Let's Do This. Chapter 1 of the Book I've Avoided Writing: Slavery and the Bible.

Exodus 21: God's Emancipation Proclamation

When someone tells you they’re hurting — listen.

Slavery is a stumbling block for many first-time Bible readers, as well as many long-time believers. For many, it’s not a mere intellectual question, but a raw, painful problem.

At stake is this: can we really trust the Bible?

Or, more personally (and painfully): Can we really trust the God of the Bible? Can we trust the heart of a God who would allow something as vile as slavery among His people?

After all, if God commands slavery, that’s a severe challenge to belief. How can you trust a God who would command such evil?

But consider opposite.

What if the Bible was the first law code in history to outlaw slavery?

What if God re-wrote the rules everyone lives by, commanding protections for everyone, including the most vulnerable?

What if the laws in the Bible revealed God’s heart — but it was a heart of love, not of hate?

You could trust that kind of God.

After all, if the Bible truly condemned slavery, that would be evidence that God is who He claims to be: the God of love. It would mean the Bible was not a mere product of its times, when everyone kept slaves, but rather that it transcended time. It would be evidence that the Bible is categorically different, establishing principles of freedom and love that we still aspire to today.

That would be a God worth worshiping!

But then we have a problem. Take the average person who has read the Bible at least once. Ask them whether it contains slavery or abolishes it. Most will say the Bible contains it — worse, that God is okay with it, or even commands it.

As a pastor and author, I’ve had the privilege to listen to many who have been hurt by the Bible, or by what they believe the Bible says. I’ve heard these questions from people of all kinds — believers and skeptics, old and young, the jaded and the hopeful. Some want an answer. Some want to attack. Some are confused, not knowing how to reconcile troublesome passages with the God they love. And some don’t know what to think.

These are real quotes from a variety of people I’ve spoken with personally:

“The Bible clearly endorses slavery. And, yes, slavery was and still is a cruel practice.”

“I’m so sorry that your religion distorts your thinking so badly that you can’t accept what the bible ACTUALLY SAYS. Biblical slavery was utterly abhorrent, and any decent god would have outlawed it completely, rather than laying out exactly how you practice it.”

“The Bible says to take slaves from other lands. Any outsider is a slave, is property, can be passed down as property, and treated however the master wants.”

“The failure of Christianity to repudiate slavery, clearly, without qualification, for me is sufficient cause not to bother.”

As I’ve had the chance to listen in these conversations, I heard the same things over and over. The same verses kept coming up, in the same translations. They’re hurled with the same slam-dunk, case-closed finality. It’s black and white; God is a monster.

Yet the more I dug into these verses, the less sense these claims made.

Israel wasn’t a slave state. When you read through the Bible, there are no slave markets in Israel. There are no slave traders. There is no slave class, such as used to exist in the American south. No one is buying or selling slaves. If the Bible tolerated slavery, we should expect to see these things throughout the narratives. They were everywhere in most ancient societies.

Yet they’re missing from the Bible.

This might serve as the first clue, the first hint that all is not as slam-dunk as it seems.

In this book, we’ll dig into all of these supposed slam-dunk verses. We’ll explore the laws God established for Israel and the society that grew from these laws. We’ll see what kind of heart they reveal — what kind of God they reveal.

The truth is staggering — for some, hard to receive; for others, welcomed with joy. That truth is this:

God outlaws slavery from the start.

That might seem hard to believe, if you’ve encountered these challenges to the Bible before. Yet I believe the evidence will speak for itself.

Imagine a large gemstone, glorious and radiant, but covered in layers of mud and muck. Over time, that gem begins to look like a lump of dirt, common and pointless. Many glance at it, see nothing but the muck, and reject it entirely. It’s so obvious that it’s worthless. Who cares about a lump of dirt?

But if you pick it up, it doesn’t feel like dirt. Its weight is far too heavy, far too substantial, to be a clump of mud. That might intrigue you, leading you to scrape the muck away. As you wash it off, the pure beauty of the gemstone begins to shine forth. Once it’s uncovered, it captivates every eye. Its pure, radiant beauty proves to everyone what it truly is.

That’s what this book aims to do.

The Bible has been buried under layers of lies, distortions, and biased translations. Over the years, these falsehoods harden. The common cultural perception of the Bible treats it as dirt. It’s obvious that it’s worthless. Who cares about a backwards slave-loving book?

But when you pick it up and start reading, it doesn’t feel like dirt. The weight of its beauty and wisdom feels far too substantial for it to be pointless. That might intrigue you, leading you to study deeper, washing the lies and distortions away. As you do, the pure beauty of the Word of God begins to shine forth. Once it’s uncovered, it captivates every heart. The pure, radiant beauty of the Bible proves to everyone what it truly is.

People’s pain is real. A great many people have been hurt through the belief that the Bible condones slavery. You may be one of them. One of the greatest ways we can love in this way is to present the truth — winsomely, persuasively, lovingly — and prove that the Bible is better than anyone could have hoped for.

God is not a monster. He truly is the God of love. His Word is the first book in all human history to outlaw slavery.

It’s okay if you’re skeptical. I don’t expect you to take my word for any of this.

We’ll walk through this matter step by step, word by word. We’ll scrape off the mud bit by bit until we see the gemstone underneath — the Word of God shining forth as pure and radiant as it is.

As we do, let me ask you to pray with me.

This might be the first time you’ve ever prayed, or it might be the millionth. You might never have perceived God as worthy of prayer before, or you might pray daily. Wherever you are, if you’re reading this book to discover what the Bible is really like beneath all the layers of muck and grime, then pray with me. God can open your eyes, even if you’re not sure whether you believe in Him — or whether you want to, yet.

Let’s pray:

God in Heaven, the Bible says “open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.” I ask You for this, now. If there are wonders in Your word, I want to see them. If the horrors people talk about aren’t there, I ask for wisdom to see this, and to see what’s really there, instead. Open my mind to understand Your words. I ask this in the name of Jesus, who came to set people free. Amen.

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