To the Slaves ...

Text: Titus 2:9-10

Central Idea of the Text: Slaves can make the best of their life circumstances by living like Christ.

Proposition: Those who are stuck in bad circumstances can make it through by focusing on the long game of faithfulness to Christ.

Purpose: All hearers in hard situations should strengthen their resolve to live like Christ and persevere until he gives His rest.

Jimmy Swaggart, the philandering televangelist, once famously said through clenched teeth and rivers of tears in front of a live gathered crowd: “I have sinned against you, my Lord.” He did this in the face of the real accusations that he had solicited a prostitute. Now, I have not sinned in anything like this, but I do need to have something of a confession time today in this sermon … hopefully with less tears.

I do try to practice what I preach. And it does happen often that I am preaching encouragements and challenges that I myself need to hear. With that in mind, some of you remember what I preached on last week in our previous sermon from Titus, and Paul’s words to women. There was some stuff in there for the men as well, and I must admit that there was part of the sermon that I did not take to heart. Monday evening, I came home around 9:45 PM. It had been a long day on multiple fronts, with our facilities being used for a large event and our Care Nights kicking off on Mondays. Needless to say, I was coming home very tired. When I walked in the house, my wife had already headed down to bed, so I went down to the bedroom to say goodnight to her before she turned in for the night. We chatted for a few minutes, said goodnight to each other, and when I went to leave the room, her phone made a low battery noise. I said to her: “You know, you could charge your phone before it dies completely.” Her eyes suddenly squinted and our tender bedtime moment suddenly melted away in her response: “Really?? Did you just mansplain to me? No, I had no idea I could charge my phone? Thank you so very much!” And I walked sheepishly, with my tail between my legs, from the room. Please forgive me church. I did not practice what I preached. I mansplained.

Thankfully, my wife is a forgiving wife, and she does not count nor hold the occasions of my mansplaining against me. And aren’t we all grateful when people who love us most are willing to give us grace? But what if the sins are larger and more hurtful. It grows harder in a marriage not to keep a list of wrongs, especially when they are left unconfessed, unforgiven, or un-dealt-with. These are the spaces when marriages are really placed in a hurt locker. But there are other areas besides marriage where the accumulated sins of the past really come back to bite, cause hurt and division, even cause slander and rioting, looting and murder. Entire groups of people, living in bitterness, rage and unforgiveness. And it happens because there are many who continue to bear and have put upon them the hurts of the past history of racism and slavery in the United States. Those hurts can be to lens through which we view Paul’s words to slaves, and by which we often misunderstand his endorsement or his intent. Let’s read closely the words of Paul and seek understanding, as we read Titus 2:9-10.

Titus 2:9–10 ESV

9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

This is the word of the Lord for us this morning.

Please pray with me: Father, some have viewed these words that we read this morning from Paul as bigoted, hateful, or even an endorsement of evil. Some have even twisted these words to those ends. Lord, please give us clarity, and help us to read the word with charity towards the wisdom of those who have lived out faithfulness unto death as the Disciples of generations past. Help us to see a clear application of the word toward us today. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

As we continue in Titus this morning, we know we are handling a controversial text. And that seems to be par for the chapter and the book, as Paul has sought to bring order to the churches of Crete through the word of Titus. He’s sought to establish elders, to bring order and instruction to the men of the church, to the women of the church, and now to the “bondservants” of the church. Now depending on what translation you are reading this morning, you may be seeing this as the word “Bondservants”, or “Servants”. But most of the English translations take the most direct route and translate the Greek word “Doulos” as the word “Slave”. That is the most straightforward way to translate the word. Reading from the ESV, if you happen to read the translator notes at the front of your Bible, they explain exactly why they translate this word not as slaves but as bondservants. As those translators note, for many English speakers reading in America, the word slave is a loaded word that comes with much history, baggage and bitter feelings. To some they might describe it as a trigger word. And to hear Paul speak to slaves without immediately telling them to “run for their lives” or “fight for their freedom”? It makes people ask questions: IS PAUL CONDONING SLAVERY? IS HE EXCUSING THE CRUELTY OF SLAVEOWNERS? IS HE HANDING THE PASTORS OF DIXIE A LICENSE BY WHICH TO CONDONE THE TERRIBLE ACTIONS OF SOME OF THEIR CONGREGANTS? That is what some would say, and it is a point of contention by which some would call the Bible: antiquated, racist, cruel, or irrelevant to the modern reader.

