Can we trust God if he was ok with slavery?

Curiously Kaitlyn

Phil Vischer

Religion & Spirituality

5 • 759 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kaitlyn is joined by New Testament scholar Kat Burgett to talk about a troubling passage in Exodus concerning slavery - they discuss what the law says, what it means, and how it changes over time. Dr. Burgett shows us a few ways to understand puzzling passages of Scripture, and reminds us to read every tricky passage in light of the whole story of Scripture.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Curiously, Caitlin. This week we are tackling some big ideas. But at the heart of it,
0:06.9	this is a question about how we can read and trust the Bible and trust God when there are things
0:12.4	in the Bible that seem confusing, strange, even morally wrong. And one of the biggest, most
0:19.1	challenging questions on that front is about slavery.
0:22.9	Why does the Bible have rules that seem to approve of slavery? Why doesn't God just say
0:27.3	slavery is wrong? And these questions are not just challenging in the abstract. They have
0:32.8	shaped the real lives of Christians around the world for centuries. Especially in America, when we think
0:38.8	about these questions, we are thinking about the arguments and ideas that justified or opposed
0:45.0	the enslavement of millions of humans made in God's image. These ideas about the Bible had
0:51.2	devastating real world effects. And as we'll see, other ideas about the Bible had devastating real-world effects.
1:01.4	And as we'll see, other ideas about the Bible had powerfully liberating real-world effects.
1:06.5	This week, we will think about one very specific Old Testament law that deals with slavery.
1:16.1	But we'll also learn about how to trust in the goodness of God, even when we end up without tidy answers to our big and important questions.
1:20.0	I don't know.
1:24.2	That doesn't make any sense.
1:25.6	What?
1:27.3	Curiously. Okay. Yeah? Curiously, Kate, yeah.
1:31.8	Dr. Kat Bergett, thank you so much for joining me today.
1:35.7	Oh, thanks for having me, Caitlin.
1:37.7	This is Dr. Kat Bergen.
1:39.7	She has her Ph.D. and New Testament from Duke University.
1:42.9	She is the director of youth ministry at Black Nall Memorial Presbyterian Church.
	...

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