Paul does three things with slavery: (1) He acknowledges its pervasive practice without comment about its morality; (2) he urges slaves to radical loyalty as an expression of faith in God’s sovereign will; (3) he attacks the inequities of the system by insisting that masters and slaves become like brothers, an unprecedented notion (Philemon 16). In this passage, he wants slaves to excel in their service. Paul’s apparent social conservatism has been the subject of much misunderstanding. He would appear to give biblical sanction to

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