Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Jun 3, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49263175280

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we have the topic slaves again, slavery, in the New Testament particularly. And although there was Old Testament slavery, we see it even in the book of Genesis, where slavery came into play there. So it's an ancient tradition, but the Old Testament had specific rules about slavery in the Law of Moses. The interesting feature of slavery in the Bible, particularly during the New Testament, which will be our focus, is great variability. We tend to think of slavery oftentimes by stereotype. Here's an example.

Slaves sometimes just had no rights or power at all. And some of the worst places that slaves could be put into was, for example, working in the mines. A great many of them didn't make it to age 30. Slaves working in the mines had a real tough time. There was virtually no concern for safety. And they might be put into the mine mining out lead. This is not good.

So there would be that. On the other hand, we have record of one slave who owned a number of slaves, over 100, and was so powerful that the Roman Senate was afraid of him. So you have great variability and a lot of times people, wow, that's surprising. Yeah, it was possible for slaves to own other slaves. This is real fascinating.

And so you'd have different sets of circumstances with different slaves. The other thing is, you know, while oftentimes we think, well, there should be some universal condemnation of slavery, and I'm not particularly fond of the idea, but for many people, there was a volunteering into slavery because their situation was better. If you were extremely poor, and you're able to volunteer into slavery, into a household where the slave owner took good care of his slaves, that might be quite an improvement. So volunteering into slavery was even done.

So anyway, great variability. Slavery under the Mosaic Law was very different from slavery under Roman law. It's the Roman law that we'll be focusing on mostly here. The Mosaic Law, some of the things that were in place is that they had specific rights for slaves and how long could one be a slave in Israel and then you're free? Yeah, and your seventh year, you're done, unless you volunteer to remain as a slave under someone.

But that was voluntary, right? So they do the ear-piercing thing. But that was voluntary. You're stuck with this. So real interesting, it was different under Roman law. Both of them were quite different from American slavery in our country's earlier history. Most of the material we're going to focus on here has to do with Roman law because the background of slavery in the New Testament is particularly insightful and very frequently referenced in the New Testament. The chart on the following slide, and actually you have it the slide above, gives some interesting comparisons. We won't go through them in detail, but you're certainly free to do so. The Mosaic Law, the motive to own, is actually humanitarian and economic. Entry into slavery was voluntary, and particularly permanent slavery was voluntary. And under Roman law, it was mostly involuntary.

One of the things that the Romans would do is that when they went in to battle in an area, right behind the soldiers would be the slave traders. And so the soldiers, when they would capture people, would take them to the back, and the slave traders would take them. And that was one of the ways that they funded the Roman army. If you kill people, of course, that's what you do. But if you can capture them, then that makes money for the empire, because you have slave traders just right, the next line behind the soldiers was the slave traders, ready to take people off.

Sometimes by the thousands. Sometimes by the thousands. And who you might capture might not be just somebody to do manual labor. You might capture a lawyer or a doctor or some sort of a scholar or philosopher, right? Yeah? Well, and what they would do is frequently they'd select some who would be, you know, these will be the ones that will go into our triumph march. And those would actually be a fairly small number. But yeah, that would take place. We'll be drawing largely from Philippians, just to kind of give us some continuity here.

Bond servants from Philippians 1, 1, and 2. Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus. You see Romans, Galatians, Titus, James, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. Most New Testament authors introduce themselves at one point or another as doulos, the bondservants of Christ. Yeah, Tom? The most common word for bond servants or slaves in Greek is doulos which occurs 127 times in the New Testament, 21 out of 27 New Testament books. plus a number of related words.

It is a very common, frequent theme cropping up in the New Testament. One of the reasons for covering this is if you understand these truths about slaves and slavery and how the words are used, you can use it throughout the whole study of the entire New Testament. It is a very valuable tool. You're going to encounter it in almost every New Testament book. Due laws, in other words, in the New Testament which are related to it are pivotal in correctly understanding the position of those who are not saved, as well as the full understanding of our salvation and position in Christ.

Use of the word did not mean approval of the system of slavery, but a point of communication. Remember last week, one of the things we said is that the apostles would, as they would encounter the pagan culture, they wouldn't just come and attack it. What they would do is find points of connection with the pagan culture. Points of connection. Here's an example that we used. Paul went to Athens, and what did he do? He says, I see that you are very religious. Let me introduce you to the unknown God, the one you don't know. So points of connection are what the New Testament authors were looking for.

