Walking through the street market in Lagos, Nigeria, I caught sight of a vendor hawking some antique-looking items. As I stepped closer, he extended his hand to show me what looked like a crescent-shaped bracelet and explained that he had “old Nigerian money.” When I asked him again what he had and again he repeated that it was “old Nigerian money,” I realized that he didn’t even realize what he was selling. I bartered for a few minutes and reached a price agreeable with both of us and then walked away with my treasure — the price of a man! What I had purchased was an antique slave token, a semi-circle of iron used in the slave markets as the medium of exchange when dealing in human beings. Since the bangle-shaped token is just about the size of my wrist, I slipped it on as if it were an ornament, but somehow my whole personality was overwhelmed with a strange sense of emotion that I was actually bearing the life of another as I walked down the street. The piece of metal around my wrist stood for someone’s loss of freedom, identity, and dignity. It represented the loss of joy, peace, and family. It symbolized a life of abuse, sorrow, and hard labor. It was someone’s death sentence, a judgment to living death, a condemnation to experience the pain of death each day while he yet lived.
When I calculated the US dollar to the Nigerian naira exchange rate, I realized that I had paid only about three dollars for what amounted to some unnamed victim’s life. As I pondered the icon on my wrist, I began to wonder what its value might have been when it was actually used to purchase living, breathing humans. With a little research into the history of African slave trade, I learned that enslavement was a major by-product of the internal wars in Africa. Since most of the nations in the conflicts did not have prison systems, prisoners of war and others convicted of various crimes were often sold in the local slave markets. The victims were then transported to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for rum, guns, and other manufactured goods such as cloth. In the 1690s, a slave could be bought for goods equivalent to about four English pounds. About a hundred years later, as some records show, a British slave trader purchased one male slave for ninety-six yards of cloth, fifty-two handkerchiefs, one large brass pan, two muskets, twenty-five kegs of gunpowder, one hundred flints, two bags of shot, twenty knives, four iron pots, four hats, four caps, four cutlasses, six bunches of beads, and fourteen gallons of brandy. The slaves were then transported to the New World slave markets where they were eventually auctioned. At one such auction, held in 1859 in Savannah, Georgia, four hundred thirty-six slaves including men, women, children, and infants were put on the block. Molly, who originally tried to disqualify herself from the sale by pretending to be crippled in one foot, was proven to be able-bodied and sold for six hundred ninety-five dollars, the equivalent of over fifteen thousand dollars in today’s economy. Male slaves in the prime of life, sold for sixteen hundred dollars, approximately thirty-five thousand dollars at today’s rates. Ones with ruptures, or missing limbs, or other injuries sold for about a quarter of that price. The auction went on for two long days, with total sales equivalent to almost seven million dollars in present-day value.
As much as these historical facts made me cringe, I was taken even more aghast by what I learned about the continuing practice of barter in human souls. While we so thanklessly revel in our freedom without taking a second thought, human lives are being bought and sold on a daily basis. In fact, slave trafficking rivals guns and drugs as top criminal activity. Official estimates say that human trafficking is a ten-billion-dollar-per-year industry, but many researchers feel that the actual number is at least three times that high. It has been calculated that there are more slaves being bartered today than in four centuries of Trans-Atlantic slave trade
Although slavery was declared abolished three times since the Islamic Republic of Mauritania’s independence in 1960, black Africans continue to be enslaved by their Arab-Berber masters. These poor victims are given as wedding gifts; traded for camels, guns, or trucks; and passed on from father to son as inheritances. In the Islamic Republic of the Sudan, black Christian women and children are captured in raids on their villages and sold as chattel slaves. The price varies with supply. In 1989, a woman or child could be bought for ninety dollars. In 1990, as the raids increased, the price fell to as low as fifteen dollars. It has been estimated that there are at least twenty-seven million slaves in the world today. In Colombia, I encountered open slave trade as the drug lords of the country raided villages, confiscating the farmland, slaughtering the adults and enslaving the children to work for their parents’ former property that was now turned into cocaine production. In Nepal and Thailand, I’ve witnessed the ruin of young children and women who are marketed in the sex industry. Throughout the third world, I’ve seen