Apostles Church

When the Gospel hit the Roman World, it gave dignity to the most marginalized in the empire – women, children and slaves. Women, children and slaves were not treated as equals and given honor, dignity, or respect. When the Gospel came to the Roman world it challenged that status quo, confronted the oppressive treatment of the marginalized and brought about a new way. I want to share a little about that and leave you with a challenge about one aspect of slavery in our own day.

Women in the Greco Roman world were not given equal status. Rodney Stark in his book “The Rise of Christianity” describes how under Athenian law women were considered the property of the husband and could be divorced and discarded simply by ordering her out of the home. Female infanticide was not an uncommon practice. But the community that the Gospel formed embraced a favorable, honorable, view of women. In Colossians 3:18 (and in its parallel passage in Ephesians 5), Husbands are called to love their wives with a selfless sacrificial love, cherishing and honoring their wives with a faithful and loyal love that reflects the same love and loyalty that Christ has for his church. This exhortation runs counter to the dominant culture in which Paul was writing. Rodney Stark in the same book goes on to show how one of the major reasons for the rise of the Christian faith was the way the faith was embraced by women. The story of the Gospel is one that is creational, men and women made in the image of God, having equal dignity and equal worth. The story of the Gospel is one where Christ died for men and women and made a place for both men and women in the Kingdom of God. In fact, in the early church, women played a prominent role. Jesus first appeared to women after his resurrection, a very significant point because in that time a women’s testimony was not allowed in court. Jesus chose them as his first eye-witnesses, bestowing upon them amazing privilege and honor. There were women who were deacons in the church, prophets in the church, hostesses of house churches like Nympha who is mentioned in the letter we are currently studying. These women took on important roles of servant leadership.  So the Gospel will not allow us to create a division in status on the basis of gender. In Galatians 3.28-29 Paul writes “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In other words, we must renounce status on the basis of gender, economics, or ethnicity.  Men and women have equal dignity and equal worth. Far from being repressive, the Christian faith elevated women in the culture. This doesn’t mean that men and women have exactly the same roles in the home or the church. Just as the Father, Son and Spirit are equal in dignity and worth, they differ in their roles and responsibilities in creation, redemption and restoration. So, while Paul in this passage may speak to the roles and responsibilities of men and women, he upholds their equal dignity and worth and ability.

Children were also treated like property. But when the Gospel came to the Empire, it elevated children, giving them dignity. Christ blessed children during his ministry, said the Kingdom was for them, and demonstrated his love for children by dying for them. So, children have a place of significance in the Kingdom and in the Church, and so are addressed in this letter. They are commanded to obey their parents in everything. Children are not to run the show and make the demands. They are to be obedient to their parents in everything. But this does not give the Fathers the freedom to do as they wish. They must treat their children in an understanding way, and not provoke them with unfair expectations, discourage them with strict punishments, or crush their spirits with harsh and hurtful words. Fathers are to be the representative presence of God for the children, a reflection of his father’s heart to us.

Slaves predominantly were prisoners of war, those who sold themselves into indentured servitude to pay off a debt, or those who were born into slavery. They were treated as members of the family (in fact this section in Colossians is called “the Household code”). They were trusted household servants, teachers, accountants and estate managers. They were able to purchase their freedom. It is not the kind of slavery that would come to our minds when we think of the European slave trade that William Wilberforce in the name of Jesus gave his life to see abolished. But, nonetheless, it was a social evil in that it commodified people, treated them like property instead of people with dignity and honor. Earlier in our study of Colossians, we saw that Christianity is an ethic of liberation rooted in Israel’s story of freedom from slavery in Egypt and our own redemption. It is the nature of God to liberate people from bondage and bring them into freedom (spiritually and physically), and to cancel their status as a commodity and return to them the dignity of personhood. In this section, Paul challenges the practice of slavery by stripping earthly masters of their sovereignty, reminding them they too have a Master, the Lord. Paul elevates the status of slaves, saying that they have an inheritance from the Lord, and lowers the standing of masters putting every believer on an equal plane calling for the fair and just treatment of all people. In doing so, he undermines the entire household slave system. In fact, the very things that are written here mark out the trajectory of the Christian faith to be a faith that would fight for the eradication of slavery throughout the world.
    Some wonder then why Paul did not give an overt command for masters to release their slaves or for slaves to rebel from their masters and spark a revolution. Paul does not give an overt call to masters or a call to revolution on the part of the slaves because that would incite the Roman Empire  even more against this new movement which would certainly be devastating. Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat in Colossians Remixed attempt to make this point, noting that these letters were copied and passed around from city to city and church to church. In an economy so dependent upon the system of slavery, putting direct charges to release slaves or for slaves to revolt would be extremely dangerous to the movement. Rather, Paul gives a subversive call on the part of the master to the fair and just treatment of slaves. It may very well be that the instruction to be just and fair (lit. equal) is a covert exhortation to liberation. This is exactly the call in one of Paul’s more private letters to one member of this community, Philemon. Philemon had a slave named Onesimus who stole from him and ran away. Paul met this slave, led him to faith in Christ and sent him back to Philemon with these instructions in Philemon 1.15-17 “For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, 16) no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 17) So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.”
    The trajectory of Christianity is one of freedom (history shows us this) and we must continue that trajectory by not participating in modern day expressions of slavery or economic oppression. Lately, I have been giving some consideration to how many things I purchase that are produced in ways that mistreat the environment or people. Often times the clothes we buy at a bargain were made by those who are modern day slaves, working unjust hours for unjust wages. They are oppressed, harshly treated and commodified all for the sake of economic gain. I have been challenged to pay attention to where clothes are made, avoiding clothing made in what are called “export processing zones.” The vast majority of workers in these areas are women and children who work extremely long hours and are paid unfair wages. If you buy clothes that are made in China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, or the Philippines, there is a good chance you are wearing clothing that was made by modern day slaves, many of whom are children. To subvert the empire means that we refuse to consume products (from clothing to coffee) that were made or produced in ways that were oppressive to people. We refuse to participate in modern day slavery. I am wanting to be more attentive to these things. It is so easy to shut our eyes to injustice and the ways that we indirectly participate in it. To truly live out an ethic of liberation rooted in the Gospel we have to give some thought to how the goods that we consume are made and refuse to play a part in promoting continued injustice by giving our money to those companies. This is something I would love to see our community give more thought to. Will you join me in that?

• Back to Articles