Unlocking Exodus: The Surprising Truth About Biblical Slavery

Well, let me welcome for my guests, my audience, welcome to The Rap Report.

I'm your host, Andrew Rapworth, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

And this is a crossover episode. I am doing it with my friend, well, we'll use that term lightly, the

New Yorker, Pastor Dominic Grimaldi from, why don't you introduce your podcast so that my audience knows where you're from.

So you want to know what podcast I'm from or where I'm from? Do you know what podcast you do? I don't know. Maybe not.

I think I do something called Street Talk Theology, maybe because I'm from New York City. I don't know.

So what we wanted to do today is we want to deal with a difficult passage of scripture, one that lots of people in the 21st century have difficulties with.

And so both of our audiences, we want both of you to learn to handle scripture better.

And so Pastor Dominic and I are going to go through, if you're not driving, you can open your

Bible, Exodus 21, Exodus 21. There's a lot of things here,

Pastor Dom, that people struggle with. I made the comment about the 21st century.

When you're interpreting scripture, how important is, just so we can lay a groundwork, how important is it to make sure that we have the right cultural context?

Yeah, I think anytime you do exegesis in the Bible, I think it's important we have the cultural context.

Because I guess we both could say we probably learned in seminary that good exegesis allows us to have a good hermeneutical outlook on the text.

So I think without understanding what the original audience understood, we won't be able to actually interpret the text rightly.

But this is a tough text, man. I read it before I came on, but it is a tough text.

But I think we'll be able to tackle it. And I think hopefully and prayerfully, the both audiences will get something out of it.

Yeah, and I think that we'll be able to tackle this once we get some, and we're going to do this over a couple of episodes, because it's just too much to tackle in one.

But there's a lot of things I think we need to understand, Pastor Dom, is that 21st century, this is laws about slavery.

And we have a different understanding of slavery in our day, 21st century

America, than in biblical times. Yeah, without a doubt, this is a different type of slavery, definitely, for sure.

The problem is when people read slavery in the Bible, they try to attribute it to the slavery that that we might be accustomed to.

But that's the wrong interpretation. And that will definitely give you the wrong interpretation of this scripture, for sure.

Yeah, so when people think, as a listener, you're listening, when we mentioned the word slavery, you're probably thinking of the

African slave trade. And that's what people think of. So when they think of the

African slave trade, it's this idea that people can own as a possession another person.

Hold that thought, because throughout the series, we're going to later get into an issue that's going to deal with a topic of abortion.

I actually think they're the same issue. They're an ownership issue.

But the slavery in the Bible is more in line with what we think of as a employer employee relationship.

But it's not the way we would really have it. The best way I can explain it, Pastor Dom, is

Japan in the 80s, when people would go to work for a company and the company owned their shoes, their cars, their education, their houses, the company paid for everything.

And so people didn't just pick up and move to a different company. And the idea is those people would serve the company to get the company better, because the better the company did, the better they would do.

But the company owned everything. They sent the kids to school, they would own the car. So if you leave the company to a different one, you lose everything and got to start all over.

Yeah, you make a great point. So use the word serve. I'm going to use a different word instead of serve as loyalty, loyalty to the company.

And basically, if you look at this text, there's loyalty involved with that. Because if you stay loyal to the family, then you get to keep everything.

If you don't, like the example you gave, if they leave, they may lose some things.

In this case, it's not shoes and a car, but they may lose their family. So that's an interesting, that's a good, definitely a good analogy.

And, you know, again, if I'm not mistaken, this is probably in the context under types of covenant.

I mean, like it looks like a covenant in the in the context.

So and we know covenants, there's loyalty to covenant, either you're loyal to the covenant or you aren't.

So I think you make a great point. That's a great analogy right there. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of covenants here because you have marriage as a covenant relationship.

That may surprise some folks, but let's do this. How about if you want to read the first 11 verses?

This is for the audience. How dangerous is this? You've got two preachers that are going to try to deal with a whole chapter of scripture.

Not in one day, I don't have to tell, not the whole, not one day. Oh no. We can do the 11 verses in an hour.

Listen, I'm going to read from the same Bible that Paul read from, the Legacy Standard Bible.

Is that okay? Go for it. What are you laughing for? This is the same Bible he had. I'm sure.

Even though it just came out like a year or so ago, but yeah. Well, this was predestined to be his

Bible, I'm only kidding. First 11 verses, Andrew? Sure. Starting in verse 21 and one, now these are the judgments you ought to set before them.

If you by a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years, but on the seventh, he shall go out as a free man without payment.