This morning I want to make sure that we clearly answer the question about if Paul is condoning slavery or not. The answer is no, certainly not what we know of in our own country’s history. But to do so, we must spend some time practicing hermeneutics … that is, building a bridge from then to now, so we can more clearly find the ACTUAL and practical application of this text to our lives and situation. And yes, I do believe there is a practical application that some can take home from here today. But let’s start by building that Bridge from then to now.

Build a Bridge // Slavery Then and Now

Paul, who is writing to Timothy here is the same Paul traveled throughout the Roman Empire, preaching to both Jews and Gentiles. He won people to Christ from many languages, nations and skin tones. He won both men and women to Christ. And it was he who wrote the words of Galatians 3:28 “28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is also certain that Paul was not operating from a prejudiced standpoint and disregarding what James wrote of in James 2:1, when he said: “1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” To think that Paul was setting out to hate a race or class as he writes these instructions, it simply does not follow with the boots on the ground reality that we see in Paul’s practical ministry.

Ok, so let’s put this on trial: Why could we possibly say that Paul is not condoning “Slavery”, (as we read it in our time and context) when he gives instructions to slaves? I believe that there are three key reasons that can be understood from history, scripture and logic to help us bridge the divide, overcome the historic lenses we use on the text, and get to the true meaning/application for us.

Reason #1: Slavery in Bible Times was vastly different from what we know in American History.

We do have some helpful tools at our disposal to aid in gaining an understanding of what Paul was dealing with and speaking to in his time. After all, it was 2000 years ago, and it was happening on the other side of the globe. So what did slavery look like in Paul’s time and context? Biblical researcher Bruce Malina has done much research in this field and has compiled a list of characteristics of this slavery (being a Doulos) in Paul’s time, complied from ancient historians and early church fathers who had knowledge that more greatly inform those to who Paul gives these instructions.

Enslaved people (Doulos) in Paul’s time were not identified by appearance or clothing. You couldn’t simply look at their skin or dress and identify them as a slave.

Often, those Doulos adopted cultural and religious traditions of other free people.

Education of Doulos was encouraged, because it made them more valuable and useful. Some even became more educated than their masters.

Because of their education, many of the Doulos served in high-responsibility roles, being workshop/household managers, accountants, sea captains or doctors. Because of this, some had greater power or influence in society than free men.

Being slave did not guarantee you would be of the lowest socio-economic standing. To be a Doulos meant job security, which was much preferred to a “day-laborer”/temp-worker type situation.

These slaves were allowed to own other property, even their own slaves, and were allowed to accumulate funds, by which their freedom could be purchased.

Because they were not limited to a certain class, the Doulos did not share in any kind of narrative of a “common-oppression” narrative. To the contrary, there was no Roman law banning slaves from gathering.

The Doulos class was not viewed in paternalistic terms. These slaves did not inherit names from their owners, and their families were treated with their own dignity.

People entering society as a Doulos often did so to pay a debt, escape poverty, climb socially or obtain a government position. There were many who became slaves because there was no easy line of credit, no credit system as we know it today. Therefore, debt was often real-life slavery.

The majority of both domestic and urban slaves, could anticipate receiving their freedom by age 30. Many within the Roman Empire would sign on for terms of seven years as a Doulos, with some seeking government positions being a Doulos for 14 years. And many of those set free would then turn around and obtain Roman citizenship.

