Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend. Welcome to a very special edition of the Bible Study podcast. And it's just Dena and I this week. We've got a really challenging text here, so I just wanted to keep it to the smartest person I knew, which is Dena Davison.
Dena Davidson [00:00:15]:
Thank you.
Curt Harlow [00:00:16]:
And what we're going to do is we're going to study Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1 through verse 9. Now, if you know your Bible, and I hope you do, this is a very, very famous passage in the world of apologetics and cultural conversations about Christian, because it deals first of all with children obeying their parents. Pretty standard stuff. Some good wisdom in there. And then it goes on to slaves relating to their masters and masters relating to their slaves, because, of course, in the time that the New Testament was written, upwards of 30% in some cities were slaves. Like in Rome, it would have been up towards the 30%, because the bigger and more important the city, the more slaves you had. Probably 10, 15% of the overall population in the Mediterranean were slaves, slaves of all sorts, as the Romans were a conquering empire. And here we have the issue of slavery being addressed directly by the Apostle Paul.
Curt Harlow [00:01:17]:
So, Dena, I'm going to have you read the passage, and then we're going to talk about the hermeneutical and exegetical approach. What tools are we going to use to understand this passage, and even if it comes to some really hard conclusions, and also what attitude we're going to bring to the passage. So hermeneutics being the sort of questions and tools we ask of a passage and exegesis, it's just really approaching the passage and saying we're not coming with an agenda or a bias. We are going to let the passage speak for itself. So, Dena, why don't you go ahead and read it for us and we'll jump right in and talk about children, parents, slaves, and masters.
Dena Davidson [00:01:58]:
Perfect. Ephesians 6. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from your heart.
Dena Davidson [00:02:34]:
Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven.
Curt Harlow [00:02:53]:
And.
Dena Davidson [00:02:53]:
And there is no favoritism with him.
Curt Harlow [00:02:56]:
All right, so let's start right here. Dena. Oftentimes when this passage. I've heard this passage teach, taught this way, and I know that a lot of language surrounds us. This way of going, oh, well, children's and parents, that's a relationship in the Roman home. And then a lot of slaves in the Mediterranean, in Rome, they would have had high positions. For instance, if you were captured by the Roman army and you were a doctor, you would be brought back to a Roman province and you would be a doctor there. So it's not the same sort of slavery that was in the, the Atlantic slave trade that we know about here in America.
Curt Harlow [00:03:34]:
Our, our past in America. And I just want to say, first of all, from a Bible study point of view, from a. Let's get the context right. Let's. I really do not like handling that passage this way. Now, it may have been true that their slavery had some differences to our slavery, but was their slavery violent, cruel and an affront to God? The way that the slavery in the history of our. It just really, you have to. You cannot minimize slavery in this passage.
Curt Harlow [00:04:07]:
You cannot solve the problem of our modern ears hearing this by saying their slavery was not as bad as our slavery because it's just not true.
Dena Davidson [00:04:14]:
Just that sentence, Curt, you know, oh, we can forgive this slavery because their slavery wasn't as bad.
Curt Harlow [00:04:19]:
It was just a sort of benevolent owning of humans.
Dena Davidson [00:04:21]:
Slavery.
Curt Harlow [00:04:22]:
No, no, it's slavery or slavery fundamentally. Owning another human, even if you take well care of that human, is an immoral thing. But that's not even what happened. I'm going to read a John Stott quote here. Accounts of terrible atrocities have survived from the first century, especially from the pre Christian era. Slaves were sometimes whipped, mutilated and imprisoned in chains. Their teeth were knocked out, their eyes gouged, they were even thrown to the wild beasts or crucified. And all this sometimes for the most trivial offenses.
Curt Harlow [00:04:55]:
The fact that some slaves ran away risking if caught, branding, flogging and even summary execution, while others committed suicide is sufficient evidence that cruelty towards them was widespread spread. So first of all, before we get into any explanation of the passage, let's just admit being a slave was horrible. It was absolutely horrible and a great and cruel injustice. So don't let anyone, you know, kind of explain the passage away. I mean, I say you, if you have a manager at work that's really hard to get along with, this is the sort of attitude. There's other passages for that. Yeah, there are other passages for that. This is Paul dealing with slaves and masters in the Mediterranean, specifically in Ephesus.
Curt Harlow [00:05:44]:
So before we get on to the text itself, Dena, you've got a master's degree in apologetics, and I even know you wrote a paper on this at one point while earning that degree. Talk to me about the role of this passage and these sorts of passages in the Bible and the deconstruction devangelicals. How does this passage play into that? And what should you and I be? What should you and I know about this sort of thing?
Dena Davidson [00:06:16]:
Yes. Well, first of all, when someone is deconstructing their faith, they can be doing it in a healthy way and they can be doing it in an unhealthy way. An unhealthy way is where you basically, you just ask question after question, doubt after doubt, until you take something that was once precious to you and you've demolished it and now you haven't chosen better beliefs, you just have rubble for beliefs. That's a poor deconstruction. A good deconstruction is saying, I have this unexamined faith. I've believed these things because they were taught to me. I think that the Bible is the word of God because that's what my parents told me and that's what my pastor said I had to believe or I would go to hell. And they're asking all the right questions to get to the root of do I really believe that the Bible is the word of God and is something I can rest my entire life on.