If he comes alone, he shall go out alone. If he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons and daughters, the wife and the children shall belong to her master and he shall go out alone.

But if the slave plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out as a free man.

Then his master shall bring him to God and he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost.

Then his master shall pierce his ear with an owl, an owl,

A, I don't know if my accent says that right, not an owl, but an owl, A -W -L, owl, and he shall serve him permanently.

And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as a male slaves do.

If she's displeasing in the eyes of a master who designated her for himself, he shall let her be redeemed.

He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his treachery to her. And if he designates her for his son, he shall do to her according to the customs of daughters.

If he takes for himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, her and her conjugal rights.

And if he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing without payment of money.

Thus sayeth the Lord, right? Yes. So right off the bat, there's a couple of things here that upset people.

Especially when we come to this idea that if you come into slavery and you get married, you can be freed.

The others, your wife, your children can't. So we're going to, we'll get to that. But let's, let's start with what we have at the beginning.

You have this idea of a Hebrew slave that serves for, for six years, but on the seventh, he's set free.

This is what's called in the Jewish times of the Jubilee. So you'd have a

Jubilee year. This right here is, should be the very first thing to indicate that this is not the same slavery that people think of when they hear of slavery.

Yeah. Cause those slaves couldn't go free. No way, no how. Correct. Cause they were, they were, they were seen as property.

So right here, we see a difference. The Hebrew slave was not property.

And, and there's other passages we could look at that say that if you're, if you're, you can, you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing.

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You have a cattle and it goes to the neighbor's property. You return the cattle because the, the, your neighbor owns the cattle.

But if your slave runs away to your property, you don't return the person. Right. Because they're not property.

I'm sorry, Andrew. And if he came with a wife, he leaves her a wife. I mean, that's fair. Fair exchange is no robbery, right?

It's not, if he came with a wife, he can leave with a wife. Yeah. But people get more hung up on the other scenario.

If the master gives him a wife, that the wife and children stay with the master. That's where people have a difficulty with this.

Well, I think that, you know, the master gave him the wife. So the master would, even though they get married, it's still the progeny or the the, the genesis of that is that it was given by the master and it should go back to the master.

Well, yeah, it's, it's a thing where like, so for you folks listening and you have a negative idea of what slavery is.

Slavery in the Bible was an, actually an act of grace. And that sounds so strange to our 21st century mindset.

Man, now you're going to get yourself in trouble, Andrew. But it actually was the people that would put themselves in his slaves.

It was a financial thing. They, they had proven that they were either incapable to handle money or provide for themselves that they would get themselves in a position where they would have to sell themselves to a slave.

Either they got themselves into debt and had to go into slavery to pay off a debt.

By the way, slavery in the old Pestiment, the master had to pay them a half of half a day's wage.

So half the day was to pay off the debt they owed. The other half was for their, their provide their provision for themselves.

So again, this is not the same slavery that we think of in the African slave trade, the

African slave trade, they got no money. They were seen as property. And so this is a protection.

This is something where you're in this society. Everyone was expected to work.

Now, yes, you have people that would beg, but the provision within the law was for everyone to work.

And if you have people, as we have in our culture, we have people that do not know how to handle money or handle themselves.

And they get themselves in trouble. And in doing so they get in debt.

So the idea of someone selling themselves as a slave or becoming a slave to someone is so that someone else will provide for them and take care of them while they work off that debt, or even if they decide to work for a life.

So when we look at it this way, the real rub here is verse four.

If the master gives him a wife and she bears him sons and daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to the master and he shall go out alone.

So the I'm sorry, my bad. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I just say so. So the idea there is that the the husband is

Hebrew, the you know, and you have this slave that is given to another slave.

So you have a a woman who's given to the slave male and they have children.

But this is a guy who's already proven he can't handle himself or handle taking care of himself or his finances.

So to let the wife go out who is under the care and responsibility of the master, what ends up happening is to give the wife over to the husband becomes a foolish thing if this guy can't take care of himself and is just going to get himself in trouble again.

The master has a responsibility to the wife and children. And so the offer to the husband is you could stay working for me and I will care for you and take take care of your wife and children or you go out on your own.

But I'm going to provide for the for the wife and children because you've already proven you can't do that.

Yeah. The other thing, too, you make a great point. You said about not understanding, but when 24 looking at this with 21st century eyes, but notice the slave, he understands it.

He says, you know, but the slave plainly says, I love my master, my wife, my children.

He understands what we don't understand. Right. He gets it. He knows. And again, we just let the text interpret the text.

He doesn't say, how could he do this to me? This is not right. He says, I understand.

You know, I love my master. I love my wife and basically and my and my children.

