Are Christians offended by the Bible?

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

kassault37 said:
It always shocks me when Christians claim that the New Testament does not approve of slavery! I would hope that people who claim to be Christian have at least read the bible! The new Testament DEFINITELY approves of slavery, does NOT speak against what an awful act it is, YET you want to ignore it! Why?

For the very same reason YOU ignore what is in front of your face. It is not approving of it. It teaches a person how to bear it. Remember (if you have read the Bible) Yehoshua came to save the lost sheep of Israel. If he had condemned slavery what good would it do for the few who practiced it? It would still exist in the World. Read your Bible. :flirt:

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

People who own slaves are not listening to what The Spirit says. Anyone who believes the Bible must also believe The Spirit has always been speaking. Please answer the question; What good would it do if those who heard what The Spirit says outlawed slavery? Doing so would conflict with the real warning which is to be no part of the world.
1 John 4:5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
John 17:14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.
John 8:23 But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
John 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.

The scriptures about the degrading of women are also for a warning and not the rule imo.

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

Might Moses have outlawed slavery? It would have been difficult to do knowing that the enslavement of Joseph caused the saving of many lives and knowing that it was God's will what happened to Joseph.

Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Genesis 45:8 "So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
Romans 13:1 and 1 Peter 2:13 are choice scriptures to support a person's desire to hold slaves. But all the scriptures apparently supporting slavery are obviously (to me) written regarding slavery that is in affect at the time of the writing.

I'm having trouble figuring out your point. You're not trying to make that old argument that ancient slavery was all sunshine and roses, are you?

savagewind said:
Is it not to quell rebellion? I think so. The will of God takes time by the power of Spirit, not by the power of arms. That is why the warning was given about slavery and about all of the world's authority. If your scripture is a promotion of slavery then it is also a promotion of kings.

Yes, it would be a promotion of all forms of authority. What makes you interpret that passage in Romans differently?

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

I'm having trouble figuring out your point. You're not trying to make that old argument that ancient slavery was all sunshine and roses, are you?

No. I am not.

Yes, it would be a promotion of all forms of authority. What makes you interpret that passage in Romans differently?

I know you know what the word "promotion" means. Maybe you should refresh your mind.

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
People who own slaves are not listening to what The Spirit says.

If that was the case, then how do you explain Ephesians 6? In that chapter, we see Paul talking to Christians who own slaves; what does he say? He doesn't tell them to free their slaves; he merely tells them not to mistreat them. Paul expresses no concern at all about the fundamental immorality of owning other people as property.

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
No. I am not.

I know you know what the word "promotion" means. Maybe you should refresh your mind.

The bottom line here is that I'm having major problems trying to interpret your overall point from that post. If you want me to understand you, you'll have to be clearer or explain what you're trying to say a bit more.

I'd like to consider your postition, but right now I can't properly tell what it is.

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

9-10ths_Penguin said:
If that was the case, then how do you explain Ephesians 6? In that chapter, we see Paul talking to Christians who own slaves; what does he say? He doesn't tell them to free their slaves; he merely tells them not to mistreat them. Paul expresses no concern at all about the fundamental immorality of owning other people as property.

Like I said people who own slaves do NOT listen to The Spirit. If they do not listen to The Spirit why would they listen to A Man? Paul wrote for all the people who were NOT freed. Do you think a slave would be better off knowing his master was IGNORING the command to free him?

And just so you know, Paul was not the new Moses. And I think he actually knew it. It is perhaps why God chose him? What do you think?

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
Like I said people who own slaves do NOT listen to The Spirit. If they do not listen to The Spirit why would they listen to A Man? Paul wrote for all the people who were NOT freed. Do you think a slave would be better off knowing his master was IGNORING the command to free him?

And just so you know, Paul was not the new Moses. And I think he actually knew it. It is perhaps why God chose him? What do you think?

I'm trying very hard to understand your point here, but I just can't tell what you're trying to express.

Maybe we should back up. What makes you say that anybody who is "listening to the Spirit" wouldn't own slaves? This idea isn't anywhere in the Bible, AFAIK.

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

9-10ths_Penguin said:
I'm trying very hard to understand your point here, but I just can't tell what you're trying to express.

Maybe we should back up. What makes you say that anybody who is "listening to the Spirit" wouldn't own slaves? This idea isn't anywhere in the Bible, AFAIK.

The Spirit has always been saying "do unto others as you would have done to you". We do not want to be owned, do we?

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
The Spirit has always been saying "do unto others as you would have done to you". We do not want to be owned, do we?

I also wouldn't want my firstborn to be killed or my rivers to turn to blood, but "the Spirit" did that, didn't it?

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

9-10ths_Penguin said:
I also wouldn't want my firstborn to be killed or my rivers to turn to blood, but "the Spirit" did that, didn't it?

Yes, but the other side of do unto others is reap what is sown. They exist together, do they not?

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
Yes, but the other side of do unto others is reap what is sown. They exist together, do they not?

The killing of the firstborn of Egypt was "reaping what they sowed"? Infants haven't sown anything.

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind, the bottom line is that if your argument boils down to "slavery breaks the Golden Rule, and God would never want anyone to break the Golden Rule", then your argument hinges on a consistency of action on God's part that IMO just isn't borne out by what the Bible says about him.

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

9-10ths_Penguin said:
savagewind, the bottom line is that if your argument boils down to "slavery breaks the Golden Rule, and God would never want anyone to break the Golden Rule", then your argument hinges on a consistency of action on God's part that IMO just isn't borne out by what the Bible says about him.

