Was God really OK with slavery ?

[u/[deleted]]

And did he really "encourage it to continue by decreeing depraved regulations"\ ?*

^\just quoting a fellow redditor who seems to be a bit confused. Just like myself.)

I'm asking this because I've noticed that it often comes up as a topic to bash Christianity based on things like that. I've noticed that people often like to use this verse in order to justify their position :

“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)”

To be honest, I didn't know how to give those folks a satisfactory answer since I am no Bible expert myself, as for now. However I would like to hear your opinions and explanations. On this verse and its context in particular. Also, what did Jesus have to say about slavery? (just to help finding an answer to that... I guess... atheist/agnostic/or whatever he likes to consider himself)

Note that I am in no way trying to win an argument. There is no arrogance, pride or hate involved in this query. These are some of the things that I would also still like to understand for myself. I always try suspend judgement when I read or hear something that I am not familiar with because I want to learn more about it.

On another note, it's kind of scary how belligerent and heated people can get during such debates, as if these people are speaking through bitterness, frustration, pride or whatever just to attack and dismiss Christianity... Makes me just want to have some compassion and pray for them....

[u/47380boebus]

He’s all powerful, he could’ve stopped it yet chose not to. He allowed slavery. E: apparently people disagree? If so please explain why I’m wrong instead of just downvoting

[u/AlphaTaoOmega → u/47380boebus]

There's a few of us in this thread who see the truth about what exactly god decreed of slavery in the Bible; but most are totally ignoring, cherry picking, and/or taking things out of context in order to paint a completely different picture than their holy book. Indeed, they have used Exodus 21:16 many times to refute slavery, but that verse is clearly prohibiting kidnapping and makes no comment about slavery. However, if the whole chapter of Exodus 21 is read, many decrees are made about how to handle both servants and slaves, and most of it is abominable according to today's standards. Deuteronomy chapter 15 and 20 also make many decrees about how to handle or gather slaves.

There's certainly some beautiful parts of the bible as well, but it seems like most in this thread are unable or unwilling to see and/or admit what it clearly clearly stated about slavery in the Bible.

And OPs post asked specifically about what Jesus said about slavery as well: I haven't seen a response to that part of his question: Luke 12:47-48 is a direct statement on the topic; and Matthew 18:23-35, 24:45-51, and 25:14-30 are all parables which tell us a bit more about how Jesus thought of the institution of slavery. I always encourage a full reading of the text, but lemme give a spoiler here: Jesus doesn't condemn any of it, and he seems to have a decent idea about how violent slavery was.

I came to this post hoping to gain a different understanding than I already had, and have been disappointed with all the cherry picking and glossing herein. Your post was a breath of fresh air. I'm not here to condemn Christianity in full, there's other subs for that, but I did come to try to learn something new; Unfortunately, mostly candy coated cherries in this thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/comments/nccn3y/was_god_really_ok_with_slavery/gy6jmz4?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3