And I don't want to go out as a free man. And for folks to understand, slavery wasn't always the worst case.

We always think of it that way. I don't know, Pastor Dom, if you ever read the book, 12

Years a Slave. You ever see that book? No, I know. I don't even know.

No, I didn't have it. So this book was written by a guy who he was born. If I remember correctly, he was born in New York.

I forget his last name, Solomon, I think was his birth name. But he was born a free man when slavery was legal.

And he played music and he was down in D .C. And while in D .C.,

he was kidnapped and he was brought down to the South. And he tried to explain that he was a free black man and they beat him for it.

So he kind of learned not to say anything. So he was sold as a slave. And for 12 years, he was a slave before he was finally recognized that he was a free man and set free.

But to the first person, he was sold to a Christian man. And in his book, he said if that was all he knew of slavery, he would never have thought slavery to be a bad thing.

Amen. Because he had someone who was caring for him, who was loving on the people that worked for him.

And yes, he bought them and they worked. But what happened was he got he basically the master didn't was tight on money and had to sell some slaves and sold him.

And he went to someone who started beating him and beating others. So it was two very different types of masters.

We always think that every master is the worst. That's not always the case.

But the scripture, the rules are on the master to be taking care of people.

Their theirs was a responsibility of care. Now, we didn't grow up in the in the feudal society of Europe.

But in that society, you had the nobles that had the land and you had the peasants that worked the land.

But the nobles were supposed to have the responsibility to make sure that they were providing for everyone, all the peasants, for all the people that were doing the work.

And unfortunately, as human beings are human beings, you have people that will abuse that, whether it's in slavery, within the noble peasant class, employer, employee relationships.

You have people that abuse those they're supposed to have responsibility for. Amen, amen.

Yeah, that's, you know, that stuff is hard. I mean, but if you're in a straight reading of the text,

I believe if you, like you said, serve, but here is a loyalty issue.

Are you going to be loyal to your employee? Are you going to be loyal to your wife, your children? If not, you go out on your own.

And again, I think you bring another, I think, a good exegesis to the text.

You're basically saying the owner, if the man wants to go out and fend for himself, the owner is saying,

I'm going to be responsible for the wife and the children that I've actually was the progenitor of.

But if this man wants to leave that and be a, for choice of a better words, a lone ranger.

Well, he's got that coming under the year of Jubilee. And you're right.

He does go into this knowing it. He knows what the law is. So if he knows that his when he gets married, knowing the law, he knows that if his master gives him a wife, that at that moment, he knows the choice he's going to have to make in seven years.

Exactly. So it's something that he goes in willingly.

Eyes wide open. That's right. And so this is why so many people think, oh, well, is

God forcing them to divorce? God is saying that to this master, he has a responsibility to take care of this.

And it would be a Gentile slave because of the fact that the, what they would do is in warfare.

They would, you know, men, men would die. They'd take over the country, but they, they're not to, you know, take, kill the women and children there to care for them.

And so that is a permanent state. Then they have a responsibility to those people to care for them, because in a society where only the man makes the money and provides the living when the men are gone, there's no way the women become destitute, the children become, and they die out there.

They have no means of care. And you remember this show, Downton Abbey? Yes. No.

And I'm just saying, I, and again, I'm not, I'm not too big on aristocracy, but it seemed like in that show, which my wife liked, and she had me watch it and she kind of Shanghai'd me to watch it and it wasn't bad, but the, the,

I don't want to call them slaves, the servants who were basically like slaves, the masters,

I mean, they got along, they asked them advice and, and I don't know if that works like that, you know, today, but it seemed like they, even though they, they had, they were different classes of people,

I seen that they were as, you know, treated as human beings and, and actually ones that would bring something to the table, so to speak, as far as advice and how do

I do this and that, and if that make, and that's kind of, right? So there was no, yes, there was a different class, but it wasn't, it wasn't a demeaning class.

Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense. And obviously when, when it's a

TV show, they can make it like seem like a perfect scenario.

It wasn't always that way. There were some that abused the system. My wife would say that, but, but sometimes it was that way though, right?

Yeah. And, and that's the whole thing that it's, I think addressing here is the fact that, yes, there are those who abuse the system, but the law is not, it's to try to prevent the abuse and protect the, the good.

And that's what you have here with this, this passage that especially verse four, that seems so difficult for people to understand.

It is the fact that the role of the master is to care for these, these women and children that might've been taken during warfare and to provide, to protect, to care for them.

And so you have a Hebrew who gets himself into debt. He married, he, the master, you know, he wants to marry one of the other slaves.

