Exodus 21:2 2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. NIV
Considering all that has happened up to this point, I find it odd that the first law involves people, slavery, equity, and freedom. But God doesn’t do things my way and is as counterintuitive as it comes.
Whether I realize it or not; whether I admit it or not, I was born a slave. Slavery is the state of every human being born onto this planet and into every various society. Humans are born as slaves to sin. And so humans serve sin until the day they are released – Scott-free.
If you paid a lot for the Hebrew slave then you’d better get your money’s worth because in six short years he gets freedom regardless of what you paid. I’m sure they had their formulas for what was fair, but again, regardless, he went free. And so did his family if you bought them as a package deal.
Slavery is not always a bad thing; not every owner was a Simon Legree*. But slavery among your own people – that has some serious considerations for me. Sometimes however, what has to be is what has to be, and we just need to make the most of it – slavery notwithstanding.
God however, has an end in sight. It is never His intention that we suffer the abysmal side-effects of our slavish servitude to sin. And though we are sold into slavery at conception and live out slavery from our birth, God offers freedom from the moment we come into existence. So it’s no wonder to me that He speaks first of limits, and freedom, and, oh yeah, scott-free.
Father in Heaven,
Thank You for freeing me from the sin that so easily entangles and giving me new life with all of its benefits and privileges in Christ Jesus. Help me when I foolishly turn back and may I walk out the rest of my days celebrating the end You have in sight – in Jesus’ Name, amen.
* a principle character in the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe published in 1852
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