According to the Bible, are slavery and polygamy OK for Christians?
Whatever your answer, can you prove it by all-sufficient Scripture only?
If I own a slave, can I still be saved?
If I had multiple wives, can I still be saved?
“According to the Bible, are slavery and polygamy OK for Christians?”
Yes. “For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” - Philemon
Scripture doesn’t overthrow slavery nor forbid it. However:
“Philemon is to regard Onesimus as his Christian “brother” (v. 16) and “partner” in the faith (v. 17), which makes their owner-slave relationship no longer possible. So Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon for their reconciliation; they are both his spiritual sons, and he is the religious patron and responsible for the nurture of both. In my view, under these new and revolutionary circumstances Philemon’s only real option is Onesimus’s manumission.”
What person would make a slave of his own brother? And if it is possible for us to be brothers in Christ, then can we continue to keep them enslaved? Can we keep ANY enslaved?
The Bible does not teach that all Christians must immediately free their slaves, nor does it openly oppose the institution of slavery. But what Jesus did for us sets up the long-term impossibility of slavery as a matter of individual conscience.
Polygamy? David was, yet he was also a man after God’s own heart. However, an elder must be “the husband of one wife” - not two, or three. And “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...”
Once again, as a matter of individual conscience, polygamy is discouraged - but not forbidden.
More to the point, we are to reject sin and honor God. HOW we do that is a learning process, and we know we will fail many times in our lives. The individual sins we struggle with differ. A rich Southerner in 1823 might struggle and fail where slavery was concerned. Pride and anger are both sins, and I sure haven’t won victory against either. Nor do I expect to in this life.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin according to HIS schedule. Not mine and not anyone else’s.
The church - not “The Catholic Church”, but simply the church - also has a role to play. Teachers, pastors, and a brother privately rebuking another brother. Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean a man is supposed to wrap himself in the Bible and ignore the church that the Bible speaks so much about.
But in terms of what a man must know in order to be saved and changed, the scripture is sufficient. DO what it says. Repent. Believe. Submit. Pray. Etc.
You do not need “transubstantiation” to be saved. Theology doesn’t save a man, and many men have been ruined by it. Jesus saves. And in scripture, and by following it, you can be made complete. Paul DID teach “The Whole Counsel of God”. What Paul taught was not incomplete. If it had been incomplete, it would not have been whole.