By Maidei Jenny Magirosa

ACCORDING to the Bible, all human beings are created in the image of God.
And yet, slavery is rampant throughout the Bible both in the ‘Old’ and ‘New Testaments’. 
What did slavery mean in the Bible and how did Christians respond to this most abominable practice?
During Biblical times, people kept slaves.
Among the slave nations were Ethiopian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman.
During the first century, 80 to 90 percent of the Roman Empire’s population consisted of slaves in both lowly and prestigious positions.
Indeed, the enslavement of people as chattel was common practice.
Military conquest contributed greatly to the slave market as well.
Slave owners had the right to control slaves’ labour including their sexual and reproductive capabilities.
For example, when the Bible refers to female slaves who do not ‘please’ their masters, it is talking about the sexual use of slaves.
In Genesis, we read that Abraham took Hagar, Sarah’s slave, as his wife.
The lives of slaves varied greatly.
Most were badly treated and abused.
Others rose from the status of a slave to high levels of power.
In those Biblical days, slavery was not associated with any particular race or with racial inferiority as it did later on in the United States.
The Bible approves of slavery in many passages.
It goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can abuse and beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves.
In the ‘New Testament’, Jesus frequently refers to slaves in his parables, but never addresses slavery as an evil institution.
For example, in Luke 12, verses 47- 48, there is a parable where it is assumed that beating a slave was acceptable.
The following passage shows that slaves were clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock.
In the book of Leviticus, 25, verses 44 – 46, it says,  
“However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. 
“You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. 
“You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. 
“You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.”
Slavery was therefore regulated in many passages and portions of the ‘Old Testament’.
In the epistles of the ‘New Testament’, slaveholders are exhorted to show kindness to slaves, but nowhere in the Bible is there anything which can be interpreted as a disapproval of the institution.
In fact, it seems Paul condoned slavery in the Epistles.
In the United States, slave owners often used Paul’s letters to promote subservience among the slaves.
The great African-American theologian Howard Thurman used to tell the story of his formerly enslaved grandmother and how she would not allow him to read the letters written by Paul.
However, more recent studies argue that Paul actually resisted and undermined slavery.
In the book of ‘Philemon’, Paul wrote a letter to Philemon in the ‘New Testament’. 
Philemon was a wealthy Colossian with many slaves. 
In the book, Paul advises Philemon on how the servant called Onesimus should be treated.
We do not know what had happened between Philemon and Onesimus.
But what we know is that Paul gives counsel on the slave master relationship. Paul tells Philemon to welcome Onesimus, a runaway slave and to treat him well. He writes: “It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus—that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains.
“Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever—no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.
“He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.”
It is unclear if Paul is calling for Onesimus to be set free, or simply for Philemon to receive him with love.
As George Elden Ladd, a theologian has argued, Paul has no word of criticism for the institution as such.
In this sense, he was unconcerned about social oppression of the practice.
In fact, Paul admonishes slaves to be indifferent to their social status because a “human slave is really a freedman of the Lord.”
When reading the Bible, it should be asked why Paul or other ‘New Testament’ writers did not openly condemn slavery and tell masters to release their slaves.
In the tenth book of the ‘New Testament’, the Ephesians, written by Paul, the King James Version Bible says:
“Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; (6) not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, (7) with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, (8) knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.(9) And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.”
Later on, the practice of slavery remained a long standing subject of argument by Christians and non-Christians alike.
In America, the argument was among the Northern and Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Anglicans.
It cannot be ignored that slavery was a reprehensible practice of treating humans as property, stripping them of their basic human rights and forcing them to work or perform other acts against their will.
Today, The Universal Declaration on Human Rights prohibits slavery in all its forms.
Such practices of cruelty to humanity should be critiqued and challenged even if they are written in the Holy Bible.