Slavery in Early Christianity Book

Because slaves are not part of the typical modern person's everyday life, slavery becomes only a metaphor when reading the Bible, yet slavery was an all-too-real part of life for people in Biblical times. What I found most interesting reading this was how easy it is to glance over stories with slaves in them in the Biblical text without really stopping to think about the reality of the life of people in bondage. For example, in the story of the Prodigal Son there is a father and two sons, but there are also household slaves who have been denied the right to families of their own who the father calls upon to set the table for a party to celebrate his son's return. Being reminded of the gritty reality of slave life, their humanity, and the complex social and moral issues this involved is valuable.