STEWARDSHIP OF GOSPEL & COMMISSION #2/2
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
A FAMILY OF FAITH
May 4, 2003
(evening service)
TEXT: Galatians 3:26-4:7
It just so happens that we are in the middle of the time of the year in
which an emphasis is placed upon family life. We have will be celebrating
Mother's Day. Fathers Day is not far behind, and there are even a
Children's Day and National Christian Family Week. It is also getting
closer to the time when family reunions start up and go throughout the
summer.
So is it not appropriate to review our position as members of God's
family? As Paul built up to in Galatians 4:7, "So you are no longer a
slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an
heir." Being an heir, especially in the culture of Paul's day, was
particularly important. We in America are used to the idea that we are
born into a certain kind of freedom. By virtue of our birth, we are
American citizens. Not so, in the lands of Paul's day. Your parents may
have been born in Rome, and you may have been born in Rome, but if your
parents were not Roman citizens, then you were not a Roman citizen
either. In fact, if your parents were slaves, then you, too, would
automatically be a slave. Not exactly an ideal situation, was it?
This is the background that Paul is using to illustrate the point he is
trying to drive home. Being an heir of God is more than just receiving an
inherited estate. It means that we are born into - or born again into -
the family of God. We are created anew by faith into God's family. We
become sons and daughters of the living God. Paul's use of "sons" in his
letter by no means excludes females from this family participation. It is
merely the word choice that was familiar then. Indeed, Paul points out a
few verses above that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,
male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Bible scholar William Barclay historically illuminates these verses. By
Christian baptism a man entered into Christ. The early Christians looked
on baptism as something which produced a real union with Christ
Baptism
was no mere outward form; it was a real union with Christ.
Paul goes on to say that they had put on Christ. There may be here a
reference to a custom which certainly existed later. The candidate for
baptism was clothed in pure white robes, symbolic of the new life into
which he entered. Just as the initiate put on his new white robe, his
life was clothed with Christ.
The result is that in the Church there was no difference between any of
the members; they had all become sons of God. In Gal.3:28 Paul says that
the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and
female is wiped out. There is something of very great interest here. In
the Jewish morning prayer, which Paul must all his pre-Christian life
have used, the Jew thanks God that Thou hast not made me a Gentile, a
slave or a woman. Paul takes that prayer and reverses it. The old
distinctions were gone; all were one in Christ.
We have already seen (Gal.3:16) that Paul interprets the promises made to
Abraham as specially finding their fulfilment in Christ; and, if we are
one with Christ, we, too, inherit the promises--and this great privilege
comes not by a legalistic keeping of the law, but by an act of faith in
the free grace of God.
Only one thing can wipe out the ever-sharpening distinctions and
separations between man and man; when all are debtors to God's grace and
all are in Christ, only then will all be one. It is not the force of man
but the love of God which alone can unite a disunited world.
In the ancient world the process of growing up was much more definite
than it is with us.
(i) In the Jewish world, on the first Sabbath after a boy had passed his
twelfth birthday, his father took him to the Synagogue, where he became A
Son of the Law. The father thereupon uttered a benediction, Blessed be
thou, O God, who has taken from me the responsibility for this boy. The
boy prayed a prayer in which he said, O my God and God of my fathers! On
this solemn and sacred day, which marks my passage from boyhood to
manhood, I humbly raise my eyes unto thee, and declare with sincerity and
truth, that henceforth I will keep thy commandments, and undertake and
bear the responsibility of mine actions towards thee. There was a clear
dividing line in the boy's life; almost overnight he became a man.
(ii) In Greece a boy was under his father's care from seven until he was
eighteen. He then became what was called an ephebos, which may be
translated cadet, and for two years he was under the direction of the
state. The Athenians were divided into ten phratriai, or clans.
Before a lad became an ephebos, at a festival called the Apatouria,
he was received into the clan; and at a ceremonial act his long hair was
cut off and offered to the gods. Once again, growing up was quite a
definite process.
