Everyone loves a good story.
Stories create worlds where everything is possible. They allow us to visit places and times that are far beyond our experiences of everyday life. Stories can also reveal hidden treasures that enrich our understanding of the world in which we live.
The Bible is such a source that allows our creativity to imagine the lives of people who may only appear as a name in a verse or two. What was the lived experience of that person? What did they think about the world? What did they hear and taste and smell? What did they fear?
Dr. John Byron, Dean of Ashland Theological Seminary, recently published a book that opens our imaginations to consider these questions.
“A Week in the Life of a Slave,” published by IVP Academic, tells the story of one of the Bible’s most famous slaves. A man known to us as Onesimus.
I must admit that as I began reading this book I was reminded of nature shows on television narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough is famous for his story telling style of narration. He takes viewers inside of the thoughts of various critters as they forage for food or search for a mate. Sprinkled within those stories he educates us on the reality of that world.
In a like fashion, Dr. Byron uses his creativity to weave a tale of the ancient world of the Bible. We meet the Apostle Paul as he sits in an Ephesian jail. Philemon, the person who owned the slave, Onesimus, comes to life as a person aggrieved by a slave who “committed the crime of stealing himself.” And, of course, Onesimus the runaway slave.
While most of us in the U.S. think about our own history regarding slavery, very few people consider the practice of ‘human ownership’ in the first century. If we do, like many in the Church today, even consider slavery, we tend to downplay the horrors that were part of everyday life for a slave at the time that St. Paul wrote. Byron, however, paints a very different picture. He does illuminate many differences between the ancient, Roman practice and our own antebellum chattel slavery. The similarities are also revealed to be all too real. Slaves were non-humans. Byron notes that the ancient philosopher, Aristotle, wrote that “a slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave.” No, slavery within the Roman Empire was no walk in the park.
There is another story told, as well. That of the early Church as it fumbled and grasped to find its place in the world. Byron’s story shows the struggle that owners faced in that culture as they tried to reconcile the Love of Jesus with the pain of their slaves. How could Paul say that there was neither slave nor free when the reality of that world stated otherwise? And, how could free people think of themselves as ‘slaves for all’? These questions are ones that we today seldom discuss. We are conveniently ignorant of the labor pains that were present at the birth of our Church. Dr. Byron provides a snapshot of that delivery framed in the form of this book.
Dr. Byron is a well-known scholar who has specialized in studying Graeco-Roman slavery. There is no one better suited to write about this topic, and to present it in this way than Dr. Byron. Students, pastors, and lay people can all benefit from this book. I recommend it for anyone who desires to understand the 1st Century Church and the world it inhabited.
