“Well done, good and faithful slave.”

How would you like that to read on your tombstone? Most Bible translations of this verse, Matthew 25:21, read “good and faithful servant,” or something less provocative. The Legacy Standard Bible is one of the few translations today that reads “good and faithful slave.”

“Slave??? Jesus said that?”

Skeptics will confront me to say that the New Testament condones slavery. How do I respond? Well, on this particular point, with respect to Matthew 25:21, the skeptics have a valid point to make. But this needs a bit more unpacking to explain, as the complaint from skeptics is misleading.

Frederick Douglass, born February, 1818, into slavery. Photo colorization by Marina Amarai. Many associate “slavery” as found in the Bible with what Frederick Douglass experienced in early 19th century America. The story of “slavery” in the Bible, like other issues with respect to social justice (and other aspects of the problem of evil), is more complicated than what many Christians and skeptics typically think.

“Red-Letter” Christianity??

There is a movement among many Christians called “Red-Letter Christianity.” As explained from a previous Veracity blog post, the idea arose from the fact that just over a hundred years ago, some Bible publishers began to print the words spoken by Jesus in red, to distinguish the sayings of Jesus from the rest of the New Testament text. The venerable King James Version (KJV) of the Bible contains no quotation marks, so it is difficult to discern when someone is speaking and when an author is simply giving narration. Yet despite its problems, having the words of Jesus highlighted in red has been helpful to many over the past decades.

Efforts like “Red-Letter Christianity” can be well-intended, seeking to soften the edge of a lot of supposedly Christian rhetoric these days deemed to be harmful to others. A lot of times, the way we express the truths found in the Bible matters just as much, sometimes even more, than the actual truths themselves. The Bible can be easily weaponized to hurt people, so it is understandable to a certain degree that “Red-Letter” Christianity pushes back against such misuse of Scripture.

Some who describe themselves as “Progressive Christians” would also call themselves “Red-Letter” Christians. For example, when push comes to shove, many such “Red-Letter” Christians will say that they will take the words of Jesus over the letters of Paul, or other writings in the New Testament, any day. However, such efforts that try to elevate the words of Jesus like this have their own downsides to them.

So-called “Red Letter Bibles” were probably a good idea in the beginning, but they have sure made a mess of things.

Noah curses his son Ham, a 19th-century painting by Ivan Stepanovitch Ksenofontov.  The so-called “Curse of Ham” in Genesis 9:25 was the foundational prooftext used to defend the institution of slavery in the ante-bellum American South. Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus never comes out to explicitly condemn slavery. This blog post seeks to explain why, and to offer a better approach to how the New Testament deals with slavery.

Some Potentially Embarrassing “Red Letters” of Jesus

A focus on the “Red Letter” speeches of Jesus has good intentions behind it, but a careful examination of these red letters should give us some pause. Consider the “Red Letters” of Jesus found In Revelation 2:22-23, where the writer John is retelling a vision he has of Jesus speaking out against a female false teacher in one of Revelation’s seven churches, Thyatira, who is propagating a number of bad ideas in that Christian community:

Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

Yikes. Even with the archaic language of the KJV, this sounds pretty harsh. I can hear the objection of the skeptic now: “Well, your Jesus wants to murder children. I know that, because the words of Jesus are printed in red.”

Those red letters suddenly begin to look like red flags.

It is important to concede something here. There are a number of disturbing things Jesus says in this passage, but I highlighted the number one thing that bothers me: “And I will kill her children with death.” The ESV translation renders this phrase, “I will strike her children dead.” For this Christian who is pro-life, particularly with respect to abortion, this red-letter snippet from Jesus can be jarring. Does Jesus really want to kill a woman’s children, even if this woman is a heretic?

However, a proper understanding of the literary context of any book of the Bible is essential to interpreting the Bible responsibly. Some Christians will staunchly defend the idea that they take the Bible “literally,” without a careful examination of what “literally” even means. Instead, it is better to consider what is the literary genre of a book like Revelation. The Book of Revelation falls within the peculiar genre of apocalypticism, a group of writings that grew out of Judaism that are heavily laced with hyperbole and metaphor. The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament is another example of apocalyptic literature, where parts of Daniel have a very similar feel to what is read in Revelation.

