The Servant's Duty

Question is sometimes raised about the lack of condemnation of slavery in the New Testament. Jesus never seems to have opposed it. In fact, in the parable about the servant's duty, Jesus uses the duties of a slave as a model. Elsewhere he uses the term for the proper relationship among persons, though it is frequently translated as servant rather than as slave.

In a time when governments did not provide a safety net for the unemployed and people without land to farm or other means of livelihood, becoming a slave to someone else in exchange for support probably seemed like a good, or at least the only, alternative. During the medieval period when no government provided security, the social system which developed was based on mutual obligations. Local lords provided secu…