Christians Worship Your Master

originally posted by: ArtemisE
Of course Obama isn't going to run for a third term, as all you yahoos claimed. But if her were to make himself king. Your supposed to shut up and worship him. :p Now who's the cult.

A bunch of left wing yahoos went around claiming that Bush43 was going to be in for a third term. A bunch of right wing yahoos went around claiming that Clinton was going to be in for a third term as well. There are always people who think the other side is going to break the rules and install 'their guy' as POTUS for more terms.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Paul undermining the foundation of slavery, in Christ there is no distinction between slave and master.

You are confusing servitude with slavery. The servant/master relationship in the Bible is synonymous with our understanding of the employee/employer relationship. If the Bible condones slavery, then why in Deuteronomy do we see the command to NOT return an escaped slave to their master? Just because something is in a biblical story (polygamy, slavery, etc) doesn't mean that the Bible is condoning it.

a reply to: Shiloh7

It was an ongoing work during that time and Nicea decided upon the exclusion of a lot of documents from it, especially many of the Gospels that were around in those days.

No, it did not. Dan Brown is not an historian, and The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, not fact.

We know what they talked about at Nicaea, and it was the divinity of Christ and the dating of Easter, not the Bible. How do we know that? Because we still have the documents produced there: Council of Nicaea (AD 325)

The earliest known Christian Canonical list is from about 170AD, the Muratorian Fragment, which lists all of the epistles of Paul as being canonical.

a reply to: dollukka

How does worship your master as if he were Christ no encourage slavery?


This is new testement. I knew there was an augment against old testement laws or I could have added instructions of when you could rape your slaves as well. :p

a reply to: OptimusSubprime

Actually you have that backwards. Every time they mentioned maid, servant or manservant they ment slave. Slavery was an everyday part of life in Rome. Free-man butlers were not lmao.

a reply to: OptimusSubprime

Paul did return the slave to his master in in the bible, with instructions for the master to treat him better... Learn your bible.... Lol..... Christians :p

originally posted by: ArtemisE


Got into a debate about slavery in the bible that required a little research and ran across a pretty amazing verse.



Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."


So according to the bible you shouldn't rebel against slavery.....

No, according to Pauls ? leter to the Ephesians

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: ArtemisE
What makes me interested though is that no one has observed that the Pope is probably the anti Christ, Christ himself warned against. In the Gnostic writings which were written by the Apostles and dictated by Christ, we learn that when we become like Christ we will be equal to him and he will greet us as equals. That is a huge step away from today's dogma. It puts us into the position of not needing a priesthood to intercede on our behalfk, in fact Christianity teaches the opposite to what the Gnostic Christ taught so can we reach a goal of divinity under current Christianity, or has Christianity cut us off from God completely? Probably the closest of the congretation are the mystics who long to merge with God. Food for thought if nothing else.

What? What is this "no one" you speak of? Literally EVERY pope since the beginning of the church has been called the Anti-Christ. Just start typing "is the pope" into google and the suggestions suggests antichrist as like the 5th suggestion. Of course, that's all irrelevant anyways since all antichrist means is against christ, so if you want to be technical, anyone who dislikes Christianity is an antichrist.

a reply to: ArtemisE

I believe that passage is reflectant of the rule of 'Do no harm.' He is not telling people to worship their slave owners as God, but to be obedient unto them, as you would God. Why? Because to take up arms against your owners, was to break the 'Do no harm' rule. Soldiers are obedient, that doesn't mean they worship the government. Nice try though. Send me a PM, if you want to try and figure out why your so angry.

Until then, take it easy.

I see no reference to slaves or slavery in the passage you quotes. Master can also mean teacher or someone who has mastered a skill, craft or trade. Maestro, Meister, etc.

a reply to: ArtemisE

Well slavery in the bible and the slavery your comparing it to are two different things. In those times slavery wAs a form of paying off debt and something people willingly entered into. God sets guidelines on how someone is to be treated.

In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius (Apol. Const. 4) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus may be examples of these Bibles. Together with the Pe#ta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.[70] There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon, however, Jerome (347–420), in his Prologue to Judith, makes the claim that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".

While the canon was debated for sometime before Constantine, it was at his behest that the 50 Bibles were ordered and gathered by Eusebius. Upon seeing that none of them matched, Constantine ordered the church leaders to settle on canon, from there the only thing that codified the collection was debate among church leaders. From the letters that have survived, it's clear it was more political than ecclesiastical . . . with several Bishops that stood for the inclusion of the apocryphal texts as heretics and killed.

Christ came to set down guidelines for how people were to live their daily lives, not remake the entire social order in the sense of upending society. If the Master did own the servant in the true sense of a Roman slave, then he should be treating them in the way he imagined Christ would treat them, possibly even freeing them. And the servant should be doing his best to live a Christlike life within the confines of his life at the time.

It's about where you will be going more than where you are in this life.