It can be well argued that Jesus is not hyper-literally favoring abortion or infanticide here, but rather is condemning the bad fruit of the false teaching associated with this “Jezebel” from Thyratia.  In other words, this reference to “Jezebel’s” children metaphorically symbolizes the corruptive result of this woman’s incorrect doctrine, which distorts the truth, a distortion which Jesus intends to do away with.

Oh, and lest we forget, more than anyone else in the entire New Testament, Jesus speaks about the doctrine of hell the most. Depending on the Bible translation, the word “hell” appears anywhere from 13 to 23 times in the New Testament, the majority traced back to the lips of Jesus, even in the Book of Revelation. In comparison, the letters of Paul barely mention “hell” at all. The concept of eternal lostness, one of the most despised concepts of Christianity in our contemporary world, is found primarily in the “Red Letter” words of Jesus.

Yes, the “Red Letter” Jesus does speak about love, goodness, and kindness towards others. But that same “Red Letter” Jesus also speaks words of judgment against a hard-hearted and disobedient people.

In the Gospels, Jesus calls all of the little children to come unto him and loved them (Mark 10:13-16). But in Revelation 2:22-23, Jesus threatens to “kill the children” of a woman described as a false teacher in the church. A more responsible reading of the so-called “Red Letters” of Jesus is needed that values the original literary context of the New Testament. (From a mural painted at the Williamsburg Community Chapel).

Smoothing Over Some the “Red Letters” of Jesus?

In comparison to the Book of Revelation, the Gospels are quite a different form of biblical literature.Yet even in the Gospels, Jesus used hyperbole and metaphor rather frequently. Just think about Jesus’ instruction to “hate” your own family (Luke 14:26). However, there is a tendency to try to smooth over some of those “Red Letters” of Jesus which make us feel even more uncomfortable.

Philip Jenkins, an historian at Baylor University whose work I have reviewed a few times on this blog, has written a very insightful article about Matthew 25:21. As Jenkins informs us, the problem is that we often read parts of the Bible through our own cultural lens, and when it comes to “slavery,” the experience of racial-based, chattel slavery in American history immediately comes to mind. But the “slavery” during the New Testament period was different. The Romans never paid any attention to skin color when it came to slavery. If your cultural group was defeated by the Roman army, then your group became perfect candidates for Roman enslavement in an effort to make reparations for war debts, regardless of the pigment of one’s skin. But nevertheless, slavery is slavery.

To be a slave in Jesus’ day was to be considered a piece of property in the eyes of the master. Furthermore, in the world of the first century Roman Empire, slavery was a big deal, and the Roman province of Israel was no exception. Historians estimate that roughly one out for three persons living in the Roman Empire in the time of Jesus was a slave.

People looking to “Red Letter” Christianity to find a message from Jesus condemning slavery will be hard pressed. The Legacy Standard Bible, a translation produced by the seminary founded by John MacArthur, a pastor in Southern California, uses the English word “slave” for the Greek “doulos.” Some translations will use the word “bondservant” or “servant,” to try to convey the same idea.

These translations work to a certain extent. Indentured servitude, where slaves could work off their debts to earn their freedom, commonly known as “debt bondage,” was more widely practiced in the ancient Roman empire than what you find with cradle-to-grave slavery in the antebellum American South. However, the use of  “bondservant” or “servant” may obscure the original meaning as it was originally heard by Jesus’ hearers in first century Galilee or Jerusalem. Sure, it makes me squirm a bit, but the text is still authoritative and worth considering, if you read it within the longer context of the global history of slavery. Read Jesus’ speaking in Luke 12:47-48, from the Legacy Standard Bible:

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many beatings, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a beating, will receive but a few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

That comes straight from a modern equivalent of your “Red Letter” Bible, folks. However, statements like these can be balanced by other sayings made by Jesus: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). But this is speaking more of slavery in metaphorical terms, as in spiritual slavery, and not so much about physical, chattel slavery. So, what are we to think about this?¹

A Better Way to Think About the New Testament’s Approach to Slavery

The reality is that the only New Testament message which challenges chattel slavery can be found in the writings of the Apostle Paul, but you will not find Paul’s letters written in red in any Bible I know about. Granted, Paul is not as explicit in condemning slavery as we would like, as he never directly challenges slavery as a system. Paul’s teaching in Ephesians thankfully went against the grain of typical Greco-Roman treatment of slaves (Ephesians 6:5-9), by calling masters to not “mistreat their slaves.” Nevertheless, slaves are still called to obey their masters, in Paul’s letters. Paul simply assumes the slavery system to be the societal norm. However, it is important to recognize neither Paul nor anyone else in the Bible refers to slavery as part of God’s created order. We get the “slavery from creation” idea from Aristotle, and not from the Bible.

