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Is God's Law Bondage |
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Some theologians associate God's law with slavery. But the Bible presents it as the missing key to true freedom. by Noel Hornor |
In the annals of human experience, some of the darkest episodes of man's inhumanity to man have involved the treatment of slaves. Even today humans are sometimes subjected to brutality as the property of other human beings.
World Press Review paints a picture of contemporary slavery in one nation: "Men, women and children in shackles and chains hack at sugar canes as the midday sun beats down. Armed guards swing rifle butts into the ribs of workers caught slacking. The prisoners are given only water and grain for food. When darkness falls, the men are dragged to a clearing and chained to trees for the night. Women usually sleep alone or with children in makeshift sheds. At dawn, the men, women and children are kicked awake" (June 1996, p. 44). Then the misery of the former day is repeated.
According to another magazine, "The Geneva-based International Labor Organization reports that tens of millions of people around the globe, including children as young as six, are working in bondage-in dangerous and degrading conditions that often involve 18-hour workdays, beatings and sexual abuse" (Time, March 11, 1993, p. 26).
A saga of slavery
Some 2,500 years ago an entire nation was in bondage. When we first encounter Israel as a nation in the Bible, the Israelites had gone from being guests in Egypt, enjoying the bounties of the land side by side with their Egyptian hosts, to being slaves. The Bible says the Egyptians set "taskmasters" over the Israelites "to afflict them with their burdens," forcing them to construct cities such as Pithom and Raamses (Exodus 1:11). The Israelites were cruelly forced to labor at projects designed to honor the proud Egyptian kings. So brutal were these Egyptian masters that they even murdered Israel's newborn male babies (pro).
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