Liminality

Most people argue the Bible says very little about the eradication of slavery. As most of you know, the New Testament can be read as literature that supports the issue of slavery. The most popular text is found in Philemon with Paul giving orders for a slave to return to his slave master. Jesus even uses parables that discuss kings and masters who own slaves. For the longest time, Southern American preachers saw the Bible as the leading defense in the argument for slavery. But the prophet Amos sees differently. Amos is an eighth century prophet speaking to Israel about how they have fallen away from God’s ordered life. As a matter of fact, Amos condemns Israel for the practice of human trafficking. Amos tells Israel, This is what the LORD says: For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back {my wrath}. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny...

In all probability, as Jesus grew up in Nazareth, he heard his own father and the other men of the synagogue pray every morning, Praise be God that he has not created me a Gentile. Praise be God that He has not created me a woman. Praise be God that he has not created me a slave or an ignorant man. This form of thanksgiving was widely used in first century Palestine, and it reflects very clearly the social attitudes of that day. Obviously a free, Jewish male regarded himself as inherently superior to any other form of humanity, and this kind of prejudiced provincialism was the cultural atmosphere in which Jesus began to "live and move and have His being” as a child. And really, in all respects, you still hear this today. “God thanks for not making me grow up next to a Muslim family. God thanks for not making me like those people down the street. God thanks for letting me have a boy instead of a girl.” The prejudice that Jesus would have heard in the Temple 2000 years...