What the Bible Says About Slavery

Slavery is one of the most searching subjects in Scripture, and reading the Bible carefully reveals a consistent movement toward the dignity and equality of every person made in God's image. While the ancient world took bondage for granted, the Law of Moses struck directly at its most violent form. Exodus 21:16 decreed the death penalty for kidnapping a person to sell them: "Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death." Deuteronomy 24:7 repeats this judgment against anyone who steals and sells a fellow Israelite. The very engine of the later transatlantic slave trade — man-stealing — stands condemned by God's own law. The New Testament addresses believers living inside a slaveholding society and plants seeds that undermine the institution from within. Paul tells the enslaved in 1 Corinthians 7:21 that if they can gain their freedom, they should do so. He proclaims in Galatians 3:28 that "there is neither slave nor free… for you are all one in Christ Jesus," declaring a radical spiritual equality that no social hierarchy can override. In the household codes, Paul commands masters as firmly as servants: those who hold authority are warned in Ephesians 6:9 to "stop threatening them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." Colossians 4:1 likewise commands masters to give what is "right and fair," because they too answer to a Master in heaven. Nowhere is the gospel's revolutionary thrust clearer than in Philemon. Paul sends the runaway slave Onesimus back to his owner, but pleads that he be received "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother" (Philemon 1:16). The relationship is transformed from ownership into family. Read together, these texts show Scripture restraining slavery's cruelties, dignifying the enslaved, and proclaiming an equality in Christ that ultimately makes human bondage unthinkable.