siding with the bully

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:28-31 (JDV)

Galatians 4:28 Now you too, brothers, like Isaac, are promised children.

Galatians 4:29 But just as then the child born as a result of the physical act persecuted the one born as a result of the Spirit, so also now.

Galatians 4:30 But what does the Scripture say? “Throw out the slave and her son, because the son of the slave will never obtain inheritance rights with the son of the free woman.”

Galatians 4:31 For this reason, brothers, we are not children of a slave but of the free woman.

siding with the bully

Paul carries out his allegory a bit further. He equates the Jewish nation apart from Christ as Ishmael, bullying little Isaac. The reason Paul brings this up is that the heretical faction trying to take over the Galatian churches is seeking to convince them that they need to follow the Jewish traditions even though they are Gentiles. Paul’s team made no such rules for the new Gentile church. To do so would be (in Paul’s analogy) like siding with Ishmael.

Lord, help us to respect your gospel of grace, and resist adding any new regulations to it.

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children of the desolate woman

Posted on July 23, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:21-27 (JDV)

Galatians 4:21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, aren’t you listening to the law?

Galatians 4:22 You see, it is written that Abraham had two sons, one from a slave and the other from a free woman.

Galatians 4:23 But the one from the slave was born as a result of a physical act, while the one from the free woman was born by means of a promise.

Galatians 4:24 These things are being taken allegorically, because the women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery– this is Hagar.

Galatians 4:25 You see, Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and she is in slavery with her children.

Galatians 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Galatians 4:27 You see, it is written, Rejoice, childless woman, unable to give birth. Burst into song and shout, you who are not in labor, because the children of the desolate woman will be many, more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband.

children of the desolate woman

The Jews in Paul’s day must have fumed over his little allegory in which he identified physical Israel as the descendants of a covenant of slavery. Some had told Jesus that they are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been slaves to anyone (John 8:33). But they were indeed slaves – to Rome and to their sinful nature.

But Paul understood the gospel promise that the Gentiles (who were considered desolate and barren by the Jews) would become numerous and fruitful members of God’s eternal kingdom because of Jesus. This did not mean that all Gentiles wholesale would be saved. But it did mean that any Gentile seeking salvation through Christ would not have to go back to the legal regulations of the Sinai covenant to achieve it.

No matter what your physical lineage, God offers you freedom today. The price of freedom has been paid by Christ himself. Accept his payment for your freedom, and live in it.

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listen to our enemies

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:15-20 (JDV)

Galatians 4:15 Where, then, is that feeling that you were blessed? Because I testify to you that, if you were able, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.

Galatians 4:16 So, have I become your enemy because I was truthful to you?

Galatians 4:17 They show zeal for you, but not rightly. They want to shut you out from me, so that you would show zeal for them.

Galatians 4:18 But it is always good to be shown zeal rightly – and not just when I am with you.

Galatians 4:19 My children, I am again suffering birth pains for you until Christ takes shape in you.

Galatians 4:20 I would like to be present with you right now and alter my voice, because I don’t know what to do about you.

listen to our enemies

It is hard to go from flavor of the month to enemy. It hurts to think that people who respected you and wanted to hear your teaching are now ambivalent to it and you.

Because we Christians are seriously interested in teaching about the Bible and theology, we tend to attach ourselves to those whose teachings we appreciate. No problem, except that it usually means we have to take sides. It would be good for us to be careful that in our taking sides, we do not shut out alternative views altogether. Jesus is never wrong, be we are – often.

We should hold our allegiance to Christ firmly, and our loyalty to human teachers with caution and open-mindedness.

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the hurt of rejection

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:12-14 (JDV)

Galatians 4:12 I beg you, brothers: Become like me, since I also became like you. Do not wrong me;

Galatians 4:13 you know that it was because of a physical weakness that I announced the gospel to you formerly.

Galatians 4:14 You did not treat my time of physical testing with rejection or revulsion. On the contrary, you welcomed me as a messenger of God, as Christ Jesus himself.

the hurt of rejection

Paul had experienced the joy of welcome by the Galatians, and the added joy of a successful ministry there. But now things are different. Oddly enough, his time of welcome came when he was fresh into his missionary work, still having to live up to the stigma of having been radically against the church and the gospel until his dramatic conversion. Added to that, he entered the region with a severe illness. He called it his time of physical testing. It was just as much a test of the Galatians as it was of Paul. Would they accept the message from this broken messenger? They did. They had welcomed him as a messenger of God – which he literally was.

But now things had changed. A group of heretics had taken hold of the Galatian congregations, and they were discrediting Paul and his team. There is no hurt quite like the hurt of being discredited and ignored by those who once welcomed and trusted you.

Lord, we pray for those who have been wronged in their churches. Please give them strength and help them get through this terrible time, and bring healing and restoration to them.

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additions that subtract

Posted on July 20, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:8-11 (JDV)

Galatians 4:8 But because you didn’t know God then, you were enslaved to natural creatures who are not gods.

Galatians 4:9 But now, since you have discovered God, but more – you have been discovered by God, how could you have turned back to those weak and poor elemental breaths? Do you want to be enslaved to them again?

Galatians 4:10 You are carefully observing special days and months and seasons1 and years.

Galatians 4:11 I am afraid for you, that somehow I have worked hard among you uselessly.

additions that subtract

The Galatians had been a religious people, so it was easy for the heretics to come along and convince them that God wanted the same things that their false gods had wanted. Ceremony and ritual had been part of their daily lives before they heard the gospel, and responded to it by faith. But Paul and his team knew that additional ceremony and ritual would lead back to the worship of demons. It would render all their hard work of deprogramming the Galatians as useless.

