Coffee Talk with God: A new understanding of freedom’s meaning

Published 6:00 am Friday, August 18, 2017

As I sat with my cup of coffee having awakened far too early for my morning routine, my thoughts turned to freedom.

Having once been a slave to sin, set free by the power of love in the blood of Christ Jesus, I have a new understanding of freedom. We’re taught in the scriptures that if the Son sets us free, we will indeed be free. That’s good news, but sin so easily entangles us that we must remember, to stand firm and not let ourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. There are many kinds of slavery, not just the one most people think of when they hear the word.

I looked up “slavery” in my copy of The American Peoples Encyclopedia published in 1953, a first printing in 1948. I read, “The desire to obtain freedom from drudgery by the possession of and absolute control over other persons is one of the traits of men. Even certain species of ants are accustomed to capture of other species, and to force them to labor for their captors and to provide them with food. In certain types of societies this tendency usually manifests itself in the habit of assigning all disagreeable work to women, the men following those pursuits which please them. But organized slavery generally consists in the subjugation of one race by another, the subject people being condemned to a life of enforced labor for the benefit of their lords.”

Slavery more often than not is fully assumed by most people to be the black and white issue of captured Africans brought to this country enslaved until emancipation after the War Between the States. In reality, it has been a part of our world since before Christ.

We’ve heard much about the Hebrews enslaved by the Babylonians before being set free when God sent Moses to bring them out of Egypt. There was grumbling and complaining in the rescue — enough to drive a godly person insane and tempt the heart of God. But, “His love endures forever.”

Early Japanese history also reveals a system of slavery. Hindu invaders enslaved the conquered aborigines. Greek slaves often became prisoners of war and were tattooed on their foreheads to announce their condition of ownership. Slaves rowed Greek and Roman ships and Celts enslaved Saxon captives, the encyclopedia said.

Bondsman is another word for slaves — and there are more ways of enslaving a person than by the traditionally defined terms of a race or class of people being overpowered or controlled by another. It can be found in different kinds of relationships between people that are not fully known by themselves to be whole — fully who God created them to be.

It is a condition that any one of us can be in at any point in our lives, at any age. It is nearly impossible to detect by the outside world because there are many types of hidden secrets that keep us bound up — masks worn by anyone touched by bondage or sin. When bad things happen because of these sins, most friends and some family members are surprised. Or, there is great denial so that they, too, become engrossed in the act of keeping another person enslaved.

All that to say, thank God for the freedom found in knowing Christ Jesus. Serving the Lord is the only place I know of where being a bondservant is a good thing — because we know The Master. His love and grace, even in discipline, is worthy of the title and our respect. Being captured is a choice gladly made daily.

VICKY BRANTON is the Teche Life editor at The Daily Iberian.