He knows what he's doing. He knows what's going to happen in seven years.

And the context here is so, so if you want, so I'm going to tell you what

Andrew's doing and he's doing it right. Not because it's Andrew. I hate to say he does things right, but he does.

But in the same context, as the master is taking care of the, the women and children, the same way the master has to take care of the concubine that he's going to let go, which is the next section.

That's right. So notice, notice what Andrew's helping you understand is good exegesis, because it's in the same context as in the next section, the concubine or the female slave has to be taken care of by the master, even though he wants to remarry, he still has to take care of that concubine and make sure that she's taken care of.

So the context, as Andrew was saying, you, if you understand the first part, you're going to get the second part.

Does that make sense to me? I don't mean to jump ahead, Andrew, but I was just thinking about that, that if you understand the first contextual, the way you contextually put it, then you have to take the second part and apply it the same way.

Well, you, you nailed it because they are in the, where I think so many people in our day and age have trouble with it is one, they don't have the right view what slavery was.

They don't have an understanding of the culture of that time, because Pastor Dom, we live in a culture where your wife can go out and get a job.

Nobody would look any different on that. In fact, they'd almost expect her to have a job because they expect husbands and wives both to be working in our culture.

Especially in today's economy, right? Even though it's gotten better. Well, that's a political issue.

We'll talk about that another time. Well, that's, that actually is why our culture, it's, it, when, when you had during the war,

World War II, women started working and then, you know, men came back from the war, people got married.

Well, the women kept working, guys kept working. What happened was over time is that there became two incomes.

Well, now you can afford more on a house. You can afford more on a, on a car, all the prices went up.

But what ended up happening is now for many people, they have to have two incomes just to get by because the, our society is now with the idea, the commonality of both husband and wife working.

And Andrew, notice the, notice how God is taking care of the least of these here.

He's taking care of the woman and the children, and he's taking care of the concubine or the woman that was married.

So basically, as far as the, as far as the men go, they're free to leave, but they're free to come under God's divine protection that he's using.

So the least of these are being protected in both these sections of scripture.

You're right. And, and the other person, even this Hebrew slave is being taken care of.

You know, without a doubt, but he can, if he wants to leave, then, then he's on his own. He's on his own. But he can come under that umbrella though, right?

He can come under that umbrella and he would be able to, to continue working for the master, the piercing of the ear with an awl.

Yeah, can I pass on the piercing of the ear, buddy? I'd like to stay with my wife and kids and I'll serve the master well, but can you please spare me the piercing of the ear,

Mr. Andrew? Hey, you know, if you don't mind, I'll come right over and I got a hammer. I got an awl.

I'll be happy to put you right on your, your doorpost. And notice people will say, well, you see guys can wear earrings.

Look at this, you know, so you gotta be careful when we look at that. This is not an, an earring the way we would have today.

Yeah, exactly. Just put a little light on that. That must've hurt though.

They had no Novocain or anything back then, buddy. It's a little hole. There's not too many nerves there.

But okay. And so yeah. And so I think this would, this would be a good time, a place for us to, to wrap up this first part of this passage and we'll come back to it in just a few minutes.

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So Pastor Dom, we were looking at the first half of Exodus 21, starting at verses one.

And we got down to the part of verse six, where, you know, we dealt with this idea of a master who has a responsibility to care for the slaves that he has.

And we've talked about the difference of slavery, right? That the slavery in the old Testament and the slavery in the, that we think of today are very different.

The slavery today that people think of is one where you own a person as property, but that's not the case because in verse one, it talked about the fact that a

Hebrew slave, sorry, verse two, that a Hebrew slave would be a slave for only six years on the seventh year they'd be set free.

And so without payment. So if they, whatever debt they owed, they would pay that.

And on the seventh year, they go out own no more payment. Now, this was something that is very different than the slavery we think of.

And we have to understand when we see slavery in the Bible, we're not talking the same type of slavery.

No, this is more like, I mean, you're at the straight reading of the text. I mean, you can see the person went in with his eyes open.

Now, and then, like you said, if he went there with a wife, he wants to leave, he leaves with a wife. But if the wife was given to him and the children from that marriage, he understands that those are not his wife and children if he wants to leave.

If he doesn't want to leave, he serves his master and he'll be able to, you know, have his wife and children.

It did straight reading of the text just shows you that he understands the problem is more times than not, we don't understand.

That's the problem. Well, I think one of the things that you had said when we looked at those first seven, six verses is the fact that we don't understand because we're in a different culture.

And this is the importance of looking at the cultural context, understanding that they live very different than we live today.