[S. Scott Bartchy, “Slave, Slavery,” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 1098–1099.]

Now, just for the sake of comparison, note the differences with some of the key points of American Slavery:

American Slaves were Hereditary and perpetual. Starting in Virginia in 1662, if your mother was a slave, then you would be known as a slave and would most often maintain that status for your whole life.

American Slaves were natural born. After the slave trade stopped in 1808, it was deemed proper for slaves to breed more slaves. Because so many had been trafficked from Africa, it became synonymous for many that to be black was to be a slave.

American Slaves were Chattel property. They were legally defined as movable property (chattel) that could be bought, sold, mortgaged, inherited, used as collateral for loans, gifted, or seized for debts — treated much like livestock or real estate in a highly commercialized, capitalist market economy. Slaves were simply a commodity.

American Slaves were denied both personhood and legal standing. Laws increasingly stripped enslaved people of virtually all rights (to marry legally, testify in court against whites, own property, learn to read/write in many states, etc.), while free blacks faced severe restrictions to prevent them from challenging the system. This created a totalizing legal exclusion tied to race.

American Slaves were often separated from their families. The internal U.S. slave trade (especially after 1808) routinely broke up families by selling individuals (often children or spouses) across vast distances to meet demand in the expanding cotton South. This level of commercial family disruption was particularly intense due to the domestic trade's scale and economic incentives.

I do hope that in looking at the two side by side, you are able to see the difference between them and understand that when Paul speaks to the Doulos (slaves), the ESV is good to translated these as bondservants, very different from American slaves. To complete the bridge from then to now, I want to more briefly note 2 other reasons that Paul is not condoning what we commonly think of as Slavery.

Reason #2: The Bible addresses slavery and consistently presents those who are enslaved as humans with value before the Lord, not mere property.

Now this could be a sermon of itself, but I will keep it to the point. In the Old Testament, God’s guidance to Israel was clear. Manstealing is a sin. It is punishable by the death penalty, as we see in Exodus 21:16. The Law did allow for slaves, in a manner similar to what was spoken of in Paul’s time. Many entered slavery (‘ebed) to pay debts or avoid poverty, or some entered it involuntarily: by being captured in battle or judicial sentence. If the slave was killed in the by a master, the master was to die (Ex 21:20-21). And if a slave was injured, they were to be set free (Ex 21:26-27). In short, they did have rights as human beings, and they were to be treated with dignity.

In the New Testament, it is quite obvious that the early church was made up of both people who were slave and people who were free. Because of this, Paul gives instructions to both the Doulos and their masters. In several of his letters (five to be exact), Paul gives specific instructions toward specific patterns of living that the Doulos ought to display. In all, he speaks to them not as sub-human, but as peers of the same men and women who he is writing to. He speaks to them as one expecting a pastor to speak to the sheep of his flock would speak. He also speaks to the masters in warning them not to treat these individuals harshly, but with kindness and equitably.

But … some of you at this point may still be wondering, “well if Paul thought Slavery was wrong, or the Christians thought that it was wrong, why didn’t they do something to stop it?” Which leads us to reason #3 why Paul is not condoning slavery.

Reason #3: Early Christians were dealing with the world as it was, not as they (or we) wanted it to be. As we’ve seen in their case, slavery was much different, and the Doulos of their time had much more in terms of money, rights, status and freedom that the slaves that lived closer to our time did not have. But also, even if they had wanted to change it, they were very much in the minority as a Christian Community. They were not yet a large voting block, they didn’t have a loud voice when it came to th3e government, and even if they had see injustice on some systemic scale, there is nothing they could have done it Paul’s time to change it. Reason helps us to see both the differences between then and now, and the reasons that the church was not largely addressing or speaking out on this issue.