Ritual and holiday observance is not what God wants. A relationship with God cannot be sustained by merely following a ritual, or observing a special day. While such things are not generally harmful, they can be if they distract from one’s freedom in Christ.

Lord, help us to never add anything to our lives that might subtract us from living the free life you bought for us.

1καιρός

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from slaves to sons

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 4:1-7 (JDV)

Galatians 4:1 But I am saying that as long a time as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is the master of everything.

Galatians 4:2 Instead, he is under guardians and stewards until the time set by his father.

Galatians 4:3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world.

Galatians 4:4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born from a woman, born under the law,

Galatians 4:5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might get back1 adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God sent the Breath of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

Galatians 4:7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir by God.

from slaves to sons

Remember that the context of Paul’s letter is a group of heretics trying to take over the congregations in Galatia. They taught that in order to get on God’s good side, the Gentile Galations had to conform to their traditions about the Mosaic law.

But Paul and his team argues that the Mosaic law imposed a temporary status of slavery due to the people’s immaturity. But Jesus came to do two things. First, he abolished this slavery by redeeming all believers through his death on the cross. Then, he breathed his animating breath (the Sacred Breath) into our spiritually lifeless bodies, so that we could get back the Father/son relationship we had lost during our “under the law” period. Now we can go to God personally without the need of a priest or a ceremony.

Lord, thank you that we are no longer slaves, but sons.

1ἀπολαμβάνω

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you together

Posted on July 18, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 3:27-29 (JDV)

Galatians 3:27 You see, however many of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.

Galatians 3:28 There is no Jew or Greek, there is no slave or free person, there is not male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:29 But if you together have this relationship with Christ, then you together are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

you together

I translated the second person plural ὑμεῖς in verse 29 as “you together” to accentuate the fact that the whole congregation has been baptized into Christ, clothed with Christ, and will inherit an equal share in the promise of Abraham.

Paul mentioned these things because a heretical group had invaded Galatia, teaching that God was primarily interested in their differences. To these heretics, a person’s ethnic makeup, social status or gender was what mattered to God. If the Galatians wanted to please God, they would have to become more Jewish, and keep slaves and women in their place.

But Paul said that the whole congregation together was in Christ. The gospel is not about accentuating our differences, but enjoying our unity – one redeemed body of Christ.

Lord, thank you for the unity we now share – bought with your precious blood. Show us how to respect each another as equals.

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set free, and given life

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 3:19-26 (JDV)

Galatians 3:19 Why then was the law given? It was added for the sake of the oversteppings until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come. The law was put into effect by angels by means of a mediator.

Galatians 3:20 But a mediator is not required just for one person, and God is one.

Galatians 3:21 Is the law therefore against God’s promises? Not going to happen! You see, if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law.

Galatians 3:22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power, so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.

Galatians 3:23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed.

Galatians 3:24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.

Galatians 3:25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,

Galatians 3:26 because by faith in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God.

set free, and given life

What freedom and joy comes to us when we learn that God’s word is not a set of shackles to bind us, but a declaration that we have been set free because of what Jesus did! The Galatians had learned that gospel truth. But then a group of heretics came along and were convincing them to lock themselves back up in prison! No way, you say. But that was what Paul had to argue against. The result was a treatise on freedom from the constraints of tradition because of God’s grace.

Lord, thank you that we have been set free from a law which could not give life, and given life freely by your grace.

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what the law was not

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 3:14-18 (JDV)

Galatians 3:14 The purpose was that the endorsement Abraham received would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit by faith.

Galatians 3:15 Brothers, I’m speaking human language. No one sets aside or makes additions to a validated human covenant.

Galatians 3:16 But the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, who is Christ.

Galatians 3:17 My point is this: The law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise.

Galatians 3:18 You see – if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise; but God has done a favor to Abraham by the promise.

what the law was not

Paul is saying that the law of Moses was not a new dispensation that made null God’s promise to Abraham. Seekers of salvation through Christ do not have to go through the law to find him. That is what God intended. His promise to bless the nations through Abraham had been narrowly defined by the circumcision group to only include those who joined ethnic and religious Israel. No, Paul’s team declares that anyone can receive the promise the same way Abraham did – by faith. The only thing new in the gospel is that the focus of that faith has become more clear. The blessing of Abraham is free to all who put their faith in the Seed of Abraham – whom we now know is Christ Jesus.

Lord, thank you for your unmerited favor, received by faith in your promise to Abraham.

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half the law

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Jefferson Vann
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Galatians 3:10-13 (JDV)

Galatians 3:10 You see – all who insist on the achievements of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed.

Galatians 3:11 Now it is clear that no one is justified in God’s presence by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.

Galatians 3:12 But the law is not about faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by doing them.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse in behalf of us, since it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

half the law

The commandment aspect of the law was designed to be a standard no one could reach. It was intended from the very beginning to focus believers on the law principle of substitutionary sacrifice (the other half of the law). That is why so much of the Mosaic law contained details of the sacrificial system. Our universal failure to live up to the moral and ceremonial standards of the law was a given. It is in that sense that we can speak of God’s righteous law as a curse. If an adherent sought only the commandment aspect of the law, she would fail.

But if an adherent put her faith in the righteous commandment and the coming compassionate atoning sacrifice, she would be found faithful. All of the sacrificial principles of the law were prophetic, and pointed to the finished work of Christ. He was the only human being who ever obeyed the law to the fullest – including fulfilling its prophetic aspects of substitutionary atonement.

Lord, thank you that the gospel shows us how to respond to the whole law.

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