Still, we see indirect evidence that Paul did not imagine slavery to be part of God’s ultimate plans and purposes. In 1 Corinthians 7:21, Paul encourages Christians who are slaves to pursue their freedom from slavery, if they have the opportunity. In Philemon 1:8-16, Paul considers the runaway slave, Onesimus, to be like a son and a brother, and encourages Philemon, the slave owner of Onesimus, to do the same. To call a slave a “son” or “brother” would have been revolutionary in the Greco-Roman culture, which saw slaves as merely being pieces of property.

One other example can be added to the list, though it is controversial among some scholars. In 1 Timothy 1:9-10, the KJV reads Paul as condemning “men-stealing.” Here is how the English Standard Version renders the passage:²

…the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…..

The ESV reads “enslavers” instead of the KJV’s “men-stealers,” but the ESV includes a helpful note describing “enslavers” as “those who take someone captive in order to sell him into slavery.” Other translations render this Greek word as “kidnappers,” which pretty well describes a lot that has gone along in the history of slavery for how slaves had been obtained in the first place, such as from the African slave trade during the American colonial era. It would be too much to call the Apostle Paul a full-on “abolitionist,” but you have to be blind to these verses to claim that Paul was a sold-out apologist for slavery.

All this being said, Paul is our best resource in the New Testament for pinpointing the evils of slavery. You just do not find such a resource in the so-called “Red Letter” words of Jesus. Those “Red Letters” do not go far enough.

That is right. We have to look to Paul, that man who is often described as supposedly “gay-hating,” “woman-hating,” etc., in order to build a Christian theology that works to address the evils of something as bad and as unjust as slavery. Jesus as presented in the so-called “Red Letters” of the Gospels and Book of Revelation does not help us much at all. Thankfully, Jesus did designate Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and Jesus’ advocate for a more just and equitable world (See Galatians 1:11-12). It was this Gospel message that Paul preached throughout the Roman empire that ended up changing the world, and handing down the ethics of the New Testament over multiple generations to our present day some 20 centuries later, despite efforts in recent decades to overturn certain elements of New Testament ethics.

Christians are called to try to correct injustices in society, to work towards caring more about the environment, to fight against racism, and to advocate for the poor and needy. But we need the  whole story of the New Testament to do that, and not just the “Red Letters” of Jesus.

So-called “Red Letter” Bibles that seek to highlight the spoken words of Jesus in red were probably a good idea a century ago. But today, such Bibles can often cause more problems than what they try to solve.

The “Red Letters” of Jesus vs. the More Emancipating Letters of Paul, Regarding Women… and Gentiles

Here is another point: An exclusive focus on the words of Jesus are not always as helpful when it comes to concerns about women, as compared to Paul. While Jesus’ primary financial supporters were wealthy women like Mary Magdalene, Johanna, and Susanna (Luke 8:2-3), his inside top-ministry team of twelve were all men. Some argue that Jesus was simply “accommodating to a patriarchal culture” in limiting the roles of women in leadership. I have often made this type of argument in the past myself!

However, this is difficult to square with the revolutionary attacks Jesus made against Jewish cultural standards. Why would Jesus be so timid in encouraging women to be his top leaders, when he went smack dab up against the standard Jewish practice of strict Sabbath observance and in challenging the very Temple establishment itself? This idea that Jesus did not want to “upset the apple cart” of first century Judaism regarding the role of women, or that Jesus was some kind of “closet feminist,” may sound appealing to some, but it lacks solid evidence. Whatever Jesus’ motivation was, feminism was not on his highest agenda list.