As we’ve built this bridge, I hope that something has started to emerge to you. Slavery as it existed in 1860 was and is a plague and injustice on humanity. Every glimpse we see of that injustice in the world in human trafficking and other modern human slavery, we ought to shine a light on and fight to end. BUT, I would also point this out, that there are many in our own country that live in an arrangement that something closer to the living/working arrangement of the Biblical Doulos. Do you live in debt? Who owns your house or your car? Who controls your contract? Who signs you to a lease? Who runs your schedule and your life? In this regard, there are not nearly as many of us who can say that we are free. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve had that Landlord hounding you, that boss overshadowing you or that bank or credit department breathing down your neck. It is in that regard that we are “trapped” by our finances or circumstances. I’m glad we are offering something like Financial Peace University to help deal with this on the money front and help us find more freedom. But the word that I would use for the modern Doulos is “The Trapped.” So what are the trapped to do when they don’t have the freedom they want in their work, their housing, their home or their life circumstance? We need to ....

Hear the Commands:

To these Bondservants … the Doulos … the Trapped, Paul gives 5 brief commands that are fairly straight forward and they split into two categories, the do nots and the dos.

Paul says first that the trapped ought to Avoid the Pitfalls. Specifically there are two that he mentions. He says in verse 9 that these bondservants ought not be argumentative. And Paul says in verse 10 that they ought not to be pilfering. Now remember as he tells them these things, he is speaking to the Doulos who are followers of Jesus Christ. He is giving them ways by which they ought to represent Jesus Christ in their life and work. He says that they should not be known in word and action as the people who are complainers and cheaters. Their witness is to extend to those they are “stuck” or “trapped” under, even at points in spite of how they are treated or what they are asked to do. The fact that they may be talked down to or asked to do hard tasks is not to be license for complaining. The fact that they may feel underpaid or undervalued for their work is not to be license for stealing. Yet how often, when faced with a hard work situation or hard life situation do we use it as license to complain, or to cheat to steal what we believe is rightfully ours. Paul says … no. Don’t do that.

So what are we (the trapped/the stuck) to do then? Paul says in verse 9: “Submit to your masters in everything.” He says as well that we ought to be “well-pleasing”. And he says in verse 10 that the Doulos ought to be “Showing all good faith.” We have already visited about this idea of submission, but here it comes up again. It is as though the Lord knows that his people need to hear it. In the Christian life, we are always being taught a way of submission in submitting to Christ. We ought not Lord authority over each other, but we should learn to submit. Paul says in Ephesians 5:21 that we submit to one another “out of reverence for Christ.” Thus, those who are trapped cannot solve their “trappedness” by resorting to violence or dishonesty. They must play a longer game. Paul says that you will do it by pleasing the one you serve. In our case, of more modern issues, that may mean continuing to pay down the bad loan or credit card debt that hangs over you. It may mean biding your time in a bad lease, until the terms are up and you can find a new place or negotiate a new arrangement. It may mean sticking with a bad job and bad boss for a time, while you fulfill your contractual commitments. It may mean making some decisions that you don’t want to make or doing some things you don’t want to do, SO THAT you can be true to your word AND so that you can put on display the good faith of the Christian. We are people who work hard, are true to our word, and are dependable to the end. It’s likely that you need to spend some time meditating on what this means toward your particular situation. As you need guidance or wisdom, seek another wise Believer that would help guide you. But I think it might help us more to understand Paul’s intention on this, if we ...

See the Examples:

I want to look in brief at just a couple examples from the scriptures, examples that may have even been on Paul’s mind as he wrote these instructions to the Doulos. One comes from the Old Testament, and one from the New.