Dena Davidson [00:07:08]:
So if you're asking those honest questions and then you come and you hit on Ephesians 6 and you read, slaves obey your earthly masters. And then you get to the masters and you think, okay, now is when he tells them, hey, masters, you fools. If you're owning people, you need to release them if that's what you're hoping and expecting and anticipating. And instead what you read is, and masters treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them. There's a real problem here. And great deconstruction basically asks the hard questions. And for some people, this question has single handedly caused them to walk away from the Christian faith to say a Bible that approves of slavery, a Bible that is in their mind pro slavery, cannot, absolutely cannot be the revealed word.
Dena Davidson [00:07:57]:
Of a good God. So either God is not good or this Christian God is not actually God. And that's the result that they come to through that process.
Curt Harlow [00:08:04]:
Yeah, I've literally had the conversation with people. They said if, if the Bible misses the moral center of this issue, this very fundamental human issue, human history issue, then how can I hit the moral center of any issue?
Dena Davidson [00:08:20]:
Oh, absolutely. If we are, you know, one of the things that Christians say is that we know there is a God because we live in a moral universe and therefore there has to be a moral lawgiver. And this moral lawgiver is God. And we know what is right and wrong on the basis of what he says. But then we actually open up what he says and it's in no way action guiding for us as a society. Well, then our whole argument for this, the existence of this God and the truth of God's word just falls into shambles.
Curt Harlow [00:08:48]:
So was, let's just get. And then by the way, we're going to talk about children and parents. We're going to get to the first four verses. But you just, this is the elephant in the room. So was Paul pro slavery ant, anti slavery, or neutral and silent on this important issue of slavery?
Dena Davidson [00:09:06]:
Yeah, well, I would say Ephesians 6 is just case study number one for what happens when you take a scripture and you rip it out of its context. By the way, slave owners, the people involved in the slave trade, they absolutely knew this. They knew the power of ripping these verses from their context. So if you've never heard about the slaves Bible, it was actually this Bible that was formed and given to slaves in, in the 1800s and basically helped them to have the Christian religion, or rather the parts of the Christian religion that, that fostered submission to their slave owners. And in order to get the Bible to communicate a pro slavery agenda, they had to remove 90% of the Old Testament and about 50% of the New Testament. Guess how many verses from Ephesians 6 they kept?
Curt Harlow [00:09:58]:
All of them.
Dena Davidson [00:10:00]:
4.
Curt Harlow [00:10:00]:
Oh, interesting.
Dena Davidson [00:10:01]:
So even within this chapter of Ephesians 6, they would only allow the slaves to read four verses.
Curt Harlow [00:10:09]:
Makes perfect sense.
Dena Davidson [00:10:09]:
Makes perfect sense because the other verses promoted liberation and they promoted masters treating their slaves with the dignity and respect that was in them due to the Christian religion because of the imago DEI that they had to deny and they couldn't ratify.
Curt Harlow [00:10:27]:
This is, this is probably one of the best passages to have on a podcast like the Bible study because what you're saying is if you rip a passage out of context, you could deconstruct your faith 100%.
Dena Davidson [00:10:41]:
And people have.
Curt Harlow [00:10:42]:
If you rip a passage out of context, you can deconstruct your faith or promote a great evil with that very same passage.
Dena Davidson [00:10:51]:
Yes. I mean, if that is what you are paying attention to and you are refusing to do the careful job of properly exegeting this in light of what all of scripture says about how humans are supposed to interact with one another, then you can absolutely make these four verses speak a pro slavery agenda. But even slave owners understood that the rest of the Bible did not have that same message. And that's why abolitionists, they were able to come along and they were able to say, okay, these are tough verses, but there's a way to understand them that doesn't deny what the rest of the scriptures say in is the dignity of each person and how we're supposed to treat them.
Curt Harlow [00:11:35]:
Yeah, I actually think the explanation is not that difficult. On many, many campuses, many, many times I've been asked this question. And when you explain just like four things, people go, oh, that makes a lot of sense. So a lot of times I get suspicious. And why? People say, well, you gotta look at the context. And the explanation of the context is so complicated. But the explanation of the context here is not complicated at all. The first thing you gotta look at is he addresses the slaves directly.
Curt Harlow [00:12:05]:
This is already a radical elevation. So the shock to their ears would not have been Paul saying, slaves have the right attitude towards your masters. The shock to their ears would have been, oh, we have to bring the slaves in the room because Paul wants to speak to them. And he did this just a few verses earlier with women. You know, there would have been a group of men standing around reading the letter that they received, and they would have not included the women. But in the church of Ephesus, this radical thing happens. He speaks directly to women, he speaks directly to children, and he speaks directly to slaves. The second thing is Paul's.
