Isn't the Bible's view on homosexuality kind of like the Bible's view on slavery? The Bible endorses slavery, yet Christians have long admitted the Bible was wrong and rejected slavery. If you were willing to reject what the Bible said on slavery, why are you not willing to do the same thing with homosexuality, and admit that the Bible is wrong about it as well?
Answer:
Your entire question is founded upon a premise that needs to be addressed before I can answer your question: Does the Bible endorse slavery? So in part one, I will address what the Bible actually says about slavery. In part two (which I will address in a few weeks, as there are a few other questions I want to get to first), I will address what the Bible actually says about homosexuality.
There are plenty of passages in the Bible that can lead to the idea that Slavery is perfectly fine with God. For example, here is Jesus talking about slaves and masters:
The student is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his master. (Matthew 10:24)
Far from condemning slavery, Jesus seems to be blatantly reinforcing the idea that slaves are genuinely inferior to their masters. Further, in Matthew 18:23-35 Jesus tells a parable where the master was about to sell a man's entire family, and although he initially showed mercy, he later demanded the slave be imprisoned and tortured until that slave's full debt could be repaid. There seems to be no indication in the story that Jesus Himself has a problem with the practice of slavery, selling slaves, or even of harsh treatment of slaves.
Paul follows this example, and rather than demanding that Christian masters free their slaves, goes no further than demanding they treat their slaves well.
Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. (Ephesians 6:7-9)
So does this mean that the Bible endorses slavery? Well, yes and no.
Saying that the Bible endorses slavery is somewhat parallel to saying that it endorses death.
Does the Bible endorse death? Well, yes and no.
Adam and Eve were warned that breaking their one law would result in death, and we are told that because of their failure, death has reigned over the history of mankind. Murder, on the one hand, is forbidden, and even causing an accidental death requires the guilty party to make recompense. However, God Himself set up death penalty laws for certain crimes, and people were killed in wars that God authorized in the Old Testament.
Most striking of all, Jesus Himself came to the earth for the express purpose of being killed for crimes He did not commit.
However, the entire point of the gospel message, of the death and resurrection of Jesus, is to ultimately defeat death, and finally rid the world of death once and for all. So the Bible views death as a very bad thing, and God is working to eliminate it from our planet once and for all, but unfortunately, death is a reality of daily life, and is an necessary part of reigning in some kinds of sin.
How does this parallel the slavery issue?
The first thing you need to understand is that what we generally mean by slavery today, which is forced, life-long slavery based on sex or race, was virtually non-existent when the New Testament was written. The slavery that divided the United States during the civil war is rare in the Bible, and when it does occur, it is not viewed in a positive light at all. The sex slave trade that is so prevalent in the world today is NOT the "kind" of slavery that was practiced in the Bible. So on those two specific "kinds" of slavery, the New Testament says almost nothing, as they were not part of the experience of the first century church.
There were several different kinds of slavery during the first century (when the New Testament was being written), none of them were racial, the most common was the kind we call "bond service," and believe it or not, it was often, although not always, voluntary. That is to say that many of those who were slaves were in that state because they owed some kind of debt, and their bondage was a means of working off that debt. Notice, for example, in the parable that Jesus told above, the issue with each slave was "paying off a debt." Thus, slavery was rarely a life-long issue, and there were laws in existence in the Roman empire that allowed for slaves to earn their freedom (this was also true in the Old Testament, where slaves were to be set free after seven years of service). An internet search on slavery in ancient Rome can verify all of this.
Were there abuses? We're talking about people here, so of course there were abuses, and according to some ancient sources, those abuses were fairly widespread. Either way, however, this "bond servant" practice of the first century, although not desirable, is viewed in the Bible as an unfortunate, but justifiable extension of the "bondage" of debt that is found through out all societies. It is not based on race, or for the purposes of abusing women sexually, but was in place as one of the means of controling and managing personal debt in their economy. Thus, scripture does not address "bond servant" slavery as a moral issue, any more than it addresses financial debt as a moral issue (although the treatment of slaves WAS considered a moral issue). If anything, it was viewed like prison incarceration today: a necessary thing that no one really likes, but for which there are very few realistic alternatives.
Further, just as God was working to eliminate death from our planet, yet He also set up death penalties to punish and help reign in certain kinds of sin, so God is working to free us from every kind of bondage, yet over the history of our planet has often used slavery as a means of punishing and reigning in certain kinds of disobedience to His laws.
