The NIV 365 Day Devotional
Why Doesn’t the Bible Condemn Slavery?
Why didn’t Peter tell masters to set their slaves free? Why did he instruct slaves to submit?
Part of the answer can be found in Peter’s focus. He wanted first to give his readers a Christian perspective: How could they live in an imperfect society in which righteous people were persecuted? Peter didn’t endorse the system but addressed its realities.
Also, it helps to understand first-century slavery. People considered it a fact of life, a part of the social structure. Slaves formed the backbone of the work force in Roman culture—estimated in some areas at more than half the population. Ironically, some slaves were better off than some free people. Often “professionals” such as teachers, doctors and civil servants were technically slaves. For these reasons and others, slavery was typically viewed as morally neutral.
We are justifiably angered, however, by accounts of the nineteenth-century American slave trade. It tore families apart and robbed people of their freedom and dignity. Many in Peter’s day were equally offended by the cruelty of some slave owners, though those offended were in the minority.
While the New Testament did not specifically condemn the institution of slavery, it clearly taught that violence and oppression are wrong. Society gave owners the legal right to beat or even kill their slaves for minor infractions. The New Testament, by contrast, revoked the license slave owners had to mistreat their slaves. Abusive masters would be accountable to God for their actions (see Eph 6:9; Col 4:1). On the other hand, slaves were to respect and submit to their masters (see Eph 6:5-8; Titus 2:9-10). The goal was to change relationships within the existing system. For a master and slave to treat one another as brothers was revolutionary (see Phm 12-17).
With its emphasis on spiritual freedom, the New Testament planted the seeds that later convicted nineteenth-century society of the oppressiveness of slavery. People came to see that Jesus values every person; he died for the master as well as the slave, the tyrant as well as the oppressed, the wealthy as well as the poor.
Taken from the NIV Starting Place Study Bible.