It wasn't a stamp of approval about everything that went on. So how about the word redeem? What does that mean? There was a time when it meant these. Remember having these? You know, blue chip, green, and, you know, green stamps and all that stuff. I remember drawers full of these.

Anyway. Some New Testament words related to slaves. Bot, Greek is agorazo. The marketplace, the central marketplace in the city was called the agora. So to buy something was agorazo. So that would be one. First Corinthians 620. Such were some of you, but you have been bought with a price, right? Okay, and redeemed is another one. Ex agoratso. Now the ex agoratso, what's the significance of that? Ex, ex means out of, right? Out of. So you're bought out of the market. So it's you're bought out of the market, not I'm going to be a slave again, right?

So then we have redeemed a different word, lutro, used in Titus 2.14. This is another one. You have tutor and schoolmaster, a pedagogos. There isn't a word quite the same. It's translated tutor, schoolmaster, you know, in different translations. But there really isn't an equivalent term. This was a fellow who was a slave but was of sufficient educational background that they served as a slave tutor. And so this is a pedagogos.

But the pedagogos, was owned for the purpose of just driving academics into that kid's head. And so when Paul says you're no longer under a paedagogos, the people said, thank God I'm not under the paedagogos. Because the paedagogos would just, they'd drag them to school, and while they're dragging them to school, they'd drill them. And you couldn't get away with anything because they'd sit there in the back of the classroom and listen to everything the teacher said, and then drill you on the way home. And so that's where the word is unique. It's not like a tutor. The words we have are not adequate. But the people who heard that, you're no longer under a pedagogos.

They went, what a relief. Okay. Yeah. What's the difference between those two? Are we deemed? Oh, This one is specifically bought out of the market. That's the difference there. This other lutro was just another term that doesn't specifically mean bought out of the market. Next here, another one. Oh, this is a great one. Captive, psilogogeo, is to kidnap, capture by pirates or thugs. Sometimes used of military capture.

This is Colossians 2.8. Don't let these people take you Captive, like thugs, like pirates, right? So really cool. Here's another one. Here's another word also translated captive. This is specifically military capture, ekmalotizo. And that's specifically military capture. And Paul uses that term as well.

Next is freed, used in Romans 6 several different times. So that would be another one and then finally the word master sometimes translated Lord as well, but kourios. Here is a sale document for two slaves is written in Greek from the first century AD in fairly good condition because you imagine after 2,000 years more or less a lot of these papyrus documents get Here is a property disposition where real estate and a 12-year-old slave from 59 AD, so that was written within the time of some of the New Testament documents, right? That was written when Paul was not yet in Rome, towards the end of the time of Acts.

If found, and I think I have copies of this in your handout on the second page, here is a tag. What they would do is put a tag on the slave and say, you know, if you find, return to, you know. Here is another one, and you also have this in your handout. It's almost three inches across. It says, I have escaped, hold me. If you return to my master, and then there's a name given, you shall receive a solidus, which is a gold coin.

Isn't that interesting? I would assume in circumstances like that that the slave couldn't read, but I don't know. Yeah? Yes, but this is just the English translation of it. In the Roman Empire, slaves were entirely subject to the will of their owners. in some cases abused and in some cases well cared for, of varying educational levels and occupations. They might be completely illiterate and just grunt workers, so to speak, or they might be highly educated. depends on what status as they came in to either capture or somehow got into the slave market.

At times given great responsibility. This is a part of Jesus' parable. We talked about the parable of the talents. Those talents were huge. amounts of money. One talent was massive. For a guy to have five or ten talents was, whoo, that was a lot of money. So interesting that great responsibility was woven there into the book of Matthew.

Without much in the way of civil rights since they were considered property. See that's the thing, is they are property not people. That's the way they're looked upon in great part. Slaves did have some legal protections, not terribly well enforced. Sometimes given the option to be freed by payment or by a generous owner. We have actually some record of statutes put in place limiting the number of slaves that an owner can set free at one time. People who were quite well off would try to impress others of their virtue by letting lots of slaves loose.

And the problem is that that becomes a social problem because if you let lots of slaves loose, how is that going to be accommodated? Where are they going to live? What are they going to do for work? It created more than some local economy could handle.

