“Most people today surely do not think of the weeks before Christmas as a time of preparation for being loosed from bondage to the corrupting forces of sin and death. More commonly, we use this time of year to strengthen our addiction to the love of money, possessions, food, drink, and other worldly pleasures. Such self-centered indulgence is really nothing but bondage that threatens to leave us so weak spiritually that we will never be able to straighten ourselves up. God did not create His beloved children to find fulfillment in such things, which is we must resist the cultural temptation to become so busy with shopping, planning, and partying this time of year that we end up ignoring the profound spiritual gravity of our Lord’s Incarnation. He is born to restore us to the full dignity of His sons and daughters, to make us personal participants in the blessing and joy of the heavenly kingdom. He comes to liberate us all from slavery to sin and death, regardless of where we stand according to earthly divisions. Let us use these weeks to prepare to enter into the great joy brought to the world by our Lord, the New Adam, Who was born of a woman, the New Eve, for our salvation.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Why does striving for imaginary "freedoms" lead to slavery? The reason is simply that we cannot give evil free rein, because when it is not restrained in any way, it easily enslaves people. This seems so clear, yet people do not seem to understand and many become avid advocates of these imaginary “freedoms.” (Archbishop Averky Taushev)
“…anyone who sins is a slave to sin. The sinner may think they are exercising their free will and doing exactly what they want (even defiantly against God). Sin is a king, but tyrannical one, who enslaves those who sin. The sinner deceives himself into thinking he is doing exactly what he wants, for the reality is he is enslaving himself to sin, and sin will pay him back – with eternal death, which is the ultimate enslavement. Sinners…are actually the slaves of sin, not its master. Sin never serves your purposes, for when you sin, you always surrender your will to sin’s tyrannical and enslaving power.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“The distinctive feature of sin is deception and falsehood…Sin is the harshest and most inhuman slavery, to which the whole of our race was subject. Redemption from this slavery was achieved by Christ, who brought real, permanent freedom to the long-suffering world. ” (Lambros Skontzos)
“It is relevant to the preaching of the gospel and our own comprehension of Christ’s death on the Cross that our reading of the Scripture be unencumbered by the smoothening tones of a paraphrase. Christ emptied Himself and took the form of a slave. He became what, in the culture of the time, was the lowest of the low: the human being too low to be measured for a soul…For our sake, Christ took the form of a slave, emptying Himself. Only in His service do we discover perfect freedom.” (Father Stephen Freeman)