I saw the movie Amazing Grace yesterday. And I was moved to tears.Why?
Because I wonder when we’ll get it.
When will we get the fact that the gospel is just as much about justice as it is about salvation?
When will we get that we Christians are called not just to the grace of being given heaven but to work for justice here on earth?
When will we get off our big fat consumerist American comfortable butts and live radical Christian lives that make a difference in the world like Wilberforce did?
When will I get it?
There's a campaign to call Christians to action about the 27 million slaves in the world today. Check it out at www.amazingchange.com.
technorati: emerging church, missional, spiritual formation, social action, politics
Isn't interesting that in all of Jesus' and Paul's teaching they never mentioned slavery other than to encourage submission to their masters? Yet it can be proven that there were thousands of slaves during the time of their ministries. See Colossians 3:22, 4:1, Titus 2:9, 1 Peter 2:18
ReplyDeleteYes, interesting.
ReplyDeleteI submit that, to understand Jesus and Paul's thoughts about slavery, we look at two key passages: Luke 4:18-19 for Jesus, Philemon for Paul.
In Luke 4, Jesus proclaims that he has come to announce the "year of the Lord's Favor," in order to "proclaim freedom for the prisoners...and to release the oppressed." This is the Year of Jubilee, that we find in Leviticus 25.
"If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers." (Lev 25:39-41).
Paul shows in his compassion for Onesimus, Philemon's slave, that the gospel of freedom has already started to move to make changes. Paul’s message to Philemon about Onesimus goes beyond other documents of his time in not only pleading for clemency for an escaped slave but asking that he be released because he is now a Christian.
Paul had some strong words for those who steal men! (1 Timothy 1:9)
ReplyDeleteMan-stealing was (and is) one of the worst parts of slavery.
May the Lord raise up a generation of Wilberforces who are passionately gospel Christians to the core and lovingly socially active to the extreme.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteMatt's citation is one verse off - look at 1 Timothy 1:10 along with 1:9 (where the NIV has "slave traders" and the KJV has "menstealers"). Paul says that those who are in the slave trade are "lawbreakers, rebels, ungodly, sinful, unholy and irreligious.
Pretty strong words!
Thanks, Matt!
Bob, Amen. A sad but true, Amen to what you say here. And I'll apply that to myself as well! Thanks, brother!
ReplyDelete