Able at the slave owner's option to have money and property, even owning other slaves. So, real interesting. People were bought as slaves for purposes that to us would be curious. Most of the brothel workers were slaves. In Ephesus, we read about this city official who quells the riot, it's quite possible that that city official was a slave. Because the cities would oftentimes find it more cost effective to buy a slave to handle the administration of things than to have a lifetime paid person. So, real interesting. Now, in the Roman Empire, governments owned slaves. Owned by the Roman Empire, serving in the household of Caesar and other official government capacities.

It is even possible, we don't know, but it is even possible that Theophilus, that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts to, was a slave. Owned by the government. owned by districts, cities, and towns to conduct official government business. Yeah, here's the mention of Theophilus there. We don't know that that's the case, but it's possible.

Slaves were the brunt of many jokes in Greek and Roman theatrical comedies. You see, there were typical joke lines, and some of the typical joke lines, one of them, for example, when a woman got older, who had been married and born children, once the children were out of the house, the women would stereotypically fall into being gossips and drunks. And so that's what they would write into a lot of the theatrical comedies, this old woman is a gossip and a drunk. The slaves were often pictured in the theatrical accounts.

They were shown as not doing anything when the owner's not there. And then the owner would come in and threaten to send them to work in the mines, right? So that was classic punchline. You know, ha, ha, ha, and everybody would laugh because that would be the standard thing. Well, I can't drink both of them. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Slaves were often portrayed as giving their masters lip service, but speaking ill of them and stealing from them behind their backs in the theatrical accounts. Comedies often showed the master threatening to send the slave to work on a farm or in the mines was another one. These are exactly what Paul warns against in Ephesians 6, 5-9. Don't make your Christian faith into a sarcastic comedy. He doesn't put it that way, but that's what he's talking about. Don't just give them your master's lip service.

So how did one become a slave? One could be born of slaves, automatically owned by the owner of one's parents, a verna is what they were called. You were born to slave parents, you were a verna and you were automatically owned by your parents' owner.

One could be found as a legally abandoned child. It was legally allowable in the Roman Empire to just abandon a child outside of town or something like that. And if you found one that had been abandoned, you could claim it, you know, no cost, as your own.

So that would be another way. One could be captured in military conquest or by pirates and thugs, one of the things we saw there in Paul's choice of words. One could volunteer to be a slave. I would like to be your slave. So that was a possibility, and for some it was actually an improvement. One could sell himself into slavery because of indebtedness. I owe so much money, I'm never going to pay this back, I'll just volunteer to be a slave. And solve it that way, because I can't earn enough money to pay this back.

Here's Roman relief of slaves pouring wine. So, I mean, that's not an unpleasant thing. And so, you know, if you're a household servant in a position as a slave, that might be a lot better than the other job that you had, right? Yeah. We will be getting to that. That's a very good question. We'll be getting to that.

A father could sell his family members into slavery. Usually this was to satisfy his debts. Here it shows a picture of a man selling his daughter into slavery. It wasn't something that they gravitated towards, but if you were desperate, that was an option. How many slaves in New Testament times?

And this gets to the question Marilyn has. Now, when we look at these, I'm going to give you some insights and statistics. Remember, however, that these are debated because there wasn't any such thing as a census in the way we you know, go about it, that comes up with all these statistics, and you know, in this zip code there's this many slaves. There wasn't any such thing as that. So, some of these figures are, you know, we've got an indication, but it's not like there's some objective, total way of verifying it.

So, to start with, Galen, a medical doctor in Pergamum, so there's a city out of the Book of Revelation, In the second century, so the century right after Bible times, estimated that one-third of the population of Pergamum consisted of slaves. Many scholars contend that the fraction of the population consisting of slaves was higher in cities like Ephesus, Athens, and Rome, possibly closer to one-half of the population.

Wow. Yeah, a lot. Since slave ownership in rural areas is typically much less than urban areas, over the whole Roman Empire, about 20% of the population over the empire wide likely consisted of slaves. So that's one in five. One in five. So real common.

About a half million new slaves were needed each year to replace those that had died, become incapacitated, or were freed by self-purchase or by the generosity of their owners. So that's a lot of new slaves. Now, what is that? Half a million new slaves were needed each year. For example, I've got slaves working in the mine, right? They're not going to live very long. So, you know, the expression work them to death, you're not kidding. I mean, that's what would happen. So, you need to replace them.

