{"id":1376,"date":"2012-09-18T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T16:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayspirituality\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2016-10-19T08:28:55","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T12:28:55","slug":"slavery-and-the-bible-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2012\/09\/slavery-and-the-bible-ii.html","title":{"rendered":"Slavery and the Bible II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A literal interpretation of the Bible is moot next to the fact that human slavery was deemed the norm throughout most of the recorded history. The world has recognized the incompatibility of slavery and societal wellbeing and legislation is passed to make slavery illegal. The field of psychology has even picked up the ball to remove mental slavery.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, when I read verses such as Psalm 123, \u201cI lift up my eyes to you, to you who sit enthroned in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy,\u201d I am tempted to roll my eyes and shake my head. The reference to slavery is immaterial, even inappropriate in the 21st century. However, I can reconcile to the fact that no piece of human literature is perfect or complete, including the Bible, without the reader being able to think for him or herself ad-infinitum.<\/p>\n<p>God is not some super-human sitting on a throne in a realm apart from earth. God is Life, Truth, and Love, expressing harmony, heaven. Although we don\u2019t have slaves and masters, we do have philanthropy or mercy. I can look to thought-leaders expressing Christ. Moreover, I can extend this idea to God by focusing my vision and goals on Life, Truth, and Love. Through divine Science, I learn a divine interpretation and am better able to detect spiritual thoughts that remove any sense of slavery to that which is detrimental.<\/p>\n<p>From <em>21<sup>st<\/sup>Century Science and Health, &#8220;<\/em>Men and women of all environments and cultures are still under the control of terrorists and bullies, ignorant how to obtain their freedom. However, the rights of humanity are being vindicated as people fight for equal rights and remove dictators from office. Moreover, this is prophetic of further steps coming toward the banishment of world-wide oppression, found on higher planes of existence and under more subtle and depraving forms&#8230;The voice of God in behalf of the people is reverberating around the world as the spokesperson of this new crusade sounds the keynote of universal mental freedom. A fuller acknowledgement of the rights of man and woman as useful spiritual beings demands that the terrors of sin, sickness, and death be exterminated from the human mind. Not through human warfare or boundaries, not through anger, but through spiritual Science is freedom gained.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A literal interpretation of the Bible is moot next to the fact that human slavery was deemed the norm throughout most of the recorded history. The world has recognized the incompatibility of slavery and societal wellbeing and legislation is passed to make slavery illegal. The field of psychology has even picked up the ball to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5,6],"tags":[618,593,619],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community_world","category-christian-science","category-spiritual-leaders","tag-albert-schewiter","tag-joel-osteen","tag-psychriatry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Slavery and the Bible II - Everyday Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2012\/09\/slavery-and-the-bible-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Slavery and the Bible II - Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A literal interpretation of the Bible is moot next to the fact that human slavery was deemed the norm throughout most of the recorded history. The world has recognized the incompatibility of slavery and societal wellbeing and legislation is passed to make slavery illegal. 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