Yeah, they sure did. I mean, Pastor Dom, I had once when my daughter was growing up, she asked me, you know,

I grounded her, I guess, from her cell phone. And she asked me at dinner one night, she's like,

Dad, what did you do when your parents grounded you from your cell phone? Yeah, I laughed.

I was like, cell phone? We had one phone in the kitchen and everyone would sit in the kitchen listening on your conversations.

What do you mean cell phone? We shared it. We thought it was really good when my parents got a 25 foot cord so we could walk around on the phone.

There were no private conversations. Remember, there was no messages either. You were home and picked up.

There was no like, you know, hey, this is Joe calling. Call me back when you get home. There was none of that.

Yeah, no. And that's the thing that we have to understand that culture does change.

And we have to look at we can't read scripture in light of 21st century. We have to read scripture in light of the time it was written.

So here would be the challenge, though, right, Andrew? Now, and so I want to just say because it talks about loyalty.

And then the same way, I think I mentioned last week, and I think you might have agreed that God is taking care of the least of these here and even the even the slave if you don't want to go out.

But so the harder part or for me, and I know we want to get into the

I know we want to get into the the concubine issue.

The harder part is for me, Andrew, is maybe before we get off the air, is there a way that we can take this text and apply it to the 21st century?

Sometimes it's not when you do good acts of Jesus. But is there a way that, you know, you can talk about covenant loyalty, you can talk about loyalty marriage.

Maybe there is a way that you can apply this as far as the term loyalty goes. Well, I think there's a lot of ways that we can look at this in its context to apply to ourselves today.

First off, if you're an employer, then this I think this directly relates to you as an employer, you you have a responsibility for those who work under you.

In fact, not only if you're an employer, if you're a manager, if you're managing people, you you have a responsibility to care for those people.

And you can't just throw them to the side. You have to do what you can to be providing for them.

Now, if they want to leave, they leave. I mean, just like the text, straight reading of the text. Yeah. Well, we live in a culture where where people can leave.

But, you know, if you have a culture where the wife can't the woman can't provide for herself, then leaving is not an option.

Destitution is her option. And so they have a responsibility. Now, this would be the same.

We could look at I'm trying to think without getting political, but I'm going to I'm just about this and he just can't listen.

He can't stop. He's got to throw politics into the game. I knew this. He text me at six o 'clock in the morning.

I says, Andrew, let's talk this nice and theological politics. But I figured it was coming in.

Yeah, buddy. Well, as as Christians, and I'm just going to say before everyone gets upset, just think this through as a

Christian. If I see someone who is here illegally. Okay, and they're in need,

I would see it as a Christian responsibility to help them and care for them.

But I also would say that they got to follow the law. And I have done this, folks. We we had a gentleman who was in my first church.

We didn't realize he was in the country illegally. This is 30 some years ago, 35 years ago.

And he thought that America was far better. He was here from the Philippines, if I remember correctly.

And we, you know, he was always struggling. He was struggling to find work.

And the reason was because he was here illegally, but he didn't tell us that. Now, we cared for him.

We loved on him. We helped him because we thought, you know, here's someone who's struggling. But when we found out he was here illegally, we also encouraged him.

You got to do what's right and go back home and come in the right way. And he actually did do that.

And here was a guy who was always upset because he couldn't find a wife.

You know what happened, Pastor Dom, when he went back home? Yes. He met a woman and got married. No one else, too.

And this is again, I knew I'd get into this, but it's true. There was borders in the

Bible. Those are theological issues. I remember when a lot of times when the

Israelites would travel in the wilderness, that they would turn around and if they traveled through Moab, the

Lord would say, make sure you tell whatever you get you pay for. And the thing is, and if they did not adhere to that, then the

Lord would step in because everything is the Lord's. But the Lord said, you must have respect and say, hey, you know, whatever we take for our children, whatever we take for ourselves, we would pay for.

This is your area. It's not ours. And when they refused, then the land would be taken away because God's over everything.

So there are borders in the Bible. And I am, you know, just the way it is.

I mean, it's biblical. The borders are biblical. So I take that as something that I think is, yes, political today, but it's a biblical mandate.

So I agree with borders. But see, borders are just like this. It's, you know, so that the leaders know who they have to take care of.

Right. And so you have a lot. You have here the idea of a husband's love for his wife, that he's going to put himself permanently under, you know, enslavement.

So he's going to permanently give up his freedoms to go out on his own, but to serve someone else because of a love for wife.

There is. So this is this is something that we could see a lot of different applications to.

But as we get into the next section, you brought this up. Is that once we have a proper understanding what slavery is and folks would need to have that, you know, think about what we said in the previous verses.