Curt Harlow [00:12:50]:
If you look at Romans 16, Paul cannot be anti slave or anti slave and pro master because Paul has promoted slaves to leadership positions. Right. So Romans 16 mentioned several names that are likely slave names. I can't pronounce any of them, but it's clear in this very, maybe the most public of all of his letters, Paul is saying, I am not afraid to stand with next to and lead these guys. So Andrew McCourton, our sermon prep, he said something so powerful. He said, you know, in the morning, on the first day of the week, a slave would raise out of his bed, he would Wash his face and put his clothes on, or she would. And their master would get out of their bed and put their clothes on and wash their. And they would go to church, and they would walk the same pathway to that church, and they would go into the same doorway into the household of where that church was meeting.
Curt Harlow [00:13:44]:
And then the master would sit down and in the learner's position, and the slave would go to the front and lead the church. This is a radical, radical thing that Paul includes slaves on his team. And then you have just the whole stinking Book of Philemon. And it's just really important. I heard Rick Howard, a favorite old teacher of mine, preach one message on the whole Book of Philemon. And he said, this is the book that is most neglected, but probably the most important document ever written on reconciliation. He said, if there's ever a mission that is difficult, it's reconciling slave to slave owner in the Christian reconciliation. Here you have a slave who's escaped.
Curt Harlow [00:14:32]:
Onesimus. Onesimus. Thank you. You'll have to do that several times. Onesimus is in danger of being killed himself and having any and all of his associates killed because the Romans were brutal about slaves escaping. And Paul in a jail cell in greatly reduced health. He's literally had large chunks of muscle taken out of his back from being scourged multiple times. Paul, in every excuse for being grumpy, in every excuse for being cynical, has every excuse for not having any patience with this slave owner, writes and compels him to reconciliation.
Curt Harlow [00:15:17]:
The Book of Philemon is a fundamental document in the freedom of mankind. And so therefore, Paul cannot be meaning this in a way that says, I would like slavery to exist forever.
Dena Davidson [00:15:31]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:15:32]:
He can't mean that. No. Why doesn't he just say this? Jason Kane said this in sermon prep. I wish Paul would have just said, hey, slave masters, free your slaves.
Dena Davidson [00:15:43]:
Amen.
Curt Harlow [00:15:44]:
This is the right thing to do. And to our ears, it seems very, very right. And I do think we should wrestle with that, why Paul didn't do that, that we should be wrestling with that.
Dena Davidson [00:15:53]:
That's the right question to ask.
Curt Harlow [00:15:55]:
That is the right question to ask. And the answer is a fairly simple one. He was afraid a Roman massacre of slaves, and therefore Roman massacre of those who are promoting slaves to leadership position, which is Christians. And really the brutalness of the military dictatorship and the Emperor worship of the Roman Empire. It's not something we understand. Well, we live in the luxury of a lot of liberties. And so Paul clearly here. I think that one of the reasons Dena, he's writing the entire, this entire section is he's trying to publicly say, Christian homes are ordered homes, please don't come and kill us.
Curt Harlow [00:16:43]:
Because the Romans were very, very concerned with the loss of the order of authority in the home. And so clearly Paul. What is Paul's strategy here to get rid of slavery then? It's not his only strategy, but it's clearly his primary strategy. Preach the gospel, change the human heart. And if you think about it, slavery is never going to be abolished in human nature, in one generation, one revival, one culture, one little spot on the earth. It's such a deep seated, horrible evil in us that the only real remedy long term is we have to have total and complete born again transformation. And so those, all of those are. They make a lot of sense.
Dena Davidson [00:17:36]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:17:37]:
Now, does that mean we stop wrestling with this? Does that mean we stop going, gosh darn, I wish he had been more forceful or was there really that much danger? How do you answer that, Dena?
Dena Davidson [00:17:48]:
Well, first, I would say the strongest Critique of Ephesians 6 comes from within the Christian religion, not outside of it.
Curt Harlow [00:17:58]:
That's so good.
Dena Davidson [00:17:58]:
And so that's really important to wrestle with whenever you find that type of objection. Okay, where does that objection that humans should not own each other, where is that moral claim grounded? Well, the strongest grounding for that is in the Genesis 1, that all humans are created in the image of God. So I think the first thing to wrestle with this is that we're asking the right question, but we have to recognize that the objection is really a Christian objection. And if you remove the Christian objection, then you have to answer the question, well, then why is slavery wrong? On what basis of your worldview, whether it be naturalism, Darwinian evolution, or some other religion, what grounding do you have for your claim that men and women should not own each other? That would be the first thing I say.
Curt Harlow [00:18:44]:
The second thing, can I just ask you to elaborate on one thing where, how do we get that doctrine, how do we get the doctrine that slavery and things like it are wrong out of our theology? Where does that come.
Dena Davidson [00:18:59]:
Genesis?
Curt Harlow [00:19:00]:
Yes, absolutely.
Dena Davidson [00:19:00]:
This origin story that we were talking about last week, this tells us who we are, what type of world we're living in. And, and also it was. It's the thing that matters most in this conversation later on. What's going to matter most is the fact that Jesus said so clearly that our standard is to love one another as we have been loved by Jesus. So can you own a person and define that as loving? 1 as Jesus has loved you.