entire families enslaved in the sweatshops that operate unashamedly. One example is the carpet loom sheds in Nepal where toddlers to grandparents work around the clock weaving carpets to earn barely enough rupees to pay the rent for their little home. It just so happens that their little shack also belongs to the carpet factory owner — in essence, this poor family works twenty-four/seven simply to be allowed to continue living so they can work even more. This was the same practice that inspired Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 1955 pop song Sixteen Tons in which he proclaimed, “Sixteen tons and what do you get — another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go; I owe my soul to the company store.” This song was based on the practice of companies that not only hired the coal miners but also provided their housing, groceries, and medical needs. Since they charged more for the services they provided for the workers than they paid them in wages, the miners were essentially their slaves. Even though these practices are history within our own borders, the same kind of enslavement of illegal immigrants is a present-day reality. Afraid to try to escape for fear of being prosecuted as illegals, these poor deceived souls work long hard hours to pay off the debt they incurred in being smuggled across the border, a debt that they will never be able to retire since the interest rates ensure that they are never able to pay toward the principle. In essence, they were smuggled into the land of liberty to live as slaves, literally in plain view.
Imagine — a human life reduced to fifteen dollars or a bottle of rum, a gun, or a piece of cloth! Yet the truth is that many of us have willingly put our lives for sale for even lesser amounts. We all know the biblical story of how Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28); yet, the fact is that those pieces of silver more truly bought the souls of the eleven brothers. Though the monetary exchange left Joseph in physical bondage, it was the brothers whose emotional freedom was bartered away as the coins fell into their hands. Years later, they were still suffering under the guilt of that transaction when they were thrown into the presence of an austere ruler in a strange land.
And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required. (Genesis 42:21-22)
Centuries later, another villain discovered that the price he pocketed for betraying his friend had actually purchased his own soul and doomed it to spiritual slavery and ultimately to death.
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. (Matthew 27:3-5)
The Bible brims with stories of those who failed to value their souls and sold themselves into bondage for a pittance. The Old Testament prophet Hosea tells the story of his unfaithful wife Gomer who eventually found herself on the auction block at the slave market being sold into the “white slavery” of prostitution. Her loving husband was able to redeem her for fifteen pieces of silver, an homer of barley, and half an homer of barley (verse 3:2), but that was much more than what she valued herself at when she freely abandoned her family to engage in illicit relationships.
Esau forfeited his spiritual heritage and physical birthright for the price of a single meal.
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. (Genesis 25:30-33)
Eve did even worse. She exchanged her soul for just a single bite of fruit from the forbidden tree.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Genesis 3:6)
David not only set the price of his soul as a few minutes of pleasure with another man’s wife; he also declared the price he should pay in redemption for squandering his moral fiber and nature.
And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. (II Samuel 12:1-7)
His son Solomon upped the ante by a thousand times, but his illicit desires and relationships eventually cost him his soul.
And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. (I Kings 11:3-4)
It has been said that every man has his price; and, in some sense, that is true. However, before we begin to set our price, we should think of the difference between value, price, and worth. Perhaps we don’t readily see that these terms are not synonymous. However, if we simply take the reverse of each term, we will immediately see how radically different they must be. Just consider the world of difference between the words “worthless,” “valueless,” and “priceless.” By seeing the dramatic difference between their negative forms, we can instantaneously see the significant difference between the original words. Even though we may set our own price, our value or worth is a quantum leap beyond. Regardless of the price you may have settled for in bartering your soul, God has evaluated you and determined that you are worth the cost of His own Son’s sacrifice on the cross.
Today, my slave token is mounted in a shadow box with the inscription from Matthew 16:26, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” It hangs just across from my desk as a constant reminder that Christ has already made an exchange for my soul and that I must never barter it away at any price.