Everybody ought to have a slave

Ephesians 6:1-9   Everybody ought to have a slave                                                    

Children and Parents

          Children, obey your parents in the Lord,^* for this is right. ²‘Honour your father and mother’—this is the first commandment with a promise: ³‘so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’
4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Slaves and Masters

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; ⁶not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. ⁷Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, ⁸knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.
9 And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality. 

          Here we have it folks, Biblical sanctioning for having slaves! Yes! I always wanted one. The vision in my brain is Zero Mostel singing "everybody ought to have a slave" from that great show, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Yes, think of all things we could do and with no back talk. 

          But, would my conscience allow me to have a slave? Could I ever treat a fellow human that way? Could I even treat any animal that way? No, absolutely not. We have come to a point where we know that slavery is immoral and at the very least disrespects follow humans that ultimately disrespects ourselves and God.

           I read a great Blog the other day (Laurel Masse) that spoke of how women have been treated in the past and how some people, candidates even, would like nothing better than to return to the 'good 'ol days when woman were chattel. What's more, Jesus was probably the first person that recognized woman as equals and the blog does a find job of pointing that out. We are not going back to women as chattel or where the term 'legitimate rape' is even a legitimate term (if it ever was). 

        If everything that appears in the Bible was a dictum or a sanction for the activity mentioned, we would be in really sad shape. Slavery, incest, concubines, multiple wives and even terrorism would be norms. 

         Do not take the Bible so literally. The Spirit speaks and is engaging us today.