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The references to slavery and women's submissiveness in the new testament are both from the Pauline epistles. In each case, Paul is writing to a particular church in a particular culture which bore little or no resemblance to any modern culture. As an aside both of these appear in epistles (letters) that are generally thought to have actually been written by the Apostle Paul while modern computer supported scholarship has placed the true authorship of many of the so called Pauline epistles in doubt, but that is a whole other topic.

Christians in some communities were freeing their slaves, but those freedmen and women were forbidden to earn money, to own property, or even to beg for food or shelter. So freeing a slave was tantamount to a sentence of slow death by starvation and exposure to the elements. Paul is urging the masters and their slaves to maintain the relationship as a more caring option in that particular cultural situation. Because Christians were freeing slaves, some jurisdictions passed laws forbidding freeing slaves because of the problems created by the starving former slaves.

Paul's recommendations for spousal relations are in a similar vein. At that time in that part of the world the status of women was little, if any, better than that of slaves. Women's business transactions had to be performed by their husband, father or brother except in very rare circumstances. Likewise women could own no property and if they angered their husband all the husband had to do was say, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" and the divorce was final. When that happened the woman had essentially two options. If her family permitted, return home in shame, which caused the family to lose face and status in the community. The other alternative was prostitution and the life expectancy of a prostitute was less than six months. Paul is calling on the women to do what they had to do to survive and more importantly he is urging the husbands to treat their wives, and polygamy was common, with respect and not casually or in a pique cast them aside.

Any effort to understand either the Hebrew (old) or the Greek (new) testament without a consideration of the culture in which they were written, the audience to which they were addressed, the viewpoint of the authors, the preconceptions of the translators, and the translators convictions is doomed to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. I will also add that the letter of Paul's writings such as these can easily lead to the wrong conclusion, but the underlying principle these exemplify are as valid today as they were on the day they were written.