Daily Devotion for Lent 2021 - Day 9

Scripture Reading: Galatians 4 (NRSV)

Within this part of the letter, Paul is continuing to make the appeal to Gentile Christians that they need not adopt Judaism in order to be faithful to Christ.

Paul speaks of being heirs through the Holy Spirit and uses the image of slavery and freedom.  When he speaks of "observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years" in verse ten, he is speaking of the practices of Jewish fast-days among other seasons that observant Jews followed.  

Halloween costumes are not harmful to
Christians (maybe to dogs - see Batman above)
if they are not used as ways to make faith
in Christ conditional on them!

These are not harmful to the Christian unless they are seen as primary for the faith prior to their commitment to Jesus Christ.  Some Christians avoid secular holidays like Halloween or Thanksgiving out of a more strict reading of this passage.  Others may even avoid secular celebrations of Christian holidays like Christmas or Easter.  As we look at this passage within its context, Paul would likely say that these observations would not help or hinder one's faith necessarily.  If they began to replace our faith in Christ or if they were prioritized over our faith in Christ (such as these observations must come first), then Paul would tell us to throw them out.

When Paul makes the allegory of children of the covenant coming through Hagar (the slave girl) and Sarah (where Jewish people claim their lineage), he switches common understanding and claims that Hagar represents Mount Sinai which is where Moses received the Law.  Paul is trying to say that those who remain under the Law are children of the slave Hagar.  Because Sarah is a free woman, her children come through the promise.  Paul references Sarah through Isaiah 54:1 in verse 27 since Sarah was barren for so much of her life before she bore Isaac.  The Isaiah verse originally referred to the Jewish people who were in exile as the "barren."  

It was originally meant as a comfort to those lost in exile.  Their descendants would eventually thrive.  Now Paul suggests that the Gentiles have become the children of Sarah through faith in Christ.

He is likely making this argument to refute the Judaizing Christians who made the claim that the Gentiles were children through Hagar and thus, subservient to they who claimed their descendance through Sarah.  

This is a further movement of assurance to the Gentile Christians that leaps from the previous chapter's declaration that "there is no longer Jew or Greek" in Christ.  

For us today, it continues to call us to humility.  We are to look at the world and see how God values all people.  For those of us in Christ, we may subtly prioritize ourselves above others from a spiritual sense.  We may not consciously think ourselves superior but it may come through in our interactions with others.  

How do we extend the grace we have received to others?  As we see Paul's radical argument of assurance to a people that were not raised with this understanding of God, we may see that he understood grace only to be effective if you were willing to give it away to others.

This is always a check against current power structures within the church.  They should always be serving those who are not yet in Christ.  When they begin to be self-serving, we are losing the urgency and passion that we see in Paul.

Prayer for the day:

Loving God, we give thanks for the love we have in Christ.  It gives us assurance of your forgiveness of our sins.  Help us to see this as a gift that we do not use up.  May we remember that we are not diminished by others claiming this gift but rather we find greater clarity of identity.  We open ourselves today to re-examine our motives for faith.  We pray these things through this same love of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

Photo by Mike McCune via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

All scripture quoted is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.