(iii) Under Roman law the year at which a boy grew up was not definitely
fixed, but it was always between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. At a
sacred festival in the family called the "Liberalia" he took off the
"toga praetexta," which was a toga with a narrow purple band at the foot
of it and put on the "toga virilis," which was a plain toga which adults
wore. He was then conducted by his friends and relations down to the
forum and formally introduced to public life. It was essentially a
religious ceremony. And once again there was a quite definite day on
which the lad attained manhood. There was a Roman custom that on the day
a boy or girl grew up, the boy offered his ball, and the girl her doll,
to Apollo to show that they had put away childish things.
When a boy was an infant in the eyes of the law, he might be the owner of
a vast property but he could take no legal decision; he was not in
control of his own life; everything was done and directed for him; and,
therefore, for all practical purposes he had no more freedom than if he
were a slave; but when he became a man he entered into his full
inheritance.
So--Paul argues--in the childhood of the world, the law held sway. But
the law was only elementary knowledge. To describe it Paul uses the word
stoicheia. A stoicheion was originally a line of things; for
instance, it can mean a file of soldiers. But it came to mean the ABC's,
and then any elementary knowledge.
It has another meaning which some would see here the elements of which
the world is composed, and in particular, the stars. The ancient world
was haunted by a belief in astrology. If a man was born under a certain
star his fate, they believed, was settled. Men lived under the tyranny of
the stars and longed for release. Some scholars think that Paul is saying
that at one time the Galatians had been tyrannised by their belief in the
baleful influence of the stars. But the whole passage seems to make it
necessary to take stoicheia in the sense of rudimentary knowledge.
Paul says that when the Galatians--and indeed all men--were mere
children, they were under the tyranny of the law; then, when everything
was ready, Christ came and released men from that tyranny. So now men are
no longer slaves of the law; they have become sons and have entered into
their inheritance. The childhood which belonged to the law should be
past; the freedom of manhood has come.
The proof that we are sons comes from the instinctive cry of the heart.
In man's deepest need he cries, Father! to God. Paul uses the double
phrase, Abba! Father! Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. It must
have been often on Jesus' lips, and its sound was so sacred that men kept
it in the original tongue. This instinctive cry of man's heart Paul
believes to be the work of the Holy Spirit. If our hearts so cry, we know
that we are sons, and all the inheritance of grace is ours.
For Paul, he who governed his life by slavery to the law was still a
child; he who had learned the way of grace had become a mature man in the
Christian faith. (William Barclay, Galatians, The Barclay Daily Study
Bible Series - New Testament, from The Bible Library for Catholics
(CD-ROM), Liguori Faithware, used by permission of Westminster John Knox
Press.)
Being members of the family of God is one of the critical elements of
Paul's theological thought in Galatians and in other letters. The
Galatian Christians included many Gentiles. They were not exclusively
Gentile because Acts 13 tells us that Paul and Barnabbas began preaching
in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, which was in the province of
Galatia. In Acts 13:47-48, we read, "for this is what the Lord has
commanded us: 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may
bring salvation to the ends of the earth.' When the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were
appointed for eternal life believed."
In a moment, through faith in Jesus Christ, Gentiles of the Galatian
province were transformed from outsiders into the very family of the God
they wanted to serve! Gentiles were hungering and thirsting spiritually,
but the rules and regulations of the Jews kept most of them from
worshiping the true God. And even those Gentiles who went through the
rigors of satisfying the Jewish "rites of passage" were still treated
like second class citizens by those who should have welcomed them. No
wonder the Gentiles were glad when Paul welcomed them into the family of
God. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the
Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'
There is something we need to recognize about families, though. They have
problems. Differences can rear up which threaten to tear families apart.
We may like to idealize what family life is like, but very few can lay
claim to an absolutely perfect family life.
The same rings true in the family of faith. It is unfortunate, because it
need not be that way. We have the perfect Father who provides us with the
gift and blessings of salvation. We have been made sons and daughters of
the Holy One. We can rejoice and be glad, just like the Gentiles of
Pisidian Antioch did when they heard the good news. We can "have it all,"
so to speak.
But sin creeps in. Or, more accurately, barges in. Disagreements flare up
that turn into heated issues. Feelings are hurt; pride is put into place;
and relationships wither and die. This was certainly not foreign to Paul.