Here is the Agora in Philippi. Philippi has a mountain. right up above the city so you can get up on that mountain and look down. And so this is the Agora. This area back here was the bathhouse, gymnasium area. This was the Agora, the marketplace, and it was also the place where they'd trade slaves and things of that sort. And then these are temples up in here. The amphitheater is off to the left off of the screen. Here's the forum in Agora, also used to buy and sell slaves. Here's a little closer shot of the Agora.

Here is a document, a Greek papyrus, concerning the legal release of slaves to freedom, which you see referenced in Acts 13. Here it is, Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through him the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses, freed from bondage and slavery. So the terminology of slavery was used in the New Testament even as an evangelistic message. because it was a way of talking to people about the freedom that they would have in Christ.

Imagine the pagan world, the gods don't love you. They never did, they never will. And the gods are people who don't care about you and the only way you're going to get their attention is by going to their temple and offering a sacrifice or something of that sort. But basically they don't care about you and they never bless you.

So imagine, here's Paul able to write to the people at Ephesus and to tell them you have forgiveness of sins. You're freed. You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing by a God who loves you. with his great love, Ephesians chapter 2, with which he loved us. Wow! That is liberating, right? Wonderful message. So the language of slavery was used to deliver a message that was just awesome to these people. They understood what a slave was and they saw the difference between slavery and freedom. Slavery and related themes in the book of Philippians.

Paul and Timothy as bondservants. Christ as bondservant, chapter 2, verse 7. Christ obedient to the point of death, as a slave ought to be. Doing without grumbling or disputing, and of course what was the joke with the slaves is they would grumble and dispute, right? And do things behind the back. Timothy as a servant, in chapter 2. Caesar's household, many of whom would be slaves.

Plus, in addition to that, Christ is Lord throughout Philippians. So what you have is continual reference, and that's just an example out of that one book, continual reference to slavery terminology. throughout the book. Once understanding what slavery is and what it is in the New Testament world, it gives you a great insight into every chapter of the book.

Here is Colossians 4.1. Masters, plural of kurios, grant to your slaves justice and fairness knowing that you too have a kurios, a master in heaven. This is good stuff. So it's very practical. It's telling the slave owners, it doesn't say you must free them, it says you must treat them kindly. You have a master too.

Add to the slave themes in Philippians, the terms overseers and deacons were frequently applied to slaves in the Greek speaking areas of the Roman Empire. So the words episkopos and diakonos in Philippians 1.1 frequently applied to slaves. So we think of it, well that's a position over, yeah, but it was also used for slaves. Slave terminology. Here's masters. Sin, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

Romans 7.14 there.

Titus 2.14, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. There's the lutro, redeem. The law, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

In Galatians 3.13 and Galatians 4.5, in order that he might redeem those who are under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Adoption of sons, another term that we covered. Here's decay. For the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Romans 8.21. So what you find is repeated reference to this slavery terminology or the contrast to it. Here's false gods. Formerly you did not know God. You were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

Ah, Satan, even referenced there, Hebrews 2.14, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. Repeated reference here.

Appetites and desires, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, Romans 16.18. Enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.

Titus 3.3. So very frequent reference in the New Testament to slavery. Almost say page after page after page. Sometimes multiple times in a verse. Salvation with slavery terms.

Here's Mark 10.45. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom. The price of freedom for many.

John 8.36 If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Release from slavery. Sanctification.

Galatians 5.1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. So not just applied to salvation, but even to sanctification. And so it's possible for us as believers to volunteer into slavery. He's saying don't do it. Yeah.

Well, if you look at this, slavery was so common that you would have a number of the people in the church who would be slaves and they would know very well what that's like. Imagine a person who had been a slave maybe from birth, a verna, right? A slave from birth being told you can be freed. I can even be a slave and be free. So they would know it very well. But even others who had never owned slaves, even others who had never been a slave would be familiar with it, having seen it. They would understand what the difference is.

Here's Galatians 3.26-28, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized, placed completely, immersed into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The slavery or free condition, that's a human earthly distinction, right? Your position in Christ, that doesn't matter. So here's a master sitting down in church right next to a slave and they're both freed. They're both the same in Christ.