The Old Testament example is that of Joseph and it is found in part of his story in Genesis 39-40. Joseph was the son of Jacob. He was one of 12 sons, the forefathers of the tribes of Israel. Joseph was born to Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, and was the favorite of his father. It was to Joseph that the father gave a coat of many colors. The other brothers were full of hatred and jealousy. They took their brother Joseph captive, faked his death and sold him into slavery in Egypt. It was in Egypt that Joseph was sold to be a slave in the house of Potiphar, the captain of the Egyptian guard. Joseph was a lowly slave, but the Lord was with Jacob, and Jacob’s faith was in the LORD. And so, because of his honesty, hard work and dependability that was seen because of his faith in God, Potiphar saw that everything Joseph did was successful, blessed by God. He then took him, and placed Joseph in charge of his household and all of his possessions. His practice of the principles Paul teaches here fed his ascendancy in honor and responsibility. Now some of you who know the story, know that Joseph was only there for a short time because Potiphar’s wife was a liar and slanderer, and she falsely accused him of Rape. Hence, Joseph went to jail and back to square one in his status as a slave. But Genesis 39:21 reminds us: “But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” Again, Joseph would be a faithful servant, even in Prison. That faithful living, in spite of his status, would again lead him on a path toward ascendancy that would end with him being Pharaoh’s right hand man, saving all of Egypt, reuniting with and forgiving his brothers, and seeing his father (who believed him dead) once again.

The other biblical example comes from the New Testament, and it is a story that Paul was well familiar with: the story of Onesimus. You can read part of his story if you simply turn one page in your Bible to the book of Philemon. Philemon was a man who was a Christian, and who had these Doulos (Bondservants) in his household. One of his slaves, a man named Onesimus, because angry against Philemon, stole a significant sum from him and ran away. Onesimus was not a Christian when he left. He hated God and did not know Christ. But, the Lord saw to it that he would encounter the Apostle Paul after they were both in prison. It was while they were in prison that Paul preached the Gospel to Onesimus, and Onesimus when from being Paul’s fellow prisoner to being a son in the faith. As God worked on Onesimus’ heart, he realized that he had stolen and cheated Philemon from both the money and the labor that he owed him. Christ changed his heart, and helped Onesimus realize that he needed to return once freed from prison and pay his debts. And so Paul writes to Philemon to say … “Please, welcome Onesimus back, not simply as a bondservant, but as a beloved brother.” (v16)

Two men, separated by two millennia. Both felt trapped. Both motivated by faith in their God, they both wanted to put into practice a faith that Paul writes of in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Remember, the Christian cannot always change their circumstances they are stuck in, but they can choose this day and each following one to live by faith in Jesus.

Review

This morning, we’ve seen how God’s word speaks not simply to slaves or bondservants. It speaks to all who are trapped in hard situations of debt, contracts and other disagreeable arrangements. It guides the believer to patiently endure, to not repay evil with evil, but to be a light for Christ in dark and difficult places. And these instructions of Titus 2 have come to all people of the church in all life circumstances: men young and old, women young and old, and the bondservants who follow Jesus. They have been given so that by our faithful living

As Paul says in verse 5 of these obedient women: “The word of God is not reviled.”

As Paul says in verse 8 of these obedient men: “They will have nothing evil to say about us.”

As Paul says in verse 10 of these obedient bondservants: “They may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”

When Christians are being Christians, regardless of status or setting, God and his truth can be clearly seen by EVERYONE. SO THAT THE WORLD MAY KNOW WHAT IS TRUE. THAT THERE IS A GOD. THAT HE HAS SPOKEN AND THAT HE HAS MADE A WAY TO HIM IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.

There are many who would say that slavery is the worst thing in the world. And I do believe that they would be right. But there is a slavery that is worse than being enslaved to any man; and that slavery is a slavery to sin. When we were born, we all were born with this flesh, which would have a desire to sin: to be selfish, to steal, to lie, to fornicate. It’s like a ball and chain we have upon us that would drag us to hell. This is exactly what Paul is talking about when he says in Romans 6:23 “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Those enslaved to sin will receive the penalty for their sin. But Christ came to set us free, and to receive us in as Children, servants of the Most High God. He makes this promise to all who would believe and follow him, that they would have eternal life. So would you: Turn from your sin? Receive Jesus as Lord? Obey him and be baptized as he commanded? He calls you to cross the line, and be bound to him today.