Freedom

Someone told me, "If you read the bible, God was big into slavery and killing. Not so much into freedom."

If you actually read the Bible instead of repeating what others have told you about it, you'd know there is nothing in the Bible that promotes slavery. It is true that there are no laws that make it illegal. But actually, a true libertarian would argue that slavery should be regulated rather than outlawed. What I mean is, we already have basic laws against abusing people. Slavery should fall under those categories of abuse. Today we have more slaves than when slavery was legal. So does passing a law automatically get rid of it? Now, I'm not advocating the legalization of slavery. It violates Genesis 1 and 2. God was addressing a reality of the time in a practical way to protect the dignity of slaves, and during that time slavery was much different than it was in the modern Western world. This link talks about it more as well. http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201102/201102_108_slavery.htm.cfm

The Bible says murder is wrong and commands all mankind in Genesis not to kill each other. God is the only one in the Bible who has ultimate authority to give live or to take it. Think about it like protection of private property. All life belongs to God, so he has a the right to distribute it as he sees fit.

People like to criticize the Bible's rules with one hand while they use the other to support the passing of 10,000 pages of legislation in the U.S. every month. The Bible only has a few hundred rules in it, and most are exclusively for Israel. Gentiles were not bound to those rules. There is far more freedom in the Bible than in any man-made government.


In fact, the Bible is all about freedom. Freedom is the end goal for us in God's plan.
Paul says, 

"that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

"Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—"

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

And Peter says warning of false teachers,

 "They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved."

"If the law does not lead us to redemption, it will lead us to despair... The very law that has been given by God to prove to me that I need a savior, becomes in the hands of external religion a mechanism to prove to me that I don't need a savior."

- Alistair Begg

Under a big government, we are slaves to the law. But even without it, we are still slaves to our sin. True freedom--true liberty can only be achieved through the freedom given through Jesus.