Curt Harlow [00:19:31]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:19:32]:
I think the clear answer, as every abolitionist and hopefully every Christian understands today, the clear answer is no, I cannot do unto a slave, call this person a slave, when I would not want that done to me. So I think there are so many passages that speak into this. The second thing, I talk about this in my ethics class that I teach the Thrive College students every year I list for them on a board all these instances where it seems like God is pro some evil thing, pro genocide, pro patriarchy, pro polygamy and pro slavery. And I just asked this question, did God command these things? Did he actually institute these things? Or can we understand these scriptures as simply regulating them? So think about our own American government. There are all sorts of things that the government regulates that it does not approve of. And this is the classic case. Well, you know, if you legalize wheat, for example, aren't you then approving of it? And the argument is, well, no, you're simply trying to regulate it. You're trying to make sure that people deal with this in a, in a healthy law abiding way.
Dena Davidson [00:20:48]:
If you legalize, if you legalize something, it doesn't by any way approve of that particular item. It just says that we want to carefully watch over how humans interact with this, knowing the argument is that they are going to do this. So whatever your views on the government are, I think a very powerful argument to help us understand this passage is, is first to go through all of scripture and ask the question, did God ever approve of slavery? Did he institute it? Did he tell people to own slaves? And the answer is no. Every time slavery is mentioned in the Bible, it is allowed, it is never commanded. Furthermore, when you take a look at all of these different ways that God puts limits on slavery, they're just that they're limitations on how people can own each other. God clearly has a heart to make sure that slaves are taken care of, knowing that the there's this human tendency to subjugate the other, right? That's just like that's all the way Cain and Abel, like we are going to get something by pushing another person down by harming them. Knowing that very human tendency, God put regulations and over and over again we can see from the Old Testament to the New Testament, this is not something that God approves of, it's something that he regulates. So I think a good way to look at this passage, especially the slaves, obey your earthly masters.
Dena Davidson [00:22:20]:
Think of this like if Paul was writing to Joseph when he was in prison because of what happened with Potiphar's wife. He's saying, you know, Joseph, obey your prison guard. And if Joseph were to read that and say, why aren't you asking me to rebel against him? Why aren't you asking me to, to fight this great injustice? Well, that's not at all what Paul is saying. What he is saying is, here are some instructions to thrive under these unjust circumstances. I think that's the best way to understand this passage.
Curt Harlow [00:22:51]:
I love that I, I think one author, I'm trying to remember who said this, God's truth on the problem of slavery is a long redemptive arc because it's a deep evil. So, so some of the deepest evils take a long redemptive arc. But again, the problem of pulling things out of context, we can take one little thing out of context and not ever get that arc. And also the only reason we can take offense at this sort of thing is because we live in an ocean of liberty that that long redemptive ark has done. So there's a French atheist named Luke Ferry. He's a philosophy doctor of philosophy. He's written an incredible book called A Brief History of Thought. That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:23:40]:
I'm promoting an atheist officer because I think he's very fair. And, and he talks about it just from the, the power of ideas point of view. So he says the Greek idea was, let's get as wise as we can. Let us, let us destruct the, deconstruct the whole world and figure out what's the wisest thing. And then we'll put that back together in our life and we'll walk in wisdom. And that idea dominated the Western world that I did dominated the Western world for a long, long time. Romans accepted it and Greek. And it's still part of our thinking.
Curt Harlow [00:24:15]:
We still, the pursuit of science. There's a lot of that Greek thought still in us. Then he said the pro A problem happened. A really disruptive thought came. And the disruptive thought was this. Not let's find the wisest thing. But the disruptive thought was, every human life has value. And it is Genesis.
Curt Harlow [00:24:37]:
It's a mago dei. The Christian thought was this. I am created in the image of God and I have value both because I was created in the image of God and because God came down from heaven for me to wash my feet, to teach me, to model, for me, to die for me, to conquer evil, for me. And because God sacrificed, he suffered the humanity of me. That is the price that was paid for me. That's the value I Have to God that he gave his one and only begotten son, that whoever should believe would be saved. And so then Christians all of the sudden started looking at slaves and going, you have the image of God on you. And they started telling him they have the image of God.
Curt Harlow [00:25:22]:
And they looked at the Roman baby that was abandoned because she was one of three sisters. And the dad didn't want another girl daughter. And they said, we have to rescue that baby. We have to take that baby in. And they looked at prisoners and they said, jesus commanded us, we will be like him if we go tell prisoners that they have the image of God on them.
