I have a friend who feels great regret that Jesus was never recorded as speaking specifically against human trafficking.
Jesus talked the most about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. He spoke of the Father, faith, forgiveness, being a follower, finances, the first being last, feeding the hungry and fear.
Jesus explained love, grace, mercy, dying to self, doing unto others, the Holy Spirit, repentance and righteousness. Undoubtedly, Jesus articulated a lot of words over the course of his life that were never written down. What about the things he did not say? Should we make arguments from silence?
The Apostle John notes, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” John 21:24-25
In three-and-a-half years of public ministry, Jesus fed the multitudes, healed the sick, made the blind see and the lame walk, yet according to John we only are given record of a small part of his actions. We only know a portion of his words.
What we see in practically the entirety of the four gospels and a few verses of the Acts of the Apostles are actions Jesus took and words he spoke among certain people in particular places within specific contexts.
Jesus responded to many of the problems and questions of the contemporaries he encountered. There is no record of him explicitly covering topics like human trafficking, care for the environment or child abuse, for example. All of these issues would have been relevant in his time, so should we draw the conclusion from silence that they should be of no concern to us?
Certainly not. Arguments from silence often are unhelpful. One might say Jesus did not speak explicitly on a subject if his thinking was in line with prevalent Jewish teaching of that day. Another might say his silence proves he did not care enough to address the issue specifically. Oftentimes, those two approaches would be at odds with each other and would lead to false assumptions.
The biblical accounts of the miracles and teachings of Jesus give us enough to determine God’s overall desires for us and power in us. The Old and New Testaments provide a continuous narrative of a gracious, loving Triune God with a plan for the redemption of humankind.
On any issue, the Christian must take a look at scripture as a whole, trying to understand the intent of each author to each original audience. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can build a framework from related passages to draw conclusions of what a God-honoring perspective would be some 2,000 years after the life of Christ.
The message has not changed. “After John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” Mark 1:14-15
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