The Bible is often criticized for its supposed pro-slavery stance. People who know almost nothing about the Bible claim it fully supports slavery, oppression, subjugation, and cruelty. Their so-called biblical expertise comes from a few scriptures, ripped out of context, that they’ve seen in cartoons on social media.

I’m not writing for those people because they hate learning. They’re incapable of absorbing knowledge.

When Job was suffering terribly, some of his friends showed up to make him feel even worse. They accused him of wrongdoing, and in one of his responses to those accusations, he said this:

“If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant, when they brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up? When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:13-15)

Job is explaining that he has listened carefully to the complaints of his servants. He argues it would be a sin to ignore them since God created them too. In other words, God does not approve of dismissing the suffering of slaves—let alone causing them to suffer.

(I should mention that the book of Job is in the Bible.)

The people who know almost nothing about the Bible can’t grasp that slavery and injustice are not the same thing. The Bible never condones injustice. It never permits masters to mistreat their servants. Also (and you won’t hear this from those who know almost nothing about the Bible), the scripture doesn’t condone servants mistreating their masters either.

Whether you’re a master or a slave, God expects you to be righteous. The Bible always upholds holiness.

“Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” (Titus 2:9)

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