Dena Davidson [00:25:42]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:25:42]:
And this thought is so disruptive. And all of a sudden the pursuit of life is not, can I become the wisest person? And by the way, while these great Greek philosophers were becoming the wisest people, they owned slaves, they oppressed poor people that didn't own any. Like, oh, the Greeks came up with democracy for rich male landowners, but wasn't democracy for everyone? And so all of a sudden, this idea, which even now it's the idea whenever you see our culture at the worst of its conflict, how people talk to each other on the Internet, how political opponents treat each other, it's because we have lost the imago dei. The more we devalue and see each other in one dimension, your position, as opposed into three dimensions, you are a incredibly wondrously made creature knit in your mother's womb. The more narrow and flat we see each other, the more immature and even violent we become towards each other. So I just think it's so powerful, the point you make. We would not know that a slave is an evil thing if we did not also have the revelation that we are created in the image of God and that the price of relationship with God is his own humanity, sacrifice and victory here on this earth. Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:27:22]:
If you are deconstructing your faith on the basis of this passage, then a really challenging question that you have to grapple with is if Christianity is in any way pro slavery, how is it that in the history of the world there is only one, one place where this idea of anti slavery was birthed? Like one early Judaism sect had this in their theology, which this is where the roots of Christianity lie due to the imago dei and then within Rome, all of slavery, at one point it just disappeared and then it was came back and then it was fought again from a Christian abolitionist movement. And if you're deconstructing and saying that Christianity is pro slavery, you have to grapple with the Fact that it wasn't until Christianity really began pushing this idea that all people should be treated as equals, that slavery was seriously looked at in the world and pushed to the edges of society and made. Made impossible for humans to own one another. I think that that's really important for us to grapple with. And yeah, I just, I wish that was given a little bit more attention in this deconstruction movement.
Curt Harlow [00:28:38]:
Absolutely. 100%. And then back to the passage itself. This verse nine is maybe one of the most liberating. Dangerous. It's really dangerous what Paul's saying here. Masters treat your slaves in the same way. Yes, masters treat your slaves in the same way.
Curt Harlow [00:28:55]:
So all of the uncomfortableness of slaves have the right attitude, submit all this sort of stuff, and then masters do the same. Masters submit to your slaves.
Dena Davidson [00:29:05]:
It's crazy.
Curt Harlow [00:29:06]:
Masters have the right. God's watching. God is watching. And, and then in first Corinthians, Paul does say it even more directly. He says, hey, I know. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you. What is he saying there? If the culture says you're a slave, that doesn't mean God says you're a slave. Were you a slave when you were called, first of all, slave Called.
Curt Harlow [00:29:33]:
This is called to what leadership? Called to what influence? Called to what significance? Called to what Living a life. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let her trouble you. That's not God's view of you, although he says if you can gain your freedom, do so. That's 1 Corinthians 7:21. So clearly Paul is pro freedom here. Clearly Paul is on the longer redemptive arc. And then just one last thing I want to ask you about this whole big issue. So Curt and Dena, you got.
Curt Harlow [00:30:07]:
Here's how many percentage of the slaves were. And here's Paul's doesn't. Wouldn't address slaves normally in their culture. And yet he does. How do you find all this hermeneutical context in a passage that's challenging like this? Where do you go?
Dena Davidson [00:30:24]:
Okay, I don't know if this is going to be sanctioned by you, but one of my. One of my. I used to just look back at the textbooks that I read at Biola and that was great because that was a curated list, but that's not helpful to the person listening. So nowadays whenever I go to a really challenging topic, there's two really quick websites I like to reference. The first is gotquestions.org they always have great, simple answers to whatever is trending on TikTok against Christianity.
Curt Harlow [00:30:54]:
The second is GodQuestions.org I love them.
Dena Davidson [00:30:56]:
GodQuestions.org you put it in, you say, is God pro slavery? And they will have articles and podcasts and curated resources that in my experience always represent a. I'm saying orthodox with a little O meaning holding to the ancient creeds.
Curt Harlow [00:31:15]:
Christianity within the realm of accepted Christianity for most of human history.
Dena Davidson [00:31:18]:
Yes. Historical Christian thought.
Curt Harlow [00:31:20]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:31:20]:
So then there's str.org stands for standtoreason.org, same thing. Excellent resource for whatever in the past has been an objection to Christianity and whatever is occurring. Current objection. Those are the ones you'd probably be approving of. I really like using ChatGPT these days, but with some parameters.
Curt Harlow [00:31:41]:
I'm just joking, of course. Of course.
Dena Davidson [00:31:44]:
So I, I view ChatGPT as my best friend, researcher, and so I just have to guide it in the right direction. So the words that I use whenever I don't want to come up with some Christian nonsense that is antithetical to what the Bible teaches and is, I use the word creedal, as in like the historic Christian creeds that Christians have believed for the past 2000 years that whether you're Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant, we all agree on these things. So I say, what do creedal Christians believe about slavery? And then it will point me to great resources. I always ask the question, what are some great evangelical resources on this? What are some great Protestant resources on this? How about you?
Curt Harlow [00:32:27]:
What's your favorite? I mean, okay, first of all, let's get the Chat GPT thing. So you don't think I would approve of it because I'm an old dude?
Dena Davidson [00:32:32]:
Well, it's like it's asking the Internet to speak into your religion and that can be very dicey.
Curt Harlow [00:32:37]:
You need to be skeptical of every answer you get, whether it's Internet or not, but double skeptical on the Internet. And, and by the way, sometimes I'll, I'll prompt Chat GBT to answer a question I know for sure, I've researched and I know the right answer to. Yeah, to double check. And if ChatGPT doesn't get it quite right, which is about a third of the time, by the way, I will say, well, what about this? And I'll give my more well researched answer and then chatgpt will come back very repentive. You're right. That's an excellent point. No, here's the prompt. I use Dena and I use Chat GPT every day for this exact same sort of thing.
