Oh! The argument from silence. How nice!
So Mark didn’t mention the birth of Christ. If the birth of Christ was important, surely Mark would have included it. So it must not be important. We have to doubt Mark’s gospel and, really, Matthew’s as well. Maybe, Matthew made up the whole birth of Jesus story. Now, that I think about it, the whole Bible is very likely untrustworthy.
How many doctrines of denominational churches arise from “Well, the Bible doesn’t say, ‘We Can’t.’” One denomination takes the logic, “Well, if God can work faith in a man or woman, why can’t he work faith in an infant.” Wham! Bam! One friend added, “Then, why can he work faith in a dog or a tree or a stone?” Bring your dog to church. Have the dog baptized. It says so in the Bible.
***Paul does NOT tell Philemon to take the slave back as a slave but as a brother in Christ.***
Suppose you were a Christian slave owner. Wouldn’t this be a command for you to follow. Or was this sentence only for Philemon?
Where is the non-Christian country that freed slaves or elevated women? If Gandhi had protested in Iran, how many minutes do you think he would have lived? Why did he win out in India? Because the British were mostly decent, ethical people! Dare I say that they were Christians.
About 1500 years before the time that Paul “supported slavery”, Moses proclaimed the Law. One commandment was “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Immediately, the status of women changed *considerably*. You husband there, are you going to be an observant Jew? Better shape up.
Another commandment: Remember the Sabbath. Many things changed - for the better. Every seventh day, the SLAVES had a day off; even the ANIMALS had a day off. Slaves were FREED every seven years. A slave owner could not divide a family by selling the wife here and the children there and the husband somewhere else. And the slaves weren’t really slaves, as we think of them in our history, they indentured themselves for pay. If they were dirt poor, they could ask, “You feed me, give me a place to sleep and I’ll work for you.” There were no jails at the time of the exodus etc.; if a court fined a person, that person would work as an indentured servant (slave) until the fine was paid off.
And make a list of the women in the New Testament. There are quite a few. It is thought that Mary Magdalene, a rather rich woman, underwrote a lot of expense for the Lord as he moved from place to place. One reason that women are not mentioned so much in the New Testament was that they could not testify in court. They could testify to hearing the Lord preach and seeing the miracles he did, but only a man’s testimony had standing in a legal sense.
So, some fuss at Paul, et. al., for not pushing for women’s rights or preaching against slavery. Here he is preaching, YOU CAN SAVE YOUR SOUL. If he preached women’s and slave’s rights, no one would hear about the forgiveness of sins.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Much of this information and much more is found in Dennis Prager’s commentaries, The Rational Bible, Exodus and Genesis. If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you will benefit from reading his commentaries.
Does Paul get his authority from Jesus? If he does, then it isn’t an argument from silence. Paul tells slaves to obey their masters. That’s as pro slavery as it gets. If Paul and by extension, Jesus, were anti slavery, Paul would not have sent the slave back to Philemon at all.
Thank you for this clearly expressed information. Many words or statements in the Bible can be used out of context in ways that were never intended. I first learned about the major differences between slavery in Biblical times and slavery in more modern times times while listening to The Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz. I highly recommend it….. three more days to finish and a new year begins.