Addressing Slavery

From a Lutheran viewpoint, the Bible's approach to slavery is not about changing God's morality. It shows how His unchanging Word interacts with a broken world. 

Scripture does not see slavery as a divine ideal but as a result of the fall into sin. It reflects a harsh social reality, which God regulates to limit cruelty without condoning its existence. God's Law reveals how human systems are distorted by sin, while the Gospel provides a new identity. In Baptism, the differences of "slave and free" vanish before God. God is not "pro-slavery"; He is pro-redemption. 

The Bible does not 'evolve' on slavery; it dismantles it by presenting the Master as a Servant. The Law acknowledges the harshness of a fallen world, while the Gospel strikes a fatal blow to the institution. If you want to know if God stands with slavery, look to the Incarnation. God did not come as a ruler or a slave-owner; He took on the "form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7) and was executed as a criminal to redeem those in bondage. In the Bible, God does not merely 'tolerate' the slave; He becomes the slave. This choice establishes a Kingdom where being 'first' means being 'last,' and where each person is 'bought with a price' (1 Corinthians 6:20). It is impossible to own someone God has already purchased with His blood. The chains did not break due to shifting human views; they broke because the Cross made it impossible to see another person as property.

 Key Points of This Perspective: 

• The Fallen Reality: Distinguishes between what God commands (love, mercy) and what He tolerates (broken human systems) due to sin.

• Identity in Christ: Emphasizes that our primary identity is found in our relationship to God, which renders earthly hierarchies spiritually irrelevant and socially unsustainable.

• Gradual Transformation: Suggests that the Gospel changes hearts, which then leads to the changing of laws and systems.

 

With that said, we can now address famous critics and their antics about the topic. Their logic relies on a Law they didn't create and a Gospel they haven't read.

1. The "God Approves of the Good Kind of Slavery" Critique

Some mock the idea that Biblical "indentured servitude" makes it okay, saying, "Oh I get it, God approves of the 'good' kind of slavery."

• The Lutheran Response: You are mistaking divine approval for divine patience. Lutherans understand the Old Testament rules not as God's ideal plan, but as a 'case law' that restrains a violent, fallen humanity. God did not create slavery; humans did. He stepped into our chaos and put limits on it to protect the lives of slaves until the Cross arrived to abolish the root issue. God does not 'approve' of slavery any more than He 'approves' of divorce or polygamy, which He also regulated. He meets us where we are to pull us out, not to say that our situation is acceptable.

2. The "If God is Perfect, Why The Amendment?" Critique

This argument says that if the Bible is a perfect book by a perfect guy, it shouldn't need a "New Testament" to fix the Old one.

• The Lutheran Response: The The New Testament is not an 'update' or an 'edit'; it is the fulfillment. In Lutheran theology, the Old Testament Law shows us that we cannot be good on our own. It acts as a mirror, not a final destination. Jesus did not come to 'fix' God; He came to pay the debt required by the Law. This 'amendment' does not signal a change in God's mind but the arrival of the promised Saviour. He replaces the 'bondage of the Law' with the 'freedom of the Gospel.' If you want a fixed set of rules, read a manual. If you want a living God, look at the one who let Himself be sold for thirty pieces of silver—the price of a slave—to end slavery forever.

3. The "I'm Better Than the Ten Commandments" Critique

Another famous critic claims he is "better than God" because he wouldn't allow slavery and follows a "goodness" based on empathy, not an old book.

• The Lutheran Response: This argument comes from a person standing on a bridge and mocking the engineers. ‘Empathy’ and ‘goodness’ reflect Christian values. The reason you oppose slavery today is because the Bible taught the West that every human being has inherent, sacred value. Without the Word of God affirming our equality and redemption through Christ, 'empathy' is just a brain reaction that stronger people can overlook. The moral foundation of the Bible is being used to build a stick to measure God and beat the Bible with.

4. The "Man-Stealing" argument (The Legal Rebuttal)

The Argument: "The Bible allows you to buy people like property!"

• The Lutheran Response: The Bible’s criminal code—which critics often ignore—condemns 'man-stealing' (kidnapping) as a capital crime (Exodus 21:16, 1 Timothy 1:10). The entire Atlantic slave trade was based on kidnapping. According to the Bible's own Law, every slave trader should have faced the death penalty. God did not support the slave trade; He outlawed its supply chain from the start. If people had truly followed the Bible instead of using it as a tool, slavery would have faced extinction in the first century. 

