehow "the right thing to do". That is a Law-based morality, and the Law can only bring death. What Christ did, then, is to free us from the Law, so that we can move to a Love-based morality.

Okay, I'm not really following you here, but I'm trying.

What do you mean by the "law can only bring death"? And then what were the pre-Christ laws for? Killing? Truly, what was their actual purpose?

Once we are freed from the Law, we can look at how our actions affect other people and how they affect God, and through empathy realize what we need to do.

Again, I'm not really following you. All non-Christians are held accountable by the Law, and all Christians are held accountable by Love? So. . . all non-Christians still should be observing all those kooky cultural ancient laws? Can you elaborate, please?

So if you're wondering what the moral code of the Bible is, Jesus says it clear: love the Lord your God with all your heart/mind/soul/strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. (And if maybe in the past that only applied to other Jews, it certainly didn't when Christ came into the picture, as He extended it to everyone, even the then-despised Samaritans.)

I know this is probably a pretty basic question about Christianity, but I'm going to ask it anyway: why did God keep people in the dark about this until the time of Jesus? What was the purpose of that? Why make any laws if, at the end of the day, they're not going to help anyone, and only Christ's Love-based morality can? Would it not have been better just to start with Christ and avoid the flip-flopping on issues and confusion that persists to this day?

If you want to argue this line, then every legal system ever has violated it. Every nation has laws elaborating different rights for its own citizens than for foreigners.

Oh, I would be very surprised if humans could invent a legal system that did not include some kind of discrimination. But it would make me very sad if God couldn't, because I would hope that he could do a bit better than us flawed creatures.

But what they provide is the application of God's moral law in a particular society at a particular time.

What kind of morals? Can you elaborate on that, please?

As others have said, "The Right Thing to Do" is a rather poor motive. One thinks of the character of Javert from Les Miserables. Søren Kierkegaard maintained that really, it is better to act out of a love for a person (the person of God) than out of slavish adherance to law. Therefore He calls us to repent before Him and each other so that we might be forgiven.

I agree with that, but if Man is so depraved, then God needs to first expose us these ideas, instead of just hoping we figure them out even though it supposedly goes completely against a human's sinful nature.

Is there anything in the Old Testament about repenting to one another? I haven't found any verses on it, aside from the New Testament.

Like I said before, man's views, opinions, and laws are constantly changing to fit the scenario, but God's is everlasting and unchanging. Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if one day, maybe 100-200 years from now, someone looks back at us and says "I can't believe they did that. Those evil people! Why that Rose-Tree Dryad actually went and did that with a clear conscience!" (probably talking about being a UNC fan, no doubt )

Hahahaha!

Well, when the day comes that mayonnaise is considered a holy food, I'm sure your name will be quite infamous as well.

I don't think my feelings on these matters have to do with "modern sensibilities," though. I've struggled with human suffering my entire life; suffering of any kind, no matter what the cause of it.

All right, I'm taking a breather, and I'll try not to keep flooding this thread with massive posts every six hours. Oh, and if my tone ever seems austere at any point during this discussion, it's only because of the subject matter. I'm having the time of my life, I really enjoy in-depth discussions.

This is an interesting statement to make, and I'd like to perhaps challenge it in a way.

Say you had two friends, and you asked them, "If I gave you a baseball bat, would you hit me in the head with it?"

Friend A answers, "No, because that is not the right thing to do."
Friend B answers, "No, because that would hurt you."

Who would you rather give the bat to?

I would love it if a Friend C would materialize who understood both concepts.

Interesting question. You know, I would probably say Friend A, because sometime Friend B might get mad at me. If they only know not to do that because it will cause me pain, then a day may come when they hit me over the head with it because they do know it will hurt me. Sinful human nature and all that that makes us naturally inclined to do brutish things to each other, of course.

I actually really like this example of stardf's. It reminds me of something that happened to me in real life.

Growing up, there were a lot of people in my life I didn't much care for. And that always confused me, because I couldn't figure out why I didn't care for them. Whenever I was hurting, they were always the first to help. When they did something wrong, they would apologize as soon as they realized it. They were always polite, selfless, put other before themselves, etc. They were everything a person should desire to be. But I never felt that close to them, and that was a clue to the problem. I found out finally that the only reason why they did any of these things was because they felt it was The Right Thing To Do. They didn't help me because they actually cared about me. In fact, they didn't even really like me or care about me at all. But they thought helping me was The Right Thing To Do, so they helped me anyway.

Then I met some people that actually wanted to be close to me (a lot of them I met here). They also always tried to help me when I was in trouble. But it felt different. They were helping me because they really loved me. They really, genuinely cared about what happened to me. Unlike the other people, who didn't care whether I lived or died, and just helped because they thought it would be moral. These new people didn't just help because they thought it was right (though I'm sure they do believe it is right). They helped because their hearts had been transformed by Christ, and that made them want to help; instead of just feeling like they should help whether they wanted to or not.

~Riella

^Ah, I understand the example now. Thanks, Ithie.

That's not what I meant by the Right Thing to Do, and didn't realize that those four words would stir up such a reaction. The loving, "Godly" thing to do would maybe have been a better way to put it, possibly.

I still don't understand why God wasn't encouraging people to love each other more, though, but he found time to instruct people what to do if somebody's ox killed your ox and so on. He gives these brief instructions to "love thy neighbor" (whatever that really meant back then) and then gets bogged down with politics. I find it very odd.

(I promise this is my last post for today. )

Oh, I would be very surprised if humans could invent a legal system that did not include some kind of discrimination. But it would make me very sad if God couldn't, because I would hope that he could do a bit better than us flawed creatures.

But the problem here is sin. In Israel, God is calling a people to Himself, away from sin and slavery and unto righteousness. Does one treat a family member differently than an outsider? Is this not discrimination of a sort? Yet despite God's care, this people would not follow and so God Himself came down.

In the person of Jesus, His death, and His resurrection, God universalized that which was only glimpsed in Israel and now draws all unto Himself. Does God discriminate? Yes, for in Christ, God has said "yes" to humanity (the Divine image) and "no" to sin. For Christ became sin for us and was judged, yet rose again as humanity reborn, the new Adam. To those who say "yes" to this new reality, to the living God, to them the living God will say "yes." And to those who say "no" to the Living God, and thereby join in crucifying Him, to them God also says "no."

What kind of morals?

The two great commandments: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. From these two commandments come everything. The law that we follow must be one of love.

I agree with that, but if Man is so depraved, then God needs to first expose us these ideas, instead of just hoping we figure them out even though it supposedly goes completely against a human's sinful nature.

Yet this is the whole point of the self-revelation of God in Christ, to which the infallible Scriptures and the witness of the Church attest. It is in Christ, as He both affirms and judges (for judge He does) that the law of God and the love of God are perfectly realized.

Is there anything in the Old Testament about repenting to one another?

I would say that this is much of the immediate point of the sin offering: a public confession of and turning from sin.

TBG