When the free are slaves

 

 We are industrious to preserve our bodies from slavery,

but we make nothing of suffering our souls to be slaves to our lusts.

 

-- John Ray (1627-1705) 

The tyrant is the real slave, possessed of desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and of more wants than any one

But he does know how to stay in the news.

Posted at 10:29 PM Friday night.

Promoted by the irredeemable Rod Dreher Saturday morning.

Trending #1 at CNBC Saturday night.

If Trump had any real power, US Treasury Bills wouldn't be yielding more as he posted this than they have in nine weeks.

 

 

Charitable me would say this is simply laughable ignorance, but I know better

Was Paul a Slave? The surprising argument that Saul of Tarsus was born into bondage. By Mark R. Fairchild and Jordan K. Monson, Christianity Today, April 22, 2024:

But Paul was neither a proponent of slavery nor an abolitionist, despite efforts to use his letter to Philemon to make him out as one or the other. In truth, neither option was available to him.

It’s difficult for modern readers to understand that in the Roman Empire of Paul’s time, abolitionist thought was virtually nonexistent. According to Jeffers, “No Greek or Roman author ever attacked slavery as an institution.”

It was a given that slavery would always exist. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “All available evidence suggests that even those ancients who were born slaves and later freed, several of whom have left us very beautiful texts, envisioned servitude in the same light.”

Instead, the first Christians had their minds almost exclusively fixed on the Second Coming, which they believed was imminent. There wasn’t time to reform entrenched Roman injustices.

 

The article is replete with tendentious statements, attempts to redefine words, and special pleading. It's lying by omission.

What will be next from Christianity Today? That Paul was a tranny?

I can't wait.

Meanwhile, free-born Roman citizen, self-described Pharisee from a wealthy family in Tarsus*, Paul the Apostle, not only endorsed freedom from slavery, Second Coming or no, but well understood the possibility of it under the Roman system:

Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. ... You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 

-- I Corinthians 7:21, 23.

   

*A property qualification of 500 drachmae was fixed for admission to the roll of citizens, perhaps by Athenodorus sometime after 30 B.C. (Dio Chrysostom, Oration 34.23).

-- F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 432.

Abraham Lincoln's ancient faith was human equality, his touchstone for it the Declaration of Independence more than the Bible

 

This is the point of view pioneered by Harry Jaffa in a nutshell, a Jew who saw Lincoln as a restorer of the principles of the Declaration, which go back to Aristotle, starting from John Locke.

Not mentioned by the Christians here:

And yet Lincoln emphasized the Declaration of Independence far more than the Bible in building his case against human bondage. He described the assertion that “all men are created equal” as his “ancient faith.” He argued pointedly that the immorality of slavery could be proved “without reference to revelation.” In sum, without penetrating Lincoln’s heart, it’s hard to know whether he viewed the Bible as morally authoritative, as Leidner claims, or selectively cited it when it corroborated what he already believed.     

LOL, Christianity Today features female contributor who simply ignores the slave language of the New Testament, saying she's no servant

 Human Beings Are Stewards, Not Slaves to God

I’m not merely an inglorious servant to the divine . . .. 

 

She also ignores The Fall in the Christian origin story, which is her topic, and Eve's role in it.

 

What a shock, right?

None is able to serve two lords, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one, and despise the other; ye are not able to serve God and Mammon.

 

-- Matthew 6:24

So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'

 

-- Luke 17:10

 

Truly, truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.

 

-- John 13:16

 

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

 

-- John 15:15

 

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

-- Galatians 1:10

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God.

-- Romans 1:1

For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord's freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ's slave.

-- I Corinthians 7:22

For though I am free from all people, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may gain more. 

 

-- I Corinthians 9:19

 

. . . just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow slave, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf.

 

-- Colossians 1:7

Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow slave in the Lord, will make known to you all my affairs.

-- Colossians 4:7

Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ . . ..

-- Titus 1:1

James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

 -- James 1:1

Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:

-- Jude 1:1

And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was told to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

-- Revelation 6:11

And they sang the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying . . ..

-- Revelation 15:3

And a voice came from the throne, saying, 'Give praise to our God, all you His slaves, you who fear Him, the small and the great.'

-- Revelation 19:5

Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers who have the witness of Jesus. Worship God! For the witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'

-- Revelation 19:10

I, John, am the one who was hearing and seeing these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers the prophets and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!'

-- Revelation 22:8f.

You shall know them by their shrugging

 There is a kind of sluggish resignation, as well as poorness and degeneracy of spirit, in a state of slavery.

-- Joseph Addison

The Mediterranean diet . . . of slaves

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.      

-- Numbers 11:4ff.

The sign of perpetual slavery

 

 

He which was minded to make himself a perpetual servant, should, for a visible token thereof, have also his ear bored through with an awl.

-- Richard Hooker (1554-1600)

The inconvenience of perpetual slavery: Only some parts of Leviticus are useful to instructors at Columbia University

And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

-- Leviticus 25:46

The way of the many is the servile way

He that will know the truth must leave the beaten track, which none but servile minds trudge continually in.

-- John Locke

Some say life is good, some say the fundamental problem

Such we find they are, as can controul

The servile actions of our wav'ring soul,

Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;

Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

-- Matthew Prior

Here rather let me drudge . . .

 

 

Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread,

'Till vermin or the draff of servile food

Consume me, and oft invocated death

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.

-- John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671)

What's more servile, prostrating yourself five times a day in submission to Allah, or calling yourself another man's slave?

From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. -- Romans 1:1

The Religion of Piece of Ass: Sex slaves permitted under Islam according to radical UK imam

Ali Hammuda, secretly recorded and quoted here:

‘One of the interpretations as to what this means is that towards the end of time there will be many wars like what we are seeing today, and because of these wars women will be taken as captives, as slaves, yeah, women will be taken as slaves. And then, er, her master has relations with her because this is permissible in Islam, it’s permissible to have relations with a woman who is your slave or your wife.’

Kami Nelson of the Wayne Dupree Show thinks slavery is inconsistent with the God of the Bible, who doesn't change

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ; -- Ephesians 6:5

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. -- Colossians 3:22

More Than Half Of All Christians Have Their Wafer Worship, But 1.57 Billion Muslims Worship A Rock 5x/day

And must visit it and circumambulate it 7x at least once in their lifetimes.

Idolatry is a global phenomenon.

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything."

-- Acts 17:24f.

It Is Not Right For The Slave To Be Master

"Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food; an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress."

-- Proverbs 30:21ff.