But and that's why this is going to be really important to listen to this whole series, because we're going to build upon these things.

But he says here what you want to read versus seven to eleven for us. Yes. Verse seven.

And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself or became his concubine, then he shall let her be redeemed.

He does not have authority to sell it to a foreign people because of his treachery to her.

And if he designates her for his son, he shall do to her according to the custom of daughters.

If he takes for himself another woman, he may not reduce her food or clothing, her conjugal rights.

And if he will not do these three things for her, then she shall she shall go out.

She shall then she shall go out for nothing without payment of money. OK, so let me ask you a question,

Pastor Dominic. In verses seven to eleven, who is the focus on? Is it on what the slave must do or what the master must do?

The master must do. You see, so many people miss that, don't they? They focus on the woman and they're not realizing that this these laws of slavery are on what the master's responsibility is.

The woman is the one being taken care of. That's right. What is Andrew Rappaport doing?

This might be the most brilliantly insane concept on the Internet. Yeah, I'm talking about the Apologetics Live podcast.

OK, here's the premise. A live stream on Thursdays from 8 to 10 p .m. Eastern Standard Time, where you can jump in and ask any

Bible or theology question you have, and Andrew Rappaport will answer it. But here, listen, it gets even better.

You can debate him live and he doesn't even know the topic. There's been guys who have been prepared for weeks who come on the live stream and you get to watch

Andrew debate a theological subject off the top of his head. It's really fun to watch. I've personally watched viewers jump on the live stream and try to stump

Andrew, but it hasn't happened yet. So each Thursday, get your popcorn and questions ready and tune into Apologetics Live podcast with Andrew Rappaport and be part of one of the most fun live streams on the interwebs.

You can join the fun at www .apologeticslive .com if you want to be part of the show or click the link in the description box of this episode.

As always, Apologetics Live is part of the Christian Podcast community. It's the master that's making the mistake.

If she's displeasing in the eyes of a master who designated her for himself, then she shall be redeemed.

I mean, so this is all about the least of these, which we discussed last week. Yeah, so you might have someone, a man who is either in debt or in trouble financially.

It says if a man sells his daughter as a female slave. So he's giving his daughter to work for, to be a slave for someone else.

And the idea there, and clearly from the text, this is, as you brought out, is the idea of a concubine, right?

Because it's saying she will not go free as the male slaves do.

Why? Because in that culture, she goes destitute without a man taking care of her.

Now, look, folks, we live in a different culture. You might not like that. You may disagree with the idea that women can't work and that women should be able to work.

That's not the issue. This is not a debate over whether women should or should not work.

That was the culture they were in. And so these rules were for that culture.

Now, that doesn't mean that doesn't apply, as Pastor Dom brought up. There are ways, and we'll see this at the end,

I'm sure he's going to ask me to apply it. But we have to recognize the fact that this was for a culture that's different than ours.

So we have to read it inside that culture. Does that sound fair, Pastor Dom? I mean, yeah, exactly.

I mean, and if you look at the text, if you look at it inside the culture, which you brought up, it's the least of these that are being taken care of.

I mean, the woman is being taken care of. The children are being taken care of. And that does not mean that the man cannot attach himself to the family in the first part.

And in this case, the concubine, either he's going to take care of her or find somebody that's going to take care of her.

So it's just, when you read the Bible rightly in its original context, it's a very clear passage.

It's a very caring passage, too. So you just got to be careful.

This is why exegesis is important. This is why you have to be careful when you read the

Bible to make sure that you understand the culture. I mean, you know, today the problem is, and I don't want to get myself in trouble,

Andrew, but I don't like when people say we're a New Testament church. I mean, maybe I'm misreading that.

But the New Testament writers, they didn't have nothing but the Old Testament. So we better understand the

Old Testament. Right, Andrew? I mean, you ever hear that? I mean, he's laughing. You're right. You're right.

I mean, the New Testament, the only thing they had was the Old Testament. I'm preaching through Hebrews.

If you don't understand the Old Testament, if you're reading the epistle to the Hebrews, you're in trouble. Yeah, you have to understand

Leviticus to understand the book of Hebrews. Yeah, exactly. So here you have someone, so here you have a woman.

It could be several different things going on. And remember the culture where, you know, a woman had to be under a man's headship.

So you have a father, maybe he has a daughter who he can't marry off.

Because that's what they would, the father would, this is arranged marriages. Again, something we don't understand in our culture in America.

But maybe he can't arrange a marriage for her. Maybe no one would do that. For whatever reason, maybe he's older and realizes he needs someone to take care of his daughter.