Some key principles to take away here are position in Christ does not depend upon earthly status or distinction and yet The characteristics of this system of slavery in the New Testament world are used repeatedly to teach about our position in Christ and the condition the Lord intends as we walk in that eternal, irreversible position we have in Him by His marvelous grace. These terms of slavery, it's very valuable for us to understand them. They're used very frequently in the New Testament. as we've seen here, and oftentimes you'll read multiple references to slavery in the same verse, and multiple times in a chapter. Okay, well next time look at, I've been working on the, which is talking about work. What did people do for work, and what are the circumstances we should understand that help us understand the New Testament? Questions? Insights? Inspirations? Perspirations? Yes.

Yes, it could include that because the Praetorian Guard was part of Caesar's household, but it would also include the household slaves, right? So yeah, those would be included. When you talk about Caesar's household, you're talking ultimately probably thousands had some kind of involvement in Caesar's household, between the officials and slaves and soldiers and all the different people, some kind of involvement all along the way. I was going to say that even the Being a soldier puts you in a position of power, but also you're under intense authority.

The Romans built very good roads, many of them still in use or usable today. And they were all built by hand by Roman soldiers. Enough roads in the Roman Empire to go two times around the earth, all built by hand by Roman soldiers. So you're right. I mean, they really worked hard. And that doesn't have anything to do with the fighting they did or anything else. So you're talking just, yeah, lots of intense labor. And you will do it.

You can extrapolate that to labor unions and a lot of other things. Child employment laws and things that have gone on. The basic nature of man is to enslave other people. Even if you pay them a meager wage, you're still enslaving them and expecting them to do certain things that benefit you. Once power corrupts absolutely, I mean, when you get power, you become a master and then everybody else is your slave. You know, it's that attitude that man has.

You know, one of the things that is often overlooked is that Christianity, while there are certainly points of critique over the centuries that one may have, Christianity has been an influence to bring about, for example, everything from orphanages to child protection laws, because in the Roman Empire they weren't there.

You could kill a child. A father had the authority to kill a child, or to basically do just about anything to them. So you have, Christianity has had an influence that is often overlooked. I frequent atheist websites and one of the claims I've seen is that teaching Christianity to children is child abuse. Well, it's because of Christianity there's any recognition of child abuse.

Roman Empire, didn't matter what you did to the kid. You know? You could go to the slave market and buy a little girl and do anything you want. I mean, it's gross. In our culture, we would just be aghast. Time to call some authorities. There was nothing. Nothing. There was nobody to call. There was no laws. against any of that sort of abuse, beatings or otherwise.

So Christianity has had a huge influence, and slavery is certainly a part of that ultimately, but even the idea that little kids are not to be abused, that there ought to be some protections in place, that's That's because of the Christian influence. It was certainly not in place in the Roman Empire or in previous situations before.

Yeah, good point. Other thoughts, questions, ponderings? When Israel was taking into Syria and Judah into Babylon, were they slaves of the state? Yeah, essentially many of the different empires enslaved them in great degree. Of course, we have the instance of Egypt that they were brought out of, but essentially they were taken away in chains.

You're going to march hundreds of miles to live at this other place, and we don't like your accommodations, it's tough. You're going to do what we say, you're going to live where we say to live, and that's it. Yeah, it was not uniform in terms of how they were treated, but basically a slave's position. You're going to do what we say, you're going to live where we say to live, you know, you're going to do exactly.

Think of it, here's Daniel and the friends, even though they're given good circumstances, they say, you know, you're going to take this name and not the one you had, you know. That's a kind of slavery. So even if they had it well in terms of circumstances, it was still, you know, your identity is now different. We say so.

I suspect that families were separated too, husband and wife, children. Oh, yeah, in other words, it would be quite possible for a slave owner to, you know, divide families up and completely disregard anything in terms of, you know, this is, here's the husband or this is the, you know, son or any of that.

Yeah, they could ignore that. Slaves didn't have any legal standing and merits. They would essentially have an unofficial wedding ceremony or something of that sort, but it was not recognized. And maybe a poor heir apparently couldn't read? Yeah, and while that wasn't universally the case, that may well be the case.

Why educate a slave? I'm just having them pour wine and cook and wash the dishes and stuff. So they weren't working in the mine system to live very long. Yeah, why bother training this guy, training to read and all that? He's going to go work himself to death in the lead mines or copper mines or whatever it is they had. The mountain above Philippi had gold in it.

