What did a person need in order to buy a slave out of the Virginia slave market in the 1840s and 50s?
Buying a slave out of the Virginia slave market in the 1840s and 50s required money and likely wealth, along with clout or influence. It also took a certain amount of power to remove someone from that market. With those resources, a person could purchase slaves and take them home.
Les explains that in the natural example, purchasing a slave out of the Virginia slave market in the 1840s and 50s required money, probably wealth, clout, influence, and a certain amount of power. He notes a buyer could go down, buy good slaves, take them home, and do with them what they wanted, while acknowledging there were benevolent slaveholders and some who were anything but. He uses this to illustrate the spiritual realm: before becoming believers, people were in the same kind of circumstances spiritually as those slaves, but God bought them out, set them free, cleaned them up, gave a new wardrobe, placed them in a beautiful place, set their feet on a rock, and gave hope—all they had to do was believe it.