Does the Bible condone slavery?

American Slavery Versus Exodus 21

I think it needs to be pointed out that when people today hear the word slavery, what do they think of?

300 years of civil war.

Yeah.

They're thinking of American slavery in the 1800s. But that has nothing to do with what we're reading about in Exodus chapter 21. So that's the first thing. Did people use back in the 1800s? Did people use the Bible to defend what they were doing?

Of course they did.

But people use the Bible to defend all sorts of crazy things. It doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it right. So that's, that's irrelevant. Well, if somebody did this a long time ago, yeah, we understand.

And they were wrong to do it then. So let me just put it out there that American slavery obviously was sinful.

Why?

Because they would steal. They would basically kidnap people from Africa, sell them into slavery, bring them here and enslave them and their children. Look at verse 16. What does the scripture say about this?

Oh, the Bible defends slavery in America.

No, it doesn't.

Look at verse 16. He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, what shall surely be put to death. So for those people who want to attack the Bible over this issue, if anything, Moses would have the slave traders executed.

One Race in the Human Family

That's the first thing. The second thing, slavery, that's the slavery that's talked about in Exodus 21 has nothing to do with race, has nothing to do with skin color. The Bible is very clear that there is only one race.

That's the human race. Acts 17, 26 through 28, you can make a note of this. Acts 17, 26 through 28 says that God has made from one blood, every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us.

For in him, we live and move and have our being as also some of your own poets have said for we are his offspring. So number one, according to God's law, kidnapping people and selling them into slavery is punishable by death.

And number two, what we're reading about has nothing at all to do with skin color. Bible says, teaches there's one race. And then the third thing I'd point out, you can make a note of this, Galatians 3, 28.

Unity in Christ Across Ethnic and Social Distinctions

What does the Bible say about different people groups? There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither free nor slave. There is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.