More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade.
This comes from the web page of the International Justice Mission (IJM). This is not to denigrate the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but to underlines the horror of the current situation. Check out IJM for more information.
Photo credit: Andrew Mitchell via Flickr
I am reminded of IJM’s work this Advent because the word “captive†is common in the songs and readings in Advent:
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners… (Isaiah 61:1)
Jesus takes this Isaiah passage on to himself in Luke 4.
Our personal slavery
While few of us experience the evil of modern-day slavery, we do live in bondage to a variety of things – power, money, prestige, sex, respectability, (fill in yours here). Jesus proclaims that he comes to “set the prisoner [captive] free.†Certainly this includes us! [Read more…] about Advent: Set the Captive Free