In fact, the purpose of the letter to the Galatians was to try to put
down a "family feud" that was beginning to flare up between Christians.
There was a group or groups of Christians, mind you, coming up from
Jerusalem who were claiming that in order for the Galatian's faith to be
complete, they needed to be circumcised. Reading from 2:3-5, "Yet not
even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though
he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false brothers had
infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and
to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the
truth of the gospel might remain with you."
Paul was adamantly opposed to those who were attempting to add to the
message of salvation through Christ. They may have been members of the
family, but they were going out of their way to agitate the family so
that they could get their way. And Paul argued fiercely that to go along
with them meant returning to the enslavement they knew before salvation
was preached!
Families are like that, though. They have difficulties and difficult
members that threaten to tear the fabric of the family apart. And in our
lives of faith, we continue to have plenty of family feuds. Christians
argue with other Christians over too many things. We try to make our
differences the focal point instead of our common inheritance as sons and
daughters of the everlasting Father. Denominations and churches split
over many issues, but when I look beyond the surface of the arguments, I
find that most feuds boil down to some form of greed, power, and
manipulation.
Paul witnessed those kinds of family problems, too. Not so much in
Galatians, but later in the Corinthian church. Early in 1 Corinthians,
Paul identifies the problem: "My brothers, some from Chloe's household
have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this:
One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another,
'I follow Cephas'; still another, 'I follow Christ.'" All of these
divisions in the family just because they wanted to form groups to
support their particular points of view. And all through these many
problems Paul kept reminding believers that they were family members
united by faith in Jesus Christ. As he emphasized in Galatians 5:6, "For
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."
In spite of difficulties past and present, a family can be a rather tough
and resilient entity. In spite of problems, most people want to identify
with a family of some kind. And Christians, because we are made sons and
daughters of God the Father, want to participate in the family of God. We
may mess it up from time to time by failing to cry out to our heavenly
"Abba" - Daddy. But in spite of our bickerings and failures, God has
still created a very powerful force in this world through the family and
fellowship of Christ's Church. This is certainly a hopeful message for us
all!
In fact, when it comes down to it, the family of faith ends up preaching
a better sermon than I can. It teaches better lessons than our Sunday
school teachers can. Tony Campolo illustrates from one of his speaking
experiences: "A few years ago I was asked to be a speaker at a very
affluent and very formal Presbyterian church located just outside
Washington, D.C. The worship service that Sunday proceeded with all the
dignity that expresses Presbyterianism at its best...
Quite unexpectedly, the decorum of the church was disrupted by a barefoot
young man who was spaced-out on drugs and dressed in rags. This
disreputable-looking creature stumbled down the main aisle of the church
all the way to the front of the sanctuary. The entire congregation was
taken aback by the intruder. I watched with much anxiety as he stood and
stared at the preacher. Then, suddenly, he squatted on the floor just to
the right of the pulpit.
The pastor tried to ignore him and did his best to keep the service
moving along, but he was obviously upset. Then a tall, elderly gentleman,
dressed in establishment attire, got up from his pew and walked
deliberately down the aisle toward the strange visitor. The old man
carried a brass-capped cane, and some feared that he was going to use it
to drive the hippie intruder out of the sanctuary. But instead, something
remarkable happened. The old man paused beside that dirty and ragged
young man, sat down, and put his arm around his shoulder. Those unlikely
partners sat arm in arm for the rest of the service. They provided the
congregation of that church with the real sermon of the morning.
The loving acceptance of church people has always been a primary factor
in winning people to Christ. Very often, it is love more than anything
else that leads people to become Christians. Over and over again people
attest to the fact that it was not the piety but the love they found in
the church that moved them to consider making a serious commitment to
Christ. No wonder ordinary church people are more effective in the work
of evangelism than all the television evangelists put together!" (Tony
Campolo, Who Switched the Price Tags?, Waco: Word Press, pp. 174-175).
This is family living at its best! This is what Christ did, and this is
what his family is to do. We enter into this family by faith, which frees
us from slavery to the law and to the bonds of this world. "Because you
are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who
calls out, Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and
since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."
Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN
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