So he sells her as a slave. He gives her to someone else. To be, to take care of.

Okay. He should, yeah, he should have got his ideas from Laban. Laban knows how to get rid of his daughter.

But it says in verse eight, if she did, if she's displeasing in the eyes of her master, who designated her for himself.

So what you have there is what Pastor Dom's talking about, right? She's, she's a concubine. The master says,

Hey, I would like to have her. She's, she's going to be a concubine to me. They would have multiple wives.

Some would be called concubines. And so wives who had more privileges than the concubines.

But here he, if he takes her that way, and now he's, he's taken her virginity from her and he's displeased with it.

Now there's rules on what he can and cannot do. He can't, because now she would, if he, if he gets rid of her, just I'm getting you, taking you out of my service, go free.

Now she, she, it's harder for her to marry anyone because she's, she's already been with another person.

Okay. And so again, this is a requirement upon the, the master.

And, and as Pastor Dom said in the previous passages in the first seven verses or six verses, right?

The, the, the master goes into the relationship fully knowing what the law is.

So he knows that if he takes this woman and he's not happy with her, he can't just cast her aside.

See the problem is you said the problem and it goes, it's a deeper problem. Understanding, having good exegesis.

I don't care if you're reading Leviticus. I don't care if you're reading the book of Revelation. I don't care if you're reading the pastoral epistles.

Without understanding the culture, there's no way you could interpret the text rightly.

You know, you, now you may preach a sermon that is exegetically incorrect and sound good, but there's no power in it.

What Andrew, what we're trying to do here is show you the power of this text. And the power of this text is

God is for the underdog. I'm not trying to name a sermon or anything like that, but God is for the underdog, right?

Andrew, I mean, it just, praise God for that. Yeah. I mean, it's a restriction on what this master can do, because if he, if he says,

Hey, I will, I will take her as a slave. I will be responsible for her. I'm going to take her as my own, as a concubine, but then he's not happy with her where he might look to divorce a wife because the

Jewish law, they, they would try to push for that. But the law here is saying he cannot just sell her to some foreigner.

Why notice what it says here. It says he, he does not have authority to sell her as a, to a foreign people because of his treachery to her.

In other words, he's buying her as a concubine and then to discard her, the

Bible calls that treachery because he has a responsibility to her. It's a major offense.

Yeah. Even, even if he buys this woman as a, to designate, it says in verse nine, two for his son, he shall do to her according to the custom of his daughter.

So in other words, you're not buying her and she's a slave when he buys her and for the son, a wife, a concubine, then he is to treat her like a daughter, right?

Yeah. She's, she gets raised up in the hierarchy. That's a good point. Yeah. She goes from slave to daughter.

And if the, if the person, if this master who takes this woman for himself, but he finds another woman, wants another wife, it clearly says,

Hey, you can't, you can't reduce her allotment. You know, he can't reduce her food, her clothing, and even her conjugal rights, those marriage relationships.

So even if he, he, he has her, he's not happy, he's displeased.

He says, I'm going to go find another woman. He still has to have the marriage relationships with that slave.

That's his responsibility to care for her. Amen. And like Andrew says, don't go out and saying, you think you can get another wife?

Cause this is a different culture. So don't be saying, Hey, you guys are really,

I can go ahead. No, this is a different culture. It's a different time, but I'm sure we can apply this to today.

That's for sure. Yeah. In fact, there's, you know, we don't have the concept of a dowry, right?

Where someone's going to, they're going to have an arranged marriage and the two fathers are going to exchange a dowry in, in, you know, for the wife.

So, okay. You know, Dominic say, you know, you have a son, I have a daughter, we get together, we're going to make an arrangement, you know, you're going to give me some money.

Them wedding rings are pretty expensive. It's like a dowry. Well, some of the weddings are pretty expensive.

Forget the ring. Exactly. That's like another dowry. I know you're right. I'm sorry. Sorry about that.

But he's, Andrew's right on that. But it says here, and if he, if he will not do these, uh, these three things for her, then he shall go, uh, she shall go out for nothing without payment of money.

So if she, if he doesn't take care of her, then she can leave.

She can walk away and not have to pay him anything. So it's not like she's got to pay him back.

Hey, you, you know, I gave all this stuff for you. You got to pay me back. You got to work for me because I, I, you know, bought, you know, gave your, your father this much money, right?

Like a dowry. No, if he doesn't, if he doesn't provide her clothing, her food, and those conjugal rights, if he doesn't provide those, then she can leave owing nothing to him.

All right. You know, I, I got to ask pastor Don, when we talked about this passage earlier, uh, you, you brought up a book from the new

Testament about slavery. Philemon. Yeah. Olonisimus. So that was a slavery there.

