August 24, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in selections from Leviticus and Galatians? Here’s today’s reading:
Galatians 4 (NIV)
1 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.……Continue Reading
Galatians 4
A spirit that cries out ABBA Father. Might not always feel it. But the spirit inside us is always crying out to God.
Leviticus 4
Galatians 4
“For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.””
Galatians 4:27 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/gal.4.27.NIV
Please help me to understand this passage, which seems to refer to another scripture:”It is written “.
The reference is to Isaiah 54:1 where the barren women are not urged to sing because of their barrenness but because God will intervene and be their husband and free them from their shame. Paul uses the quote the same way here to point to the hope that we have in the Jerusalem of heaven which is by faith and promise, as opposed to the Jerusalem of earth associated with Hagar and the children of the law.
Thank you, Pastor.
When the time that was right which is God`s own time and not our own time; He sent Jesus the Christ to be born of a woman. This same Jesus who existed from the beginning with the other two persons of the Trinity. This same Jesus who was the agent of creation. Colossians 1:16,17 {For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. } Colossians 2:9 {For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.} John 1:1{In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:14 { And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.} Yes He was in a different form before He was born of a woman. He had to take our place on the cross for only He could pay for our sins. Once we ask Christ to save us we become adopted as His children and can now cry out Abba Father which means we call Him Daddy. This is what I understand Abba Father means. What a relationship we can now have with Him. Even when some of us didn`t have a father or a bad father like I did. It is a on growing process understanding this relationship but He is always listening and trying to guide us even when we may make foolish choices. I have so much to learn even at my age both spiritual and in my actual physical age of 71. Thank God that He is always there to pick us up if we only ask Him. God bless you all.
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, bornfn of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 ¶ And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir off God through Christ.
I was thinking I don’t really like going back and forth between books, but Steve was saying it makes sense with Leviticus and Galatians.
It does make sense especially in this chapter. Paul is dumbfounded that the Galatians are going back under bondage, children of the bondswoman under the law, rather than living as children of promise, of the freewoman. How often do we choose to go back under the law? It is easier to slip into legalism and measure how you (or others) are doing. But that’s not Gods intent, his intent is relationship. We are sons, we can call Him Abba, Father.
Galatians 4
Steve and Camy
Paul continues to passionately address these Galatians that have abandoned the grace of God found in the finished work of Jesus and are being convinced that the law is what makes them right with God. Paul is perplexed because they received the gospel and were doing well and they trusted Paul and his message. Now they are listening to others who are leading them astray. Jesus came to connect us to the promise of God, likened to Isaac, as opposed to Ishmael who came through the orchestration of man. May we live in the promise and passionately pursue the things of God, trusting in the grace that teaches us to say no to ungodliness, and yet also establishes us in relationship with God because of what Jesus did rather than what I did.
Galatians 4
Galatians 4 I like the example Paul uses of Hagar and Sarah one being a slave woman and the other a free woman because of the promise by God. Paul is explaining to the Galatians that they are children of promise, they are not enslaved to the law. Stop listening to false teachers and put your faith in Christ and there you will find freedom.
My religous upbringing focused on good works to be right with God, and sinning brought upon his punishment. But now, with the motivation to know the Truth due to life’s struggles, when I read the word, I understand something much different. I am made right with God through my belief in Jesus, and that compells me to do good works, and his forgiveness gives me freedom from the guilt and shame that sin brings. Praise the Lord!
Indeed, Shelly! Ephesians 2:10 does such a great job of helping us understand why it is we WANT to obey Christ when we are in Christ…”For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
God has done it all for us…and blessing, goodness, and peace will be found when we walk with Him, as He has created us to walk, in Christ Jesus!
Galatians 4 (catching up here…)
Paul’s language is stunning here. He describes the Galatians, and himself, as children BEFORE they knew Christ, enslaved to the world’s systems, systems that will never save. But when God deemed the time right (and God’s timing is ALWAYS right), Jesus came and redeemed us who were once under the bondage of the world’s systems, and indeed adopted us as sons (and daughters). And because we are no longer slaves to the world, but sons and daughters of God…we are heirs of the kingdom of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus!
In many ways, Paul’s description here flies in the face of the idea of “baby Christians”. Rather, he would say that we were children when we were enslaved to the world, but in Christ, we have become sons and daughters of the King, and it is time to act like it. That is his frustration here with the Galatians. He had taught them the truth, and it had appears they were walking in it for a time…but they had turned back to the world’s systems and placed themselves back in bondage, willingly, and he was astounded.
But Paul always contended for the faith and salvation of the churches he planted, exhorting them to the truth revealed by Jesus Christ, and taught by him to these churches…even if it meant risking losing their friendship. “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” Galatians 4:11. Is this a hypothetical statement by Paul, used for dramatic effect? I do not think so. Paul was clearly concerned with his churches and the lives of those in those churches. He knew that if those he preached the gospel to did not repent from their sins and live new lives by the power of the Spirit, there was a chance that they had not come to repentance and might not be saved. 2 Cor 13:5 is another example where Paul has been contending for the souls at Corinth, exhorting them to repent and walk by the Spirit, but acknowledging that there was a possibility that some of them might not be in Jesus Christ.
Back in Galatians 4:16, he asks, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” This points to Pastor’s sermon from Sunday. Paul is here exhorting the Galatians to live lives in accordance with the truth of the gospel…lives that demonstrate the power of God in them that enables them to be in the world, but not of the world. I heard a great analogy of this concept…we are to be boats…we have to be in the water…but there should be no water inside us. It doesn’t belong there, and it actually is dangerous for us. Paul wants the Galatians to go back to where they once were…he can’t understand why they have turned…but Paul knows why they have returned…they have some water in their boat. His mission is to help bail them out by telling them the truth, in love, for their good.
It is so easy for our worldly mind to want to measure our goodness against some standard and that is why we have to stay so conscious of ability to quickly fall into legalism. Legalism and pride then go hand in hand thinking we can earn what has already been freely given but it also pits us against one another by comparison. Rather then recognizing we are ALL sinners, it instead gives us a “I am not as bad as that guy” mindset that adds to our own sin. We are sinners, He has made us new, and we must follow His humble example of obedience not because we need to but because we want to.