Some may fault Paul for not having women serve as elders/overseers in his churches (a much disputed teaching today: read this in-depth Veracity blog series), while others support more historically-grounded, traditional readings of Paul on this issue as being still applicable today. However, despite the controversy regarding women serving as elders/overseers in local churches, Paul regularly worked alongside fellow women missionaries, as described in Romans 16. Euodia and Syntyche were regarded, not just as friends or supporters, but actual co-workers for the sake of the Gospel with Paul (Philippians 4:2-3). Paul recognized a woman named Nympha, who led a gathering of Christians in her home (Colossians 4:15).

Surely, Jesus had female friends in the Gospels. Yes, Jesus valued the women around him highly. Mary Magdalene has for centuries been regarded as “the apostle to the Apostles,” for being the first to proclaim the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection.  Jesus’ mother Mary is probably one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, and most celebrated woman in all of world history. But none of these women have been described as Jesus’ “co-workers” like what we find with Paul.

A number of “Red Letter” Christians get incensed with Bible translations that say that Paul insists that an elder must be the “husband of one wife,” suggesting that only men are qualified for that job description (Titus 1:5-6 ESV). But the objection is overblown. For even though historical tradition going back to the early church controversially reserved the office of “elder/overseer” of a local church to qualified men in 1 Timothy 2:11-3:7, and certainly not all men are qualified, that same historical tradition affirmed both men and women as “deacons” (1 Timothy 3:8-13; Romans 16:1-2). Paul even instituted a special order of ministry among women, the “widows” of 1 Timothy 5:1-16. Paul evidently affirmed that both men and women are to serve as spiritual “fathers” and “mothers” in the church, respectively.

One more data point: There is nothing in the “Red Letters” of Jesus to suggest that it was possible to be a true follower of Jesus and not be circumscribed. As presented in the Gospels, Jesus was Jewish and expected those who follow him to adhere to the tenets of Judaism, including circumcision. With just a few exceptions, most of Jesus’ ministry was with his fellow Jews, and not Gentiles.

Jesus himself stated that he “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24 ESV). No mention of Gentiles here.

You read that right, folks. In “Red Letter” Bibles, Jesus’ focus was on his ministry towards the Jews, and not the Gentiles. Living in an age where many in America value “diversity” and “inclusion,” Jesus’ message in the Gospels can be a bit uncomfortable to accept.

Paul in prison, by Rembrandt (credit: Wikipedia). Jesus personally selected Paul to pioneer outreach to the Gentiles with the Good News of the Gospel, expanding out from Jesus’ ministry to primarily his fellow Jews.

Towards the Full Story of the Gospel

The story changes dramatically once we get to Paul. For years it had bothered me that Paul seemed to make a big deal about his apostolic calling to go preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. Case in point: Read 2 Corinthians 10:8…. “For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed.” Paul seems to boast a lot about his apostolic calling in 2 Corinthians 10. Was Paul just being arrogant?

But I have since learned that this was not about Paul trying to make a name for himself. Rather, this was about honoring the fact that Jesus had personally selected Paul to be his representative to the Gentiles, and remove the circumcision requirement for becoming members of Christ’s family. Others who claimed to be associated with the Jesus movement rejected Paul’s message, and insisted that Gentiles must undertake circumcision in order to follow Christ. For if it was not for Paul, the expansion of Christianity would not have made it very far into the Gentile world, as the “Red Letter” message of Jesus in the Gospels had not yet paved a way for the Gentiles to enter into the covenant people of God without circumcision.

We have Paul to thank for that, in his obedience to share the Gospel the way he did with the Gentiles, as revealed to him by Jesus!

So, when I meet up with Christians who tell me that they like Jesus, but do not care much about Paul, I want to remind them of this reality: Without Paul, we simply would not have Christianity as we know it.