Curt Harlow [00:33:12]:
I Say tell me about a widely accepted evangelical scholars position on and then I will fill the scholar I want in there. And like I do a lot of Tim Keller. I like Tim Keller because he's both a scholar and a pastor. And so you could tell when he's giving his answers. He's giving them to real people, not just doing the scholar research. But you know, depending on the topic is the scholar I pick. Or I'll say give me a list of scholars that, that have done credible research on this. So the more specific the prompt I think the better off you're going to be on that.
Curt Harlow [00:33:52]:
And, and then you can get all those answers. Other than that, a really great resource. So if you ask this question and we do this all the time with our thrive students. Thrive college students, you say what kind of resources should I use to study my Bible, especially in difficult passages? And all of a sudden a conversation concordance. Concordance which, you know, the Internet has destroyed them. They don't even exist anymore. And then the other one you get.
Dena Davidson [00:34:16]:
On the word and it'll.
Curt Harlow [00:34:17]:
The other one you'll get is a commentary. We should get a commentary. Yeah, commentaries are great. Commentaries are as good as the scholar that did them. They're probably as good as the editor over that collection of commentaries is. And so there are challenges in there and there's disagreement among really good scholars and commentaries. And what I don't like about commentaries as your first go to and they're so accessible now because every commentary used to have to be on your bookshelf. Now it's all on the Internet.
Curt Harlow [00:34:47]:
What I don't like about it is it takes away the hermeneutical process from you. You should strengthen your hermeneutical muscles. And so just sitting this question, asking yourself what was slavery really like? Now I'm going to do some research like in that first century and then asking the question what could have been Paul's concerns here? Like just don't, don't get the answer first. Find the questions that unlock the passage. The best way to do that and again there's multiple of these online is a good, solidly researched conservative. InterVarsity Press has got several of these. They're all good. A Bible handbook or what we call a Bible dictionary.
Curt Harlow [00:35:36]:
Because what a Bible handbook and a Bible dictionary will do for you is they will list topics. So if you go into a good Bible dictionary and say I'm going to the S's and I'm going to look up slavery, it'll give you an article about slavery in The Old Testament article about slavery in the New Testament article about Christians involved in abolition in Savior, you know, okay, so Roman households. What is the Roman household like? Well, you'll find that there's specific Greek terminology that the Greeks use for their household, and there's certain terminology that the Romans use for their household. And there'll be an article, and the article will basically teach you that the dad was completely, entirely in charge and no one else had any liberty at all. And. And that I love that because in one search or one tool, you can hit five or six issues in a passage. So to me, that Bible handbook or Bible dictionary is a much better place to start in your context. All right, enough talk about that.
Curt Harlow [00:36:39]:
Let's turn to kids here for a second. Children, obey your parents and. And also fathers, quit frustrating your children. Let me ask the question I ask in Bible study. First, why do you think twice in this book he singles out fathers and says, fathers don't exasperate children. Why do you think Paul has dimension this twice?
Dena Davidson [00:37:04]:
Where's the second one?
Curt Harlow [00:37:06]:
It's later on. Not in this passage. All right, how much not in this passage?
Dena Davidson [00:37:10]:
Well, I. To be honest, I think it's because fathers be exasperating their kids.
Curt Harlow [00:37:16]:
Okay. Asked and answered.
Dena Davidson [00:37:18]:
I mean, what. What is your take on. I just, I feel like in this society, it was assumed that the man had total control over his household. And so I think Paul is like, this is part of what is so messed up about how we read Ephesians 6. We're trying, in Ephesians 5, we're trying to make Paul say all. All the things, give us definitive instructions on how wives should relate to their husbands. And the same for husbands to their wives and children to their parents. And what Paul is doing here is he is speaking specifically the words that they most need to hear at that cultural moment and at that cultural moment.
Dena Davidson [00:37:58]:
That was the dad's job. It was the dad's job to keep their whole family in line.
Curt Harlow [00:38:03]:
Sure.
Dena Davidson [00:38:04]:
And often they were exasperating.
Curt Harlow [00:38:06]:
What you're saying is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Dena Davidson [00:38:13]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:38:14]:
So in that culture where all the power is given to the dad, the dad is going to have more potential to abuse that power. And so Paul is a moderating force against that. I also think there's a biological reason here, and we talked about this when we talked about the distinction between the way Paul exhorts wives and the way God or husbands in general. There are lots of very empathetic men there's lots of very directed women. But in general, our gray matter versus white matter and the way that our neuro connection happens in our brain makes it so. Men are often a little bit more directed and women are often a little bit more empathetic and nurturing. And a directed person loses their patience fast with a child.
Dena Davidson [00:39:04]:
There you go.
Curt Harlow [00:39:05]:
The greatest teachers are the ones that can control the classroom, keep direction, and still have empathy. You know, that teacher that presses you and that you love because they stayed on task, you didn't waste time, and they, they were organized, but yet, you know, they really cared about your learning. That's a tough combination. So when you're more directed, I think you're easily exasperated. And I think the question we should ask ourselves as fathers is our directed nature causing us to parent poorly? And then you could, I think that's the point of the passage. And then you go beyond the passage and just ask yourself as a directed person or in a topic that's directed for you, you may have all sorts of empathy over here, but you want to get this thing right. Do you? Does your desire to get that one thing right, is it exasperating the people around you?