That was a different slavery. That was Roman slavery, right? Yeah. So that was the ownership, but that was where someone would say they, they owned a person, they were property.

And what happened there? Like you look at the, the, the rights, there was the, the rights that they would have maybe as the

Roman culture, but then Paul was appealing to what law, the biblical law.

So why don't, why don't you share some of the stuff you were talking about in that, with that book? Because I told you he was half

Italian when I, yeah, you know, the thing, the thing about, you know, there was that thing, there was that cultural thing about being friend of the master.

I don't know how that worked out, but, um, um, Olonisimus had wronged

Philemon. I think the text might've say he might've stole. It seems to indicate it.

Olonisimus probably fled away from Philemon and probably took some money on the way.

So it seems like Paul is telling him, Hey, I'm going to send him back to you. And if he owes you any money, put it on my tab.

Yeah. Because, and by the way, he says, just in case you remember, you owe me your salvation because I brought you to the

Lord. That's, that's where the Italian part, but I think, come on, don't just say that's where the Italian part explain that.

No, I'm going to sleep right there. That's how us Italians get in trouble by all this craziness.

But no, the thing is that Andrew providentially Olonisimus goes to Paul under that friend of the master thing.

And he tells Paul, listen, I guess he went to Paul and Paul went back and he got in Paul's presence while Paul was in prison and got saved.

Right. I mean, it seems like something like that. And then he goes back. And if you notice, he goes back with Tychicus because Tychicus is holding a letter because the

Colossian church is the same church as that. So he goes back with Tychicus. They're going back together with two different letters to give to those.

And I just love that stuff because that's all God's providence. But Andrew wants me to throw that crazy mob stuff in there.

But Paul was Paul was like Paul telling me, listen, you know, you owe me.

But really, you know, you think I owe you? You really owe me for your salvation. And you get a kick out of that.

I get a kick. We were talking because it is it's like, hey, you were saying, hey, that sounds like the mob, right?

Whatever you put, put it on my bill. But just remember, you owe me. In other words, you just forget the bill.

Right. Yeah, you get preached as well. But it's true. Yeah, true. I mean, he basically saying, hey, you owe me more than what this person owes you.

So put his tab on my account. But you're still in debt even with that is the idea.

Salvation is a lot different than that. And then the word and then Onesimus means useful.

Remember, Paul says at one time he was useless to you. Now he represents his name as being useful.

And if church history is right, Andrew, they say Onesimus became like the third bishop of Ephesus after Polycarp.

Is that correct? Yeah, the belief is, is that he might have become a pastor. And it is kind of an interesting thing because.

See, that means ex -convicts like me got a chance, buddy. Yeah. Well, the idea that's really interesting is that you could have had someone who was a slave in Philemon's house in the same church, and he's a pastor of that church.

So in church, the slave is the authority over the master.

And then when they go home, the masters, that's that's an interesting thing that might have happened in history.

We have some inkling of that, but not enough to know for sure. But this is the thing what we see here.

This is so far what we've looked at with this passage, verses 7 to 11 of Exodus 21.

What we see is the idea that you have a responsibility for others, whether it's a master, an employer, a manager, or even as a husband.

I can take what we have here and see that as a husband, I have certain responsibilities to care for my bride.

I have certain things I must take care of, and I can't just discard her because I'm unhappy with her, displeased with her.

Okay, so there's a lot that we can learn and apply here. Even though we don't have slavery the way they had slavery back then in our culture, there's still a lot we can learn from Scripture.

This is a good text. This is really preachable, and this is not like seven ways, you know, how to find a wife or nothing.

This is the care of God for his people. I mean, this is a caring

God, and God is going to hold the ones in power responsible.

And I always, you know, I mean, everybody's going to be responsible, especially ones that are in power, how they treat the least of these, you know.

You're right there. And the thing to think about is that as we look at this, the next episode, we're going to look at how we need to treat one another, how men get into a fight, what happens if someone dies.

We're going to see more laws dealing with these things. But I think what we could see, at least in the passage we have today, is that we have a responsibility to one another.

We have a responsibility to care for one another. My bad, Andrew. But another thing, and yes, the responsibility, there'll be murder talked about.

But one of the things in the next section that really hits home hermeneutically is honoring parents.

We've lost that today, and that's in the next section, honoring the parents. I can't wait till we get to that.

And that's right. I mean, that's a huge issue today. It is. And so you may want to make sure that you follow this whole series, and you definitely want to follow and subscribe to both

Street Talk Theology and The Wrap Report so you don't miss a single episode.