Prepare
Can you handle the truth? It takes a good friend to challenge – let God be honest with you now.
Galatians 4:8–20
‘What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?’
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces ? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11 I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. 12 I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. 14 Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15 What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. 18 It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. 19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20 how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!
Main point: Choose life
Have you known a friend or family member turning away from God? It’s deeply upsetting – and difficult to understand – when someone who has known Jesus chooses to give up the freedoms of their new life in Christ.
Turning away from God
It may not be much consolation, but it’s not a new problem. Paul knew that the Galatians had well and truly turned to Christ. Their lives showed all the evidence of redeemed hearts: they were generous, welcoming, joyful and compassionate. And Paul loved them.
Small wonder, then, that he was so upset when he learned that they’d turned back to their former habits and were zealously observing religious rituals instead of rejoicing in their new life in Christ. In Paul’s opinion, this was a decision as odd as a free man choosing to go back to slavery.
What are you passionate about?
Yet old ways can be very comforting. Tempting, even. And the Christian life can be a road of suffering.
If we are to hold on to our life with Christ, perhaps we should look at what we’re passionate about. Honestly, what really excites you?
Being in a relationship with the Lord of the universe, or sitting in the same place at church every Sunday? Kingdom life or empty ritual – which is it to be?
The seeds planted during Jesus’ ministry have flourished. Fifteen or twenty years later there are young churches springing up and spreading through the Roman world – Gentiles and Jews together praising God and living without the constraints of the Law as understood by the Pharisees.
Recently, however, the faith of the Galatian Christians has been disturbed by teachers who have urged them to adopt the Jewish way of life, receiving circumcision, eating only kosher food, and observing the Sabbath (v 10).
Old rules invalid
Paul to be sure believed that the Law was given by God, but he believed it had been given for a limited time, until the Messiah should come (Galatians 3:24; Romans 10:4). Now that Christ had come, eating with sinners, welcoming tax collectors and granting membership of God’s people to Gentiles, the rules that had kept Israel distinct from the other nations had lost their validity.
To submit to them was a lurch back into a state similar to what they had known before, each nation subject to the ‘weak and miserable principles’ of its own national gods. This reminds us that any religious tradition, including our own, can become an enslaving idolatry.
Risky alternative
To dispense with the tried and trusted rules of Judaism might seem like a recipe for anarchy or immorality (as it seemed to Paul’s opponents), but there is an alternative. Paul’s desire was that Christ would be formed in them (v 19): that Christ, by his Spirit, would so dwell in them that that they would learn to look at each situation with the eyes of Christ, and learn in their own experience how to please the Lord (Ephesians 5:10; Romans 12:2).
Teaching people to think for themselves is hard, slow work. Trusting God to teach people by his Spirit will always seem risky; it is much easier to give them a list of dos and don’ts!