Dena Davidson [00:39:56]:
Good. And to be clear, if my kids read this verse, they're gonna laugh and they're gonna be like, dad never, like rarely exasperates me.
Curt Harlow [00:40:04]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:40:05]:
Mom is always on my case. I'm like the rules person. Dad's the fun person. And so they, they would laugh. Like in today's society. I think, rightly, women as well do well to read this and ask the question, am I exasperating my child? I think that's fair. Even though that's not the word that, that Paul was using. Yes, I think that's a fair.
Curt Harlow [00:40:25]:
Exasperation of father is much more prevalent than. It doesn't mean other roles now are allowed to exasperate children.
Dena Davidson [00:40:33]:
Exactly, exactly.
Curt Harlow [00:40:35]:
Okay. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. This is the only place in the family structure where a different word for submit is used. And they properly translated here, a lot of translations will have submit right there. Children, submit to your parents. But this is obey. So what does this mean, Dena? Are children obligated their entire life? Talk about young children, then talk about adolescents, then talk about adult children. Do children have to say yes every time mom and dad ask for something or give them a command?
Dena Davidson [00:41:09]:
No, I don't think so. I think that this is specifically speaking to kids, children who are children in that society. And so if you are no longer a child, then I don't think this.
Curt Harlow [00:41:22]:
Context of the household, he's not talking to adults sitting around at Christmas with their parents.
Dena Davidson [00:41:29]:
Yeah, I do think that principle that he goes on to say honor your father and mother, that does extend kind of beyond your childhood. That call to honor your parents of origin so that your life may go well, I think that does extend beyond being a child. But that specific obey your parents is something that is to children.
Curt Harlow [00:41:53]:
I think there's a moral clarity here in that if your parents are providing for you, they have the right to make commands of you. Now, a good parent will be authoritative when there's a 2 year old and be more coaching and asking questions with an 18 year old. But if they're paying for your cell phone and feeding you and housing you, you have an obligation to be under the directives of that household because you.
Dena Davidson [00:42:26]:
Are deciding or circumstances are making you continue in that child role. So if you haven't exited that child role and you still have the obligations.
Curt Harlow [00:42:36]:
Of that role, if you haven't put away childish things, then you need to obey like a child. Now, honor. Here's how I've told people honor works. Dena, to your point of all that, I do think that's a lifelong aggravation. It's a ten part of the Ten Commandments. Honor is not agree. They're two different things. I can disagree with my parents and honor them.
Curt Harlow [00:42:56]:
If my dad decides to rob a bank, I can still honor my father. So here's what I believe the Jewish definition of honor is. Do I live my life in such a way that when people observe my life and then run into my parents, what do they report? What do they report? If they report to my parents, that guy's a great guy. That guy's a godly guy. That guy's an integrity guy. That guy is man, we really like him and we like the way he lives his life. I have honored my parents because they're literally speaking honor to my parents. So if my parents ask me to do something dishonorable, I'm not going to do it because I want to honor them.
Curt Harlow [00:43:43]:
I'm going to live a God honoring life so that they would get the reputation that their child is honoring.
Dena Davidson [00:43:51]:
And there are certainly homes in which all of the oxygen of that explanation has been sucked out of the home.
Curt Harlow [00:43:59]:
Right.
Dena Davidson [00:43:59]:
There is no room for a child to breathe any different thought or any action that is opposing a father or mother's will. And the cases of worse abuse that I have unfortunately sat and talked with students about has always come from the context of parents using this verse against them. You have to obey, you have to honor. And it's these demands that come with abuse. And because you didn't obey and because you didn't honor, it's not going to go well with you. And so that gives me their permission to execute God's vengeance on you. And that is, I mean, I hope just by saying it, everyone can understand that is not at all impulse thoughts here, as the very next verse shows.
Curt Harlow [00:44:45]:
Yes, absolutely. Fathers don't exasperate. He finds it. And by the way, the other version of those Colossians, I can't remember exactly where, but both in Ephesians and Colossians he says fathers do not exasperate. Verse 21 has to be the umbrella over everything. Submit one to another. Now if you said submit one to another and said let me talk to the wives, let me talk to the husbands, children, slaves, not very important. You could make a case that you have to obey your parents in every context.
Curt Harlow [00:45:16]:
But he's talking to submitted parents and mutually submitted parents. So the over authoritative parent does great damage. And as much to your point, I would say you see the damage on two sides of this. The over authoritative parent does great damage and the dismissive, neglectful parent does great damage. Often we could go, oh yeah, the child was abandoned. We see the damage. But on either sides of those there's great damage. The nurturing God honoring mutually submitted parent should be obeyed.
Curt Harlow [00:45:53]:
And here's one last thought. I'll add in here in terms of just the. What is the state or the atmosphere that the father has? This is just, you know, I'll use Paul's phrase, this is not of the Lord. This is of Curt Harlow. After years of counseling parents with all sorts of problems, blended family problems, rebellious kid problems, teenager with addiction, lots and lots and lots of stuff. But I tell parents, especially of adolescents and as they go through adolescence, you gotta find a way to make the next conversation happen.
