"Freedom" and "Slavery"

Recently, a subscriber asked me a question about what Jesus said about “freedom.” He specifically asked about Paul’s meaning in Galatians 5:1.

NIV: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Since I only analyze Jesus’s words, this gives me the opportunity to point out the difference in the Greek words used by Paul and those used by Jesus. It also allows me to review the differences between our ideas of freedom and slavery today and those concepts in Jesus’s era.

In this above quote, Paul uses two words that Jesus never used, the Greek words translated as “freedom” (eleutheria) and “slavery” (douleia). The verb translated as “has set us free,” (eleutheroo) from the same root as “freedom,” is used by Jesus, exactly twice. He also uses the adjective form (eleutheros), but he only uses it only twice. The noun describing a person (doulos) from the same root as “slavery” is used in fifty-six verses. This word means “slave” but it is almost always translated as “servant” in most English Bibles, which is technically wrong but reasonable considering the different concepts of slavery in Jesus’s era. I shall try to explain.