Romans 6:16, Choose the Right Slave Owner

Romans 6:16

Deuteronomy 15:12-18

It seems incomprehensible in our society that someone would choose to be a slave. I suppose the Hebrew who is choosing to remain a slave for the rest of his life has had six years to experience what that is like under this particular slave owner and doesn't see his prospects improving out on his own. I suppose this particular owner has treated him exceptionally well and become a family. But living in a country where freedom is held so highly and where our fairly recent experience with slavery was not beneficial to the slaves, it is hard to understand that someone would choose to be a slave when they had another option. And yet we sell ourselves willingly into slavery to sin. We have the option of living for God, who treats us better than the kindest, most generous father in the world, and we choose instead for a master who will treat us worse than the cruelest slave owner in the world. We look down on an individual for choosing a generous human owner while choosing for ourselves a viciously cruel non-human master. Each time we sin we are choosing the cruel slave owner. Each time we obey God we are choosing family (Gal 4:7).