Dena Davidson [00:46:28]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:46:29]:
Because if you are a my way or the highway person, you will be guaranteed it's the highway. Eventually it's the highway. So if you want this child to stay in your life, you've got to do you. Don't compromise your morals, don't enable sin as a parent. But how do you approach this? In mutual submission, love, gentleness, humility. These are also the context of this passage in a way that causes the next conversation. Because if you stop having conversations, I guarantee you you're going to stop solving the problem.
Dena Davidson [00:47:05]:
So good. I have an application. Are we?
Curt Harlow [00:47:08]:
Let's go. We went 17 minutes over the topic was.
Dena Davidson [00:47:12]:
It was so good.
Curt Harlow [00:47:13]:
Okay. I mean, how do you apply this and all of that? Dena, what should I do?
Dena Davidson [00:47:17]:
Because this is like on the heels of what we're talking about, I just have this sense between Ephesians 5 and Ephesians 6 that there are some people that it's painful to hear this conversation. It's painful to read these words and scripture. And so I encourage you sometime this week to come to the living God and say, God, have I allowed anyone else's voice to warp your words? Have I let any parent, any husband, any wife, any pastor, any teacher, any Instagram, any. You name it. Have I let anyone warp your voice so that you are not the God who is abounding in love and compassion, slow to anger, warped it so that you are not the God who sent his son to die for me, that you are not the good just God that is on every page of scripture? Have I let someone else's voice or even my own internal voice warp these passages to understand you as other than what you have communicated yourself to to be let God speak into that. Because if so, just friends, every single verse of this has been taken by a Christian and used to great harm. Don't blame God for their misuse of his great scriptures. Let God speak to you.
Dena Davidson [00:48:42]:
What these passages mean, heal up the hurt that's been done by others and hopefully be able to rightly understand and divide the word of God.
Curt Harlow [00:48:50]:
Perfect. I'm going to add on to that. I've got two applications, one for the skeptic and one for the adult child. For the skeptic, if you see this verse in a different way than I see it, great. We could be friends. Let's keep having a dialogue. But my encouragement, my application to you would be read smart people on both sides of the issue. So oftentimes when I talk to my skeptic friends, they've read some very smart skeptics and then they, they find some of the goofiest Christians and, and it's easy to find them.
Dena Davidson [00:49:21]:
Yep.
Curt Harlow [00:49:22]:
Especially now days with everyone's got a camera on their phone and they kind of compare these two. But I would go, Tim Keller's got an excellent the Reason for God I think it is. He's got an excellent section on this in his book. Mark Clark's got an excellent section of of this in his book the Problem of God and the Reason for God. Two great books. Read that caliber of don't lower the standard you're reading over here on Skeptical side. I think that's great. But read the highest level on this side.
Curt Harlow [00:49:50]:
Okay. For the adult child, I would like to ask you to take a moment to consider reconciling with that parent that you are not speaking to that you are hurt by. I know this can get very, very intense because some of the wounds are very deep. But some of them also will range into very trivial, you've let in preference and offense make room for dishonoring in your life. You don't have to agree with your parents and certainly no one has ever fully agreed with their parents ever. And your kids won't of you. But that doesn't mean that you can't act honorably. And part of acting honorably is walking in grace and forgiveness, letting people have do overs.
Curt Harlow [00:50:42]:
I'm not saying trust the dysfunctional person. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying examine yourself and see if there's a more honoring thing you can do. Because I do think it will go well with you when you walk in that I'm gonna. Here's how I've said it often the question is not whether you hurt or whether they were wrong. The question is whether you're going to bring that into your kids future. Is it going to stop in this generation? And the way to stop it is to rise above it and be the honoring person. Come in the opposite spirit, do what you can to show up and bring relationship healing.
Curt Harlow [00:51:21]:
And so you know, this is an occasion just to read those first couple verses of chapter six and ask that question. All right. We went a long time today. We went 20 minutes over. This is like the old Bible study. We used to go 90 minutes. Next week we're going to start with spiritual warfare. Is that right, Bri? So we're in two weeks on the armor of God.
Curt Harlow [00:51:43]:
We're going to talk about is there apologetic evidence for beings of evil in our universe. We're going to talk about what it means to fight beings of evil who are not fighting and how we're to fight them. Why Paul wrote this. We're going to talk about all of that. Who's our guest? Brie.
Dena Davidson [00:52:04]:
Cameron, Wells, Jason, me to talk about materialism.
Curt Harlow [00:52:07]:
I won't be gone for the whole thing. I've just gone next week. It's okay. And we'll do it next week. These guys are going to shine. You want to join? So spiritual warfare starting next week. By the way, as always, thanks for your comments. You guys.
Curt Harlow [00:52:19]:
On YouTube, you get some of you getting some good comments down there. Thank you. So much. I try to answer a few, like subscribe, follow, tattoo, all that stuff. Okay. And thanks for watching the podcast.