Slaves obey your masters.....

I Peter 2:18 You who are slaves must accept the authority of your masters with all respect.* Do what they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are cruel.


Has this particular passage ever bothered anyone else? Is Peter saying God condones slavery??? Certainly that can't be right....
 
I have always been aware that a lot of things happen in the world that aren't right. And as I have seen my daughter, son-in-law, and their small children go through this horrible time of separation because of politics.... it's become just one more injustice added to my list. I see every day the effect it has on my daughter, trying to take care of two small children while she is due to deliver a third in just two short weeks. And she does it all the while trying to deal with the pain of having her husband ripped away from her. It's a lot to deal with. But yesterday, she unknowingly said something that ministered deeply to me. She had been reading a book on slavery here in the U.S., and all that those people suffered. She said, "Even if Aaron and I don't get to be together for another year, as painful as that would be, it wouldn't be as bad as what they had to go through." Now, I'm never one for comparing pain. Pain is pain, and I think you get into trouble when you try to measure one person's suffering with another's. But she was right. The things those people suffered were terrible...and it lasted a long, long time.
 
Which brings me back to the verse. Slaves are instructed to obey their masters. That always bothered me. I always felt it should read, "Masters, free those slaves! You have no right to hold another man captive!" Why would God condone slavery?
 
However, after my conversation with Rachel, something dawned on me that I have never considered before. What if this is really one of the most powerful, life-changing verses in the entire Bible? In fact, that's exactly what it was for me at that moment. It was no longer a verse about slavery. It was about integrity.
 
"No matter what happens to you...no matter where you find yourself in life....no matter how unfair or unjust it may be, still choose to do the right thing. Carry yourself with honor."
 
What is happening to Rachel and Aaron, and especially to their children right now, seems very unjust. You don't rip families apart to prove a point. You don't deprive children of their father and a wife of her husband on purpose. You don't deny a loving husband and father the opportunity to provide for his family. And you don't force a mother to give birth to her child without her husband by her side, just because of a hot political climate.
 
But through it all, Rachel and Aaron have continued to do the right thing. They have continued to follow the rules. They have held their heads high and walked in integrity.
 
Because they know. They know who really holds their future in His hands.