Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 7:21

"Wast thou called being a bondservant? Care not for it: nay, even if thou canst become free, use [it] rather." — 1 Corinthians 7:21 (ASV)

Art thou called being a servant?—Better, Were you called while a slave? Do not let that make you anxious. The fact of your being in slavery does not affect the reality or completeness of your conversion; and so you need have no anxiety to try and escape from servitude. In this and the following three verses, the subject of SLAVERY is addressed as the second illustration of the general principle laid down in 1 Corinthians 7:17—namely, that one's conversion to Christianity should not lead one to change one's national or social condition.

But if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.—These words may seem to imply that if a slave could obtain his liberty, he was to take advantage of the opportunity to do so. Such an interpretation, however, is entirely contrary to the whole direction of the argument, which is that he is not to seek such a change. What the Apostle does say is that (so far from letting servitude be a cause of distress to you) if you can even be free, prefer to use your condition as a converted slave—that is, your current state. It, as well as any other position in life, can be used to God’s glory. Such an interpretation is most consistent with the construction of the sentence in the original Greek. It is also in perfect harmony, not only with the rest of this passage but with all St. Paul’s teaching and his universal practice on this subject.

It may be helpful here to briefly note the attitude that the Apostle of the Gentiles maintains toward the great question of SLAVERY. While ancient slavery under the Greek and Roman governments had many similarities to what has existed in modern times, there were also some striking differences.

The slaves at a place like Corinth would have been under Roman law, but many of its harsher provisions were undoubtedly modified in practice by the traditional leniency of Greek servitude and by general custom.

Although a master could sell his slave, punish him, and even put him to death, if he did so unjustly, he himself would be liable to certain penalties. The power a master could exercise over his slave was not so clearly objectionable in an age when parents had almost similar power over their children. Among the class called slaves were found not only the lowest class who performed menial tasks, but also literary men, doctors, midwives, and artisans, who were constantly employed in work suited to their abilities and skills.

Still, the fact remains that the master could sell his slave just as he could sell any other type of property. Such a state of affairs was likely to greatly degrade both those who trafficked and those who were trafficked in. It was also contrary to those Christian principles that taught the brotherhood of men and exalted every living soul to the high dignity of having direct communion with its Father.

How, then, are we to account for St. Paul—with his vivid realization of the brotherhood of men in Christ, and his righteous intolerance of intolerance—never having condemned this servile system, and having here insisted on the duty of a converted slave to remain in servitude; or for his having on one occasion sent back a Christian slave to his Christian master without asking for his freedom, although he considered him his master’s “brother”? (See the Epistle to Philemon.)

One point that would certainly have influenced the Apostle in considering this question was his own belief in the near approach of the end of this dispensation. If all existing relationships would be overthrown in a few years, even a relationship like that involved in slavery would not be as important as if it had been regarded as a permanent institution.

But there were other serious considerations, of a more positive and urgent nature. If one single word from Christian teaching could have been quoted at Rome as tending to excite the slaves to revolt, it would have placed the Roman authorities in direct and active opposition to the new faith. Had St. Paul’s teaching led (as it probably would have, had he urged the cessation of servitude) to an uprising of the slaves, that uprising and the Christian Church, which would have been identified with it, would have been crushed together. Rome would not have tolerated a repetition of those servile wars which had, twice in the previous century, deluged Sicily with blood.

The danger of preaching the abolition of servitude was not limited to external violence from the Roman government; it was also fraught with danger to the purity of the Church itself. Many might have been led, for the wrong motives, to join a community that would have aided them in securing their social and political freedom.

In these considerations, I think, we may find ample reasons for the position of non-interference that the Apostle maintains regarding slavery. If people then say that Christianity approved of slavery, we would point them to the fact that it is Christianity that has abolished it. Under a particular and exceptional set of circumstances, which cannot arise again, St. Paul, for wise reasons, did not interfere with it. To have done so would have been worse than useless.

But he taught fearlessly those imperishable principles which, in later ages, led to its extinction. The object of Christianity—and this St. Paul insisted on over and over again—was not to overturn and destroy existing political and social institutions, but to leaven them with new principles. He did not propose to abolish slavery, but to Christianise it; and when slavery is Christianised, it must cease to exist. Christianised slavery is liberty.