Is slavery always evil?

Is slavery always evil?

The Greek word doulos appears 124 times in the Greek New Testament. Most translations of the Bible use the English word “servant” to convey the Greek for this word. But “servant” doesn’t go quite far enough because doulos means “slave,” as the Holman Christian Standard Bible correctly translates it. To be sure a slave is a servant, but a servant may not be a slave. A slave, by definition, is an individual who is a piece of property owned by another. The slave is not, therefore, free.

But does it follow that all slavery is evil? Before you answer “yes,” consider that Acts 16:17 refers to Paul and his companions as “slaves of the Most High God.” Furthermore, in Titus 1:1 Paul calls himself “a slave of God,” in Philippians 1:1 he refers to himself and Timothy as “slaves of Christ Jesus,” he calls Epaphras “a slave of Christ Jesus” in Colossians 4:12, and James calls himself “a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” in James 1:1.  In Ephesians 6:5-6 Paul addresses readers who were actually slaves of others and he exhorts them to “obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of your heart, as to Christ. Don’t work only while being watched, in order to please men, but as slaves of Christ, do God’s will from your heart.” In 2 Timothy 2:24 Paul says, “The Lord’s slave must not quarrel.” And then there’s 1 Peter 2:16 which says, “As God’s slaves, live as free people, but don’t use your freedom as a way to conceal evil.” Obviously these verses (and there are others) reveal that believers are slaves of God. He owns them because he bought them with the blood of his Son (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). This means that we cannot conclude that all slavery is bad.

Slavery is bad when you have a bad master. But if God is your master, slavery is good. Paul argues this very point in Romans 6. He says in verse 16, “Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?” We have no other choice. Either we are slaves to sin or we are slaves to righteousness. Paul says in Romans 6:18 that “having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.” In verse 20 he says, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from allegiance to righteousness.” But in verse 22 he argues, “But now, since you have been liberated from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the end is eternal life.” So either you are a slave to sin which leads to death, or you are a slave to God which leads to eternal life. Who’s your master, sin or God? Your eternal destiny rests on how you answer that question.