I don't think that allowed them to live any longer particularly. between the slaves and the protestant and the slavery. Oh, yeah, quite a few. I'm not aware of any instance where the slaves in the South, in the U.S., in our earlier era of our country, I'm not aware of any instance where slaves owned other slaves. Someone could certainly shoot me down that, but I'm not aware of any instance.

So that would be one thing. Slaves in the Roman Empire could own other slaves, sometimes a great number of them. So that would be one difference. The other thing is with the slaves in the South, a high educational level among them was pretty uncommon, whereas as you might have a slave in the Roman Empire who was actually a scholar in some field, maybe a medical doctor, lawyer, philosopher, something of that sort. Sure, he could delegate it to his own slaves or he could delegate it to other slaves owned by the master. A lot of times whole businesses were run by slaves including the one in charge might be a slave.

So yeah. quite a radical concept when it comes to the history of the world. So this really then is the first country that's ever had that value from what you're telling me. I mean, even Europe was an imperial country. They took slaves and all sorts of things. So this constitution that we have is really a radical Yeah, and yet we have some of the people who signed Declaration of Independence and some of the other documents were themselves slave owners, but they essentially laid the foundation for getting rid of slavery. By the way, some of those signers of our founding documents were part of a society against slavery as well. So there were people. Here's an interesting piece of history.

July 4th, you know, 1776, we declared independence and it took several weeks for that document to get over to England, right? Well, when it got there, the king ordered that, you know, we're going to go ahead and fight these Americans. And the guy in charge of ordering the military supplies, his name was Granville Sharp. And so Granville Sharp said, I refuse to order military supplies against the Americans. And they said, well, you're going to have to step down. And he said, OK, I do. I will not do this.

He went on to do two very famous things. One, he went on to battle slavery in Britain. He was a Christian. to battle against slavery in Britain, and two, to study New Testament Greek and found what's known as the Granville Sharp Rule, which is a rule that says if you have two singular personal nouns joined with a chi, and, in the definite article, that those two are the same. And so when Titus gets this letter, it says, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, It says, the Granville Sharp rule says, God and Savior are the same, right? By Greek grammar. So he identified that pattern. There's about 80 uses of that pattern in the New Testament. So interesting piece.

Here's Granville Sharp, New Testament Greek scholar, but also one who fought against slavery and one who refused to order supplies against the Americans. Wasn't there a guy? I'm not familiar with the details on that. I'm not familiar with the details on that. Maybe. Mm hmm. Yeah. No, I don't think so. Because I think it was later. Yeah. Granville, G-R-A-N-V-I-L-L-E, sharp. Sharp just isn't the word that we have. So Granville's first name, sharp, last name. So Granville Sharp. And the Granville Sharp rule is you have two personal singular nouns joined with an and, chi, simple Greek word, and a definite article relating to the two of them. then if you find that construction, then those two are the same. So great God and Savior has that construction in Titus. Pardon? The great God and the Savior? No, it says the great God and Savior, but the definite article relates to both and they are the same. So it says that Jesus, the Savior, is God. And there are about 80 of those constructions in the New Testament. And not always, often, they will relate to the deity of Christ.

Like that one reference there I gave in Titus. Is there a book on that or something like that they're all listed? I could send you an article on that. Yeah. I don't know about, let's see. Yeah, there are some books, but if you're interested specifically in that, I have some articles that I can send.

Oh yeah, and also these people that come up to your door two by two, the Jehovah's Witnesses, their belief, which is an ancient heresy, is that God the Father is God, Christ is a man, and the Holy Spirit is a force. Well, this doesn't set well with them. So they will argue and dispute and all that. But that's what it means. That's what it says. It's not the only evidence for the deity of Christ by any means. However, it is a strong one. Other thoughts, questions? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

As we look at the subject of slavery, certainly there are some things that we look at and say, boy, I don't want that in our society. I'm certainly glad I'm not under that system. On the other hand, it's a system that you use throughout the New Testament, even in the Gospels, to convey some very valuable and important truths. And because of the potential awfulness of slavery, The freedom and the idea that we've been bought out of that slave market is just a wonderful thing. And so we thank you for the illustration and how it's used in the New Testament and that you've revealed it to us because you love us. We thank you in Jesus' name.