I do not want to start arguing about the rare times slavery can be good. The law that says slavery be allowed breaks the Golden Rule. But not all slavery breaks it imo. I was going to use the illustration of the prodigal son but it says "servant". I think Man might have changed that from "slave". I wonder if the original said slave. Anyway, sometimes what a person needs is shelter and food. A slave owner provides that. Sometimes a business person wishes to help but cannot pay. Therefore the worker becomes "a slave" which is a person who works without any reward except for his basic needs.

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
I do not want to start arguing about the rare times slavery can be good. The law that says slavery be allowed breaks the Golden Rule. But not all slavery breaks it imo.

If slavery doesn't always break the Golden Rule, then this implies that sometimes, people want to be owned as property. Do you think this is true?

savagewind said:
I was going to use the illustration of the prodigal son but it says "servant". I think Man might have changed that from "slave". I wonder if the original said slave. Anyway, sometimes what a person needs is shelter and food. A slave owner provides that. Sometimes a business person wishes to help but cannot pay. Therefore the worker becomes "a slave" which is a person who works without any reward except for his basic needs.

That's a poor definition of "slave". Merely having responsibilities and obligations does not make a person a slave.

So... at the end of the day, it seems that the only justification you have that "the Spirit" prohibits slavery is the idea that slavery breaks the Golden Rule (which I agree with) along with the idea that "the Spirit" always abides by the Golden Rule (which I reject outright).

IMO, you still haven't shown that the Bible does anything to speak against slavery, and you haven't done anything to address the fact that every time slavery is dealt with directly in the Bible, it's either allowed or explicitly approved.

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

If slavery doesn't always break the Golden Rule, then this implies that sometimes, people want to be owned as property. Do you think this is true?

I think I know this is true. Given a real choice of slavery or freedom, even then there has evolved brains that would choose slavery imo. Do you want to fight about it? I don't. Many people have not had the real choice of freedom. I think most people have not.

I will tell you what I think about slavery and as I am a prophet

sarcastic) I will prophesize that you do not hear me. To own a person is to be responsible for him. A person who does not make a living wage will always need to be cared for by another. Therefore in a sense the owner will always need to care for the slave as the slave will not be able to repay the owner for his upkeep as he does not have anything to pay him with. If the owner sets him free, so that the slave can work for another, and use his skills learned from slaving, how is it fair to the owner who has taken care of him? That is God's definition of slavery. It became something else. YHVH did not make it something else. Man did. Man made slavery mean people are commodities. But slavery really means being dependent on another human being. Some people want to be dependent, don't you think?

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
I think I know this is true. Given a real choice of slavery or freedom, even then there has evolved brains that would choose slavery imo. Do you want to fight about it? I don't. Many people have not had the real choice of freedom. I think most people have not.

I will tell you what I think about slavery and as I am a prophet sarcastic) I will prophesize that you do not hear me. To own a person is to be responsible for him. A person who does not make a living wage will always need to be cared for by another. Therefore in a sense the owner will always need to care for the slave as the slave will not be able to repay the owner for his upkeep as he does not have anything to pay him with. If the owner sets him free, so that the slave can work for another, and use his skills learned from slaving, how is it fair to the owner who has taken care of him?

If slavery is wrong, then "fair to the slaver" is irrelevant. He owned another person as property; he can't rightly expect to profit by that. If he did, too bad for him.

And as for the slave "paying his owner back" for his upkeep:

- the owner has already forcibly taken the cost of that upkeep many times over by taking the slave's labour.
- the slave doesn't owe the owner anyhow. If a debt isn't freely chosen (and if the person was a slave, then it wasn't), it's not owed at all. Would you also demand that a kidnap victim pay his kidnappers back for the expense of the kidnapping?

savagewind · Apr 20, 2013

9-10ths_Penguin said:
If slavery is wrong, then "fair to the slaver" is irrelevant. He owned another person as property; he can't rightly expect to profit by that. If he did, too bad for him.

And as for the slave "paying his owner back" for his upkeep:

- the owner has already forcibly taken the cost of that upkeep many times over by taking the slave's labour.
- the slave doesn't owe the owner anyhow. If a debt isn't freely chosen (and if the person was a slave, then it wasn't), it's not owed at all. Would you also demand that a kidnap victim pay his kidnappers back for the expense of the kidnapping?

Did you forget something? Some people sell themselves into slavery for real. For many people it has proved to be their last resort.

forcibly

Do you read what you write before you post?

9-10ths_Penguin · Apr 20, 2013

savagewind said:
Did you forget something? Some people sell themselves into slavery for real. For many people it has proved to be their last resort.

Do you read what you write before you post?

Do you? Let's go through what you've said here:

- people who own slaves "aren't listening to the Spirit" because they're violating the Golden Rule.

- Paul didn't tell Christian slave owners to free their slaves because they wouldn't listen to him (even though he also told them not to mistreat their slaves).

- owning a slave is expensive, so you can't just free a slave because the owner deserves to recoup his investment.

- some people like being slaves.

- some people willingly enter slavery (which somehow makes it okay, apparently).

Why is it every time I get into a discussion with a Bible-believer about slavery, we always end up with the believer telling me how other idea of owning another person as property is all right as long as it's done in just the right way?

Tell you what: just so we all know exactly where each of us is coming from, how about we both answer a simple, direct question:

What is your opinion of slavery?

- always wrong
- always okay
- sometimes wrong and sometimes okay

My answer is "always wrong". What's yours? I don't want to assume.

Are Christians offended by the Bible?

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