I am all for the idea that we should put our focus first and foremost on Jesus as believers. Of course we should. Jesus alone is our King, our Lord, and Savior. Jesus is the founder of Christianity. But if we are honest with what we read about in the New Testament, we owe a great debt to the revolutionary message given to us through Jesus’ “slave,” the Apostle Paul (see Romans 1:1). For without the story of Paul we would not have the full story of the Gospel. Jesus personally selected Paul to fulfill this vital task. Let us not short-change the Gospel by just reading the “Red Letters” of the Bible.³

Ponder this idea for a moment. Perhaps this was God’s plan all along. God probably already knew that having the Son of God walking around in human flesh in first century Israel, preaching and teaching, might be a tough sell for a people accustomed to the slavery system, despising Gentiles, etc. But after the Resurrection, things would become clearer as to what the Gospel message was all about. So it would have been fitting for Jesus to then commission Paul to spread the fullness of the Gospel message that God had intended to communicate all along.

Here is the bottom-line of this whole exercise: Too many Christians want the Bible to say things the Bible really is not saying. Skeptics of Christianity often know this, so when Christians proceed to pretend things to be true about what the Bible is saying, but the evidence points in a different direction, it only reinforces the skepticism of the skeptic (I keep having to learn this lesson the hard way myself!!).  Instead, making more modest claims about what the Bible says goes a lot farther in making a defense of the Gospel than making extraordinary, overstated claims that are very difficult to support from the evidence. When we simply allow the Bible to speak for itself, we discover things that may have never been seen before. Then these discoveries can become great opportunities to have an honest conversation with a skeptic, and wonderful things can happen.

“Red Letter Christianity” gives us truth about the Gospel. But it only gives us a partial truth. In the worst cases, it can even distort the truth. To focus only or even primarily on the “Red Letters” of Jesus undermines the full story of the Gospel. To get the full story of the New Testament faith we need the rest of the New Testament, including the story of the Apostle Paul.

If you appreciated this blog post, you might want to check out other Veracity articles on Christian approaches from an historically orthodox perspective to such hot topics as slavery, justice, climate change, racism, women in the church and the home, homosexuality, reaching out in love towards our LGBTQ friends, and protecting the poor and the needy. Be sure to subscribe to new blog posts via email, on the right side of the page (unfortunately, the Twitter method of following Veracity does not work well any more).

Notes:

^{1. Even if an appeal is made to Jesus’ statement in Luke 4:18 about him being sent “to proclaim liberty to the captives,” this is only of marginal help as the original context of where Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 61:1-2, is speaking of war captives, but not necessarily slaves.  ↩}

^{2. Philip Jenkins does not think that the NIV’s rendering of the “men-stealing” terminology in 1 Timothy 1:10 as “slave traders” is correct. Dr. Jenkins cites a Greco-Roman source demonstrating how some forms of slave trading in the Roman empire were legal and others were not. I am not persuaded that Dr. Jenkins has it completely right that Paul is only condemning certain kinds of illegal slave trading in the Greco-Roman world, as though Paul is only listing vices that were illegal in Greco-Roman law, if I understand Dr. Jenkins correctly. To the contrary, the practice of homosexuality was legal in Greco-Roman society, and it is hard to figure out why Jenkins would include deviation from sound Christian doctrine as being against Greco-Roman law. Contrary to Dr. Jenkins, Paul is making reference to Old Testament Law when describing the list of vices to be avoided, not necessarily Greco-Roman law. Granted, you could argue that there was a legal form of acquiring slaves even in Old Testament Law in terms of making war reparations, which would not fit in the category of “slave trading,” itemized in 1 Timothy 1. But in the New Testament we have no prescriptive teaching that addresses slavery in the context of making war reparations. However, the New Testament does talk quite a bit about forgiving others, as in the Lord’s Prayer (“forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors“) . While slavery still exists today, as in the exploitation of children and the sex trade, many of the traditional motives for slavery today have been rendered moot in light of the advances in technology, particularly with farming,  and in modern complex economic systems, which mitigate against the need for traditional means of obtaining war reparations.   I also need to pushback on how Dr. Jenkins thinks through 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, as I would argue that there is a convincing argument for a better way to read this text..↩}

^{3. This blog post complements a similar theme from a few years in another Veracity blog post.  For more on how Christians wrongly picked up the idea that slavery was somehow a part of God’s plan, see this previous Veracity blog post on that topic.  For more on how the New Testament treats women, see my book review of Andrew Bartlett’s Men and Women in Christ.  For more on the history of “Red Letter” Bibles, see this previous Veracity blog post.  ↩}