Why Write about Slavery?

Slavery has always existed. How unfortunate! It is mentioned throughout the Bible. Social domination over other always brings out the worst in human nature. The Exodus shows God leading a nation out of dreadful captivity. We rejoice in the God’s freedom every time we remember the Lord’s Supper, Communion. Slavery to sin is just as old as physical servitude.

Slavery is addressed throughout the New Testament. Seeds of social change are found within the Gospel. Philemon, a short book tells of a slave, Onesimus, who returns to his master. New relationships are established. Today, new forms of slavery are spreading across the world.

The topic of slavery appears in each of my seven volumes on the Seven Churches.

Two of my favorite characters appear in each of my novels about the Seven Churches of the Revelation. Arpoxa is born a cripple, and she has lived north of the Black Sea, in what is today Ukraine. In the first volume, she is married to Ateas. He broke a leg in an accident while digging a well. They are Scythians, raised in what is now Ukraine.

The scene in which they are freed by Antipas, (Revelation 2:13) at a slave auction and stay together as a family still moves me. I have been through that passage dozens of times. It’s a compelling insight into the word “redemption.” Arpoxa’s final statement at the end of the seventh novel, An Act of Grace: A Chronicle of Ephesus, is possibly the central assertion of the entire saga.

I write about slavery because I care so much about freedom, personal dignity, and respect for my fellow human beings. God loves Jews and non-Jews, rich and poor, slaves and free. Writing about slavery gives insight into the worst of human nature. Freedom gives glimpses of glory.

The question for the next blog in this series: “Why write about persecution?”