Just as the Bible uses the word "death" to describe far more than physically dying, it uses "bondage" and "slavery" to describe far more than simple, physical slavery. So you can't just take the appearance of the words "slave" or "master" and extrapolate a general view of slavery in the Bible from any one passage. In the same way that the Bible understands that death is a bad, but inescapable part of life, it also views slavery as a bad, but inescapable part of life. In fact, according to the Bible, every single one of us is a slave to something, whether we like it or not. The only question is who is our master, and to what degree we are enslaved?
The Bible teaches, for example, that being in debt is a form of slavery, and it lays out specific principles to help us escape from this kind of slavery.
The wealthy rule over the poor, and anyone who borrows is a slave to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7).
In a central theme of the entire Bible, it states that the most serious form of slavery is to sin, because it results in eternal death.
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thank God that, though you were once slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching with which you were entrusted! (Romans 6:16-17)
And in a really interesting twist, the Bible says that one particular kind slavery, that is, slavery to righteousness through Jesus Christ, is a very good thing, and is the only way to be truly free.
And since you have been freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in simple terms because of the frailty of your human nature. Just as you once offered the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater disobedience, so now, in the same way, you must offer the parts of your body as slaves to righteousness that leads to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were "free" as far as righteousness was concerned. What benefit did you get from doing those things you are now ashamed of? For those things resulted in death. But now that you have been freed from sin and have become God's slaves, the benefit you reap is sanctification, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in union with the Messiah Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:18-23 ISV)
The Bible does not use this kind of wording lightly. It is very serious about all forms of slavery, but particularly the ultimate bad form (sin) and the ultimate good form (righteousness). Notice how the New Testament writers often introduce themselves (note that the Greek word δοῦλος has a fundamental meaning of "slave," but is usually translated "servant" or "bond servant" in most translations when referencing believers, partly to distinguish between our modern concept of a "racial slave" versus the New Testament concept of a "bond servant" - I have reverted back to its fundamental definition below):
Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God--
(Romans 1:1)
It very much wants us to become slaves of the Lord Jesus, where we will find real freedom and eternal life, so that we can finally be set free from all other slavery, all of which will harm or kill us.
And . . . Not at all.
The Bible very much wants us to be completely set free from all forms of bondage that are endemic to the human experience: physical slavery, financial bondage, emotional bondage, spiritual bondage and relational bondage. And whenever possible, Christians have always resisted and discouraged all forms of slavery. I gave the quote from Paul, above, where he was giving Christian "masters" instructions about how to treat their "slaves." However, when presented with a situation in which Paul had the chance to do something about "bond servant" slavery, he did.
In the letter to Philemon, Paul literally uses emotional and social leverage to "force" Philemon into a corner on the issue of his slave, Onesimus. In arguing for Onesimus' freedom, he tells Philemon to charge all of Onesimus' debts to his own account (which would effectively set him free), THEN reminds Philemon about how much he already "owes" Paul (implying that Philemon is a "moral" bond servant to Paul), and issues a not so subtle warning that Paul himself will be personally checking up on all this by telling Philemon to prepare the spare bedroom, because he will be visiting soon. Paul uses the gentlest of words, wrapped in the iron of serious social and emotional arm twisting, to make it very clear he wants Onesimus to be set free.
So did Christianity suddenly decide that the Bible's take on slavery was wrong, and we should reject that teaching and condemn slavery? No, not at all.
Christianity recognized that the entire point of the gospel was to set us free from ALL forms of slavery, so that we can become slaves to the one true God, in the only kind of "bondage" that is not really slavery at all. And when the racial slavery of blacks was infecting our country, Christians quickly recognized that this was as unjustifiable as the racial slavery of Israel to the Egyptians, and called it what it was: evil.
So what the Bible does is recognize that some of the milder forms of slavery that are found in our lives are unavoidable, and tend to be endemic to the human experience, thus some of them must be tolerated, but they are NOT endorsed. They are NOT good, they are NOT encouraged, they are NOT supposed to be a part of our lives, and the goal of Christianity is to see us all set free from all of them.
Some, however, such as racial or sexual slavery, are not even to be tolerated.
So, no, Christianity did not suddenly decide the Bible was wrong about slavery. It actually recognized that there are many "kinds" of slavery; some are very bad, but unavoidable (such as slavery to sin), some are very unpleasant, but have to be tolerated (such as financial slavery), and some are unjustifiably evil and must be eliminated (such as racial or sexual slavery).
But for those of us who follow Jesus, the Bible promises that we will eventually be set free from all forms of bondage.
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