It's when Christ comes back that He will order the world that way He really wants it to be and we will live that way. Then we'll if he intended there to be slavery or not.

a reply to: adjensen

We also have a considerable amount of documents concerning the beginning of Christinity from earlier Church Fathers so the evolvemenmt of Christianity is there for anyone to read it. Reagrdless of what we have left about Paul its very strange that he eclipses Christ in the New Testament and all the dogma he gives. I note you didn't concern yourself with his relationship with the real apostles. Another point about Paul which I think is suspicious is that he is fixed entirely on giving the rules of Christianity and how people had to behave. His job was more as an administrator , whilst Christ simply taught he had no intention of changing the law but to enforce it. He is never recorded as having seen fit to dictate behaviour, in fact he opened up trhe scope of how to behave - quite the opposite approach to Paul.

I am sorry, I haven't read The Da Vinci Code although obviously you have.

By the divinity of Christ presumably you mean that he was the Son of God and not a son of a man and woman and therefore not divine - that is exactly the point I made about the prime decision made at Nicea.

Although you quote the Muratorian fragment, it actually is a very badly written text thought to be taken from anywhere between 170 and 400 AD, which could well put it after Nicea - we just don't know, as we also don't know the scribe or his credentials, except his command of language was poor. Further we also have no idea who decided Paul's Epistles were canonical. People are happy to accept much which has come down through tradition and not necessarily truth.

The early Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandra, Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Epiphanius did their utmost to destroy the teachings of the Gnostics and, as these men and their followers were the ultimate winners up till the discoveries at Nag Hammadi, all we know about Christianity is what we have handed down through their censorship and decree. Fortunately information is far more widely available through Nag Hammadi, the Bruce and Askew Codex's the Books of
Enoch etc and suddenly a whole new and fascinating set of information concerning early Christianity and more
importantly, information about what Christ actually taught his closest disciples is now available for us to read and make up our own minds about.

Christians and what they worship is not quite so clear cut and impossible as it has been handed down to us by either a worldly set of masters or a set of Gods as in Eden.

originally posted by: Chronogoblin
a reply to: ArtemisE

I believe that passage is reflectant of the rule of 'Do no harm.' He is not telling people to worship their slave owners as God, but to be obedient unto them, as you would God. Why? Because to take up arms against your owners, was to break the 'Do no harm' rule. Soldiers are obedient, that doesn't mean they worship the government. Nice try though. Send me a PM, if you want to try and figure out why your so angry.

Until then, take it easy.

Yeah but telling people to obey their masters perpetuates harm to countless others because nothing is done about it.
The 'do no harm' thing is a clever thing a repressive authority can keep in a religious sect, especially if you are the victim.

a reply to: Deny Arrogance


I've never seen any biblical historian doubt that the references to servant, maid , manservant ment slave. The same kinda slaves as early America. You were property. Period. They could rape or kill you and owned your children as well.

a reply to: ArtemisE

The bible was wrote out of books to become one. They were wrote in one ancient language and translated over time to others. A lot of times there are words that have no translation into another language so the Catholics inserted what they thought would best fit and many critical errors were made, Tons of them. Some were outright criminal to fit their agenda like this exact one!!!

It is not hard to follow what Jesus wants from his children!!!!!! If you have a problem with the good book and want to bash God that is a waste of your energy and a big curse for yourself, no other person will hurt, just you.

Paul, in reference to a person's social status when they "were called" to follow Christ:

Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 1 Corinthians 7:21

Also, the entire book of Philemon (it's only one chapter) was written by Paul to Philemon ( a slave owner) on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus, in order to appeal for forgiveness for him running away and for his release so he could return to Paul and participate in his works in Rome.

So I wonder how we then balance this idea that Paul was a proponent of slavery, while writing to churches that if a slave can gain their freedom, they should do so, and writing letters to fellow believers on behalf of runaway slaves? I think we sometimes get bogged down in particulars because we have a tendency to read with a predetermined set of prejudices, instead of learning to be open minded and look at the context of a series of writings. This happens a lot with the Corinthian letters, because no one speaks Biblical Greek anymore, and so many often miss the satirical and sarcastic tone of many things he said to the Corinthian church out of frustration with them constantly struggling with the same problems over and over. Why do you think he had to write four letters to them? (only two are in existence today)

a reply to: ArtemisE

That's new testement from Paul. Lol no old testement.

Not really by Paul.

Its authorship has traditionally been credited to Paul the Apostle but, starting in 1792, this has been challenged as Deutero-Pauline, that is, written in Paul's name by a later author strongly influenced by Paul's thought.
en.wikipedia.org...

Ephesians has not been considered to be an authentic letter of Paul by serious biblical scholars since the 1960's, but only maintained as being written by Paul within biblical academia by a fringe minority of fundamentalists.
These later pseudo-Pauline writings dealt with political situations as the church became organized, long after the original Apostles were dead.
To get Paul's feelings about slavery, read Philemon, which New Testament scholars do agree was an authentic letter of Paul.

. . . addressing Philemon as "fellowlabourer" and "brother". Onesimus, a slave that had departed from his master Philemon, was returning with this epistle wherein Paul beseeched Philemon to receive him as a "brother beloved".
en.wikipedia.org...