Bought With a Price – Paul M. Williams

Bethesda Shalom

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

Being raised in 21st-century Britain, I’ve never had the painful displeasure of attending a slave market. Yet in the days of the Roman Empire in the first century AD, it would have been commonplace. Under Roman law, slaves were regarded as the personal property of their masters, to be bought, sold, and mistreated at will. They had no rights of their own, no privileges to their name, they could not so much as own a piece of property, nor enter into a contract with their fellow man; they could not legally marry should they see a bride. If the truth be told, slaves were the lowest class of society, and even freed criminals had more rights than them.

Having painted this despairing picture, I want to invite you to come with me for a moment in the imagination of your mind, to the slave market where once you stood on the blocks for sale. Maimed and stained by the vice of sin, bound by the shackles of iniquity — a thoroughbred reprobate of whom the placard which hangs about your necks reads “NOT WORTHY OF PURCHASE”. The punters press in around as the bidding begins. “Who will give me 50 denarii” (bear in mind, the average price of an unskilled slave in those days was around 500 denarii). Silence… “Who will give me 40?” Silence… “Okay, someone start me at 20, surely he is worth 20 denarii” As the punters draw away and the crowds thin out, suddenly a man appears of royal descent. “I’ll have him!!”, the man exclaims. As he draws near to the blocks I notice, he has no coins with which to make His purchase, but in His hands instead, two bleeding wounds. “With what means will you make payment for the slave?” With outstretched hands, the answer comes, “WITH ROYAL BLOOD!!” “I have given my life a ransom that this slave might go FREE!!!”.

Shared at Lifeboat Fellowship (10/12/23) - Sunday (am)