Slavery and Bondage : Pt 1 : Intro
I often catch some slack approaching scripture with a primarily black and white view. Now I do believe that they're are some seemingly grey areas in scripture, but mostly in application of scripture, not so much in the principles laid out. Scripture handles most issues very clearly, and very black and white, the grey comes in when we try to discover what this means for us to live out and submit ourselves to the counsel those scriptures. This is because the imperfection of scripture application lies with us, not with the scriptures themselves. We are left, with our fallen brains, the immense task of living in obedience to God's Holy word.
Now, every so often, concepts come about in scripture that leave us with two opposing views, that through some studying, actually prove themselves to be complimentary. Such concepts as slavery, bondage and freedom are often misunderstood drastically by Christians. It is easy to see how these three elements found in scripture are related, but scripture would reveal to us that we are all slaves to something, bound to something, and what we are a slave to determines our freedom. It is a misunderstanding of what freedom actually is that causes us to often think that we are free when we are really under the bondage of slavery; slavery that we were not meant to live under. Meaning that when we think we are free, we are actually in bondage, and at other times, what feels like restraint is often really freedom. This is the meat and bones of what I hope to explore in the next two post, but I feel the need to give a little set up. The easiest illustration of this freedom into slavery, and restraint that is really freedom comes from Genesis chapter 3, the story of the fall. Summed up, Adam and Eve exercise certain freedoms and then they find themselves in the bondage and slavery of death and sin. Whereas, the restraint that were set in place by God, "do not eat of the tree...", was really the means to secure their freedom.
Like Adam and Eve, the lie fed to us is that God is taking away our freedom, when He is really securing it. In other words, Jesus knows the way that freedom works best.
There are certain parts of scripture that everyone, believer and unbeliever, all enjoy. This does not mean that they understand it by any means, and both sides would accuse the other of getting it wrong; but again we are all fallen. So both sides are right when they assume that the other has gotten it wrong. Some of the elements in scripture that we all love are things like love, charity, kindness and freedom. Just so you know, the problem in understanding these things rightfully, is always us. We bring to these concepts our own understanding, scripture would warn against "our understanding" on anything, (Pro 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Pro 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ) So we define them on our terms and not on God's terms. This is devastating to all of these concepts, but we are going to mainly focus on freedom.
Freedom, is NOT how most of us would define it. Truthfully most of us have never really pondered it, but we would say that freedom is "essentially doing what you want." Does anyone see the danger here? If everyone was "free" by this definition, then we are all in big trouble. Someone who habitually lies is merely expressing freedom, a murderer is only expressing freedom, dictators who kill millions in genocide, are expressing their freedom. This is where we try to then amend the definition. We will then say "doing what you want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else's freedom." The problem here again, is us. Every expression of you doing what you want is going to, in some way or another, impact someone else's freedom, there is no way around it. Here is the funny thing, your freedom should impact another person's freedom.
Think of it this way. Jesus is the ultimate embodiment of all concepts in scripture, so by extension, Jesus is the most "free" man who ever lived. Jesus lived so freely that his freedom secured the freedom of the world from sin and death. So for us, maybe real freedom is living in a way, that is not so much a concern for freedom in our lives, but freedom in the lives of others. Live freely in a way that encourages other's to find their freedom in Christ.
This freedom includes freedom from the bondage of slavery in sin and death. This is huge, and we all need this freedom. We are free in ourselves because Jesus took all the guilt and shame of our sins to the cross, so we no longer have to strive for our own acceptance, it is secure, and we no longer have to walk over anyone else's freedom to obtain our own Joy, because Christ, freely laying down his life, has secured it. We are then set free from the fear of losing our lives, enabling us to live freely for other's Joy.
Now the reason this is important for us to ponder and search out, is that we easily drift back to slavery of sin and death. Historically God's people have longed for the false security and fake freedom's of their former lives. This is something we will explore more in the next post. Hopefully, searching the scriptures and laying down our ideas of freedom for Christ' true freedom will help us to live our lives full of joy and lives that call others into the freedom of that same joy.
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