When Paul wrote to Philemon he encouraged him as a slave owner to receive a returning run-away slave, Onesimus as a brother would receive a brother. He encouraged him to treat him with brotherly kindness and brotherly love. Paul, through this letter, didn't touch on the legitimacy or morality of slavery but rather on how a brother should deal with a brother.
In our society churches often take an active part in attempting to moralize society. We as Christians oppose abortion, drug use, drunk driving, homosexuality and other political/religious issues. Churches and Christian organizations lobby congress to make tougher laws and effectively try to legislate the Christian morality that we stand for into other people. I believe this is the opposite of the biblical approach. It is trying to change people from the outside in rather than from the inside out.
We as a church do not have as a commission to go into our community and preach moral living to those around us. We are to preach a Gospel of repentance which, when it is accepted in the heart of an individual will change his life from the inside. We baptize him and teach him to observe Christ's teachings. We instill in him through the Gospel those moral teachings that others are trying to instill without the Gospel. We do this one person at a time.
Paul moralized large segments of a city s population by manifesting their sin to them and leading them to repentance. We see an example of this in Philipi in Acts chapter 16. According to Acts 16:16 a certain damsel was believed to be able to gather information from the spirits concerning things to happen in the future. Her masters were making good money through her. It sounds to me very similar to what psychics claim to be able to do today. We see them continually on late night television. Paul never preached on the legitimacy of her actions and those of her masters. He caused her to be converted on the inside, casting out the demon.
In another example, Paul, according to Acts 19:1 finds himself in Ephesus. Acts 19:8 says, "And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God." Verses 18-20 read, "And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." The teaching and preaching of God's Word brought such a change to the City of Ephesus that many repented and believed. They immediately ceased the practice of the evils of the society around them because of the Lord who dwelled in them.
We as God's people certainly have an understanding of a Biblical perspective of right and Wrong and we should stand for that every day of our lives but we will not convince an unbelieving public to follow these teachings. That's not the mission God put us here for anyway. We can, though, make a difference one soul at a time. Only if and when God's Word produces a national revival will society be changed.