Meditations in Galatians #27, Sunday, June 28, 2009 Galatians 4:19
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"My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you--
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Father, I assume that Paul considers the Galatians to be his spiritual children, because he personally brought them the Gospel, and oversaw their early discipleship. He "led them to Christ," and that makes Him their spiritual father. I haven't heard anyone really teach about this before. What kind of responsibility do I receive when I lead someone to faith in Jesus? Are they accountable to me? Oh, they are? So, does that mean that I am still spiritually accountable to the person that led me to faith in Jesus? Am I supposed to do something about that? I mean, its been 42 years. OK. If You will help me and guide me, I will find a way to somehow get him back into my life. How do I find those I have led to Christ? Wow. Do You really want me to try? Oh man, that could take a while. I will definately need Your help with that one, too. And what do I say?
You know what, I don't remember in my own life or ministry, any sustained delibertate "labor" directed at me or by me toward others that had the same focus as Paul did. He made it clear: "Until Christ is formed in you." I have said a lot about us being like Christ in recent years, and to many different people. But how is it that anyone could labor with another person in such a way that Christ is "formed in them?" When Paul says, "again," does that mean that he felt that he had already succeded once before in bringing the Galatians to this point? What if every person that had ever led anyone to Jesus was to go back and make sure that Christ was formed in them? No church would ever be the same!
But...but....just exactly how do we do this? Many "discipleship programs" claim to help us to make progress in some direction related to this, but Paul was never discipled himself. At least not like Jesus' "disciples" were. Uh-Oh. Their discipleship was before Pentecost, does that make a difference? What if it doesn't? Wow! My mind just blew a fuse. I know there is a lot more to that question, but its not relevant right now, because I need to understand what Paul is talking about.
How is it that just keeping some simple rituals which Moses formerly required could cause all of this? Paul is particuarly appalled that they were doing calendar observances. How does that make them "not like Christ?" Jesus may not have kept the Sabbath the way that the Pharisees taught, but according to the Bible He did do Passover and Chanuka. This just doesn't look like the big todo that Paul is making it into. But it can't be "much ado about nothing." Paul is too serious. Maybe he isn't saying that they have completely lost everything, but that they eventually will unless he acts. I can't see Paul even writing this letter if he thought it was too late for them, or if bringing them back to their previous spiritual standard was not possible.
Father, Paul has written so much about the relationship of Jesus to the Mosaic Law, and I think he really wants everyone to get it right. Its all over his letter to the Romans, and it is almost the only subject of the letter to the Hebrews, and he mentions it in his letters to Timothy when he is talking about Ephesus. If this specific subject is so important for the gentiles at Galatia to know, then I want to understand everything Paul says about it, and to have the same attitude toward Moses that Jesus had.
Please open my eyes to understand what Paul was really trying to acomplish, and how Your Spirit through me can be able to do the same kind of "labor" within the context of my own life.
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If you want to see how important
this was to Jesus, skim through this:
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Please let me know if God is using these
Meditations in your life. Thanks, Richard.
(Corrections are ok too!)
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Thank You for giving me a few minutes of your time. Galatians is a unique letter. It will take some time to get into Paul's mind, and from there to understand what God has chosen to reveal through the disaster that the congregation at Galatia was experiencing.
The effect of these Meditations will be cumulative, and the real benefit may have nothing to do with what I have written. I believe that the discipline of having a brief daily conversation with God about the meaning of a variety of Bible passages over a period of a few weeks, even if you come to some very different conclusions, will still be a wonderful and enlightening experience for you. At DeadRight.net, under the Yellow Pages, is some background info about Galatians. If you missed an earlier Meditation, you can still read it at DeadRight.net by going to the homepage, clicking on Newsletter, and clicking on "browse previous newsletters." Eventually all of them will be in the Yellow Pages.