The criticism to slavery in the Bible reflects a frustration with the fact that God is not a 21st-century social activist. At the same time, comes from a place of moral grandstanding assuming that the critic would have been against it if he or she lived at any time in history.

Christianity didn't end slavery by winning an argument; it ended it by revealing that the Master of the Universe died for the slave, making the slave a King. You can't own a King.

Q&A

"But the Bible gives rules for how to beat slaves!" (Exodus 21)

Those aren't 'pro-slavery' endorsements; they are civil restraints on a violent, fallen world. In the Old Testament, God was moving a stiff-necked people away from the total lawlessness of the surrounding nations. He didn't command slavery; He put a leash on it to protect the vulnerable until the 'fullness of time' when Christ would come to abolish the root of the problem: the human heart. You’re looking at the bandages and ignoring the fact that God was treating a terminal wound.

"Why didn’t Jesus or Paul just tell everyone to revolt?"

Because God isn't a political activist; He’s a Redeemer. A political revolt just swaps one master for another. Paul’s letter to Philemon is the 'mic drop' here: he sends a runaway slave back to his master not as property, but as a 'beloved brother' (Philemon 1:16). Once you recognize someone as a brother and a co-heir with Christ, the institution of slavery becomes spiritually and practically impossible to maintain. The Gospel didn't start a riot; it started a resurrection that made the old system rot from the inside out.

"If God is all-powerful, why didn't He just ban it in the Ten Commandments?"

God did ban the heart of slavery: 'Thou shalt not steal.' In 1 Timothy 1:10, the Bible explicitly condemns 'men-stealers' (kidnappers/slave traders) right alongside murderers. The entire slave trade that skeptics cite was built on 'man-stealing,' which God calls a capital offense. If the Bible’s actual laws against kidnapping were followed, the institution would have had zero inventory. God didn't have to 'change' His mind; people just had to stop ignoring His Word

 “The Bible was used to defend slavery.”
Yes, and the Bible was also used to defend greed, nationalism, abortion, gender identity issues and many other sins. Lutheran theology is blunt about this: the problem is not Scripture but the old Adam reading it with his fingers crossed. Slaveholders didn’t obey the Bible too literally; they disobeyed it selectively. They ignored the image of God, the command against man-stealing, the mutual accountability of master and servant before Christ, and the warning that masters have a Master in heaven. The misuse of the Law does not invalidate it; it exposes the sinner.

“If slavery was wrong, why didn’t God condemn it as clearly as murder?”

This question is another attempt of anachronistic selective moral grandstanding to try to discredit the Bible. It desires determine what sins God should have condemned or not. 

This list shows many of the topics God doesn't condemn directly, and all of them still are sins. 
 
Murder is an act; slavery is a system. Scripture often dismantles systems not by slogans but by removing their oxygen. Once every human is named as created, redeemed, baptized, and accountable to God on equal footing, slavery has no moral air left to breathe. Lutheran theology recognizes this as God’s typical way of working: He does not always smash idols immediately; He starves them until they collapse under their own weight.

“Isn’t this just God accommodating evil?”
Yes, and that is the Gospel pattern. God accommodates sinners without approving their sin. He meets Israel with sacrifices, kings, and civil laws not because these things are good in themselves, but because sinners cannot survive without restraint. The same God who tolerated slavery also tolerated divorce, monarchy, and temple sacrifices until Christ arrived and fulfilled them. Accommodation is not compromise; it is patience aimed at redemption.

“Doesn’t this make God look morally weak or slow?”
Only if you assume God’s primary goal is immediate moral optimization. Scripture reveals something deeper: God is playing a longer game than legislation. The cross itself looks morally ineffective by worldly standards, yet it is the decisive blow against sin, death, and every system built on them. Lutheran theology insists that God’s power is hidden under weakness, and His victory often arrives quietly before it becomes visible.

“Why trust a Bible that reflects ancient values?”
Because the Bible doesn’t flatter any age, ancient or modern. It exposes the cruelty of ancient societies and the self-righteousness of modern ones with equal precision. A text that consistently indicts its own heroes, its own people, and its own readers is not propaganda; it’s a mirror. Lutheran theology takes that mirror seriously, especially when it reflects us.

“So is Christianity responsible for ending slavery?”
Christianity didn’t end slavery by accident, and it didn’t do it by revolution. It ended it by insisting that slaves and masters kneel at the same altar, receive the same body and blood, and answer to the same Lord. Once that happens, chains become indefensible. The tragedy is not that Christianity took too long; it’s that Christians often took too long to believe what they already confessed.