Oh my heart, my heart, my heart. My daughter's the countdown clock keeps ticking toward them graduating. I walked by the closet the other day. There's two graduation gowns hanging in there. I might sound whiny to you. It's killing me. I love them so much. I have loved dading them through childhood so much. And over these weeks, I keep thinking back on all of these awesome memories, and we're working on slideshows and everything right now. And so I'm reminded of all of these moments and what they were exploring in these little moments with their giant oversized innocent eyes and their squishy cheeks. Always knowing that they could go and take chances and feel out the great wide world around them a little more each day. Because I had their dad. This is their safety net. Come running back to me if anything goes wrong. I'm crying. Hang on. Crap. Well, look what I did to myself. This is great. We're gonna talk about Galatians today. It's gonna be great. I was remembering one of these moments. This is when we first watched Star Wars with them, and I thought they could handle it. Yeah, I I knew it was risky, the whole Anakin thing. We watched it in order, and we got to the part where Anakin makes the wrong choice, and they were too young. I shouldn't have done it. And my younger daughter, they're both in the same year of school, but they're a year apart. My younger daughter crawled behind a couch as the lightsaber ignites and just starts yelling, no, no, no, Anakin, no. And oh, we all remember that day. I shouldn't have done it, bad parenting, whatever. And she laughs about it now. But she came back around. We watched the rest of that episode of Star Wars and the other really impactful moment there with them both on my lap, curled up tight, is when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin fight on the lava planet. And if you don't know anything about Star Wars, it's not a big deal. I'm gonna be done with this soon. I'm still wiping up my eyes a little bit here. And there's this moment where the tension between young, rebellious Anakin, who's all emotion and impulse, and older refined Obi-Wan, hello there, who's always composed and doing things the right way. There's a moment where it all breaks down. And Obi-Wan, instead of appealing to the ruling of the council and other things like that, he finally just lets his guard down, his shoulders slump. I mean, it's really for a movie that isn't about acting. This is pretty good stuff from Ewan McGregor. And instead of making any kind of argument or case, he just blurts out his emotions in the moment. You are supposed to be the chosen one. You're supposed to defeat the bad guys, not join them. You are my brother. A person could look at what Obi-Wan Kenobi said there and be like, oh, well, he just lost it and he's gone unhinged. Finally, emotions have got the better of him. But I think you could also look at that and say, he's making his one final plea. This is the last bullet he has to fire here, to appeal to their past together, to completely go vulnerable and open up his emotions and how he feels about what's happening. And so I think it can be both. I think Obi-Wan was both being calculating, knowing you can't just fire this shot every day, all day, all the time. That's hysteria. No, I only really get to play this card once, and I'm going to play it right here. This is kind of what you save this for. But likewise, we're running into a passage here in Galatians that works kind of the same way. There's a pivot that happens between Galatians 4.11 and Galatians 4.12, where Paul goes from a very extended, almost lawyerly set of arguments, making a logical case on four or five different levels for why the Galatians should not abandon the true gospel in favor of reverting to how they used to be, in favor of reverting to some sense of trying to earn the favor of God through adherence to rules. Paul just got done appealing to their sense of freedom and human dignity. You were slaves under this old system. You used to be slaves to the law. You used to be slaves to the elemental forces of the world. You used to be slaves to the calendars of every come lately pagan religion, having to remember how you're supposed to dress and what you're supposed to do on this day and that to keep up with all of these things so you can hedge your bets and maybe get the right God to be happy with you because you remembered his little day or festival or whatever. This doesn't make sense. You have freedom in Christ. You should stay there. That's a logical appeal. You see what I'm saying? But when we pivot to twelve, it's kind of like the pivot that we get with Obi-Wan toward here's how I feel. So I'm just going to read you all eight verses of this impassioned section, and then we'll talk about it a little bit more. Galatians 4, 12 through 20. I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You've done me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. And even though my illness was a trial to you, you didn't treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I was an angel from God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself. What's 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. So have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Those people are jealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us so that you may be zealous for them. It's fine to be zealous, provided that the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I'm with you. My dear children, for whom I'm again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I'm perplexed about you. There we go. You've heard the whole block with your own ears. I don't think I'm exaggerating with the tone that I'm applying to. And I think that's the tone with which he's talking. Maybe you see that differently. That'd be okay, but that's how I read it. And in terms of the feel of the book, I see a rational flow here in what Paul is doing. I see him behaving like Obi-Wan. This is kind of my last shot with these people. I can't fire this bullet all the time, but I'm gonna fire it here. Even though it is an emotional plea, it is an entirely rational move. Not everybody agrees with me on that. And frankly, some of the people who disagree with me are so far and away better versed in all of this. But I do disagree with them because they're making the case that this is almost like an unhinged passage, that there is no logical flow or order to any of this stuff, that this is one of, therefore, one of the most difficult passages in all of the New Testament to interpret. But does it seem like that to you? Does this sound like Paul isn't making sense? Or does this sound like a guy who is doing two things? One, genuinely expressing his real emotion about the situation. Part of that is appealing to his history with the people he knows in Galatia, and also two, being very selective about when to say that and employing it in the service of a larger argument, using it as a selah, as a beat, as a tonal changeup in the middle of the point he's making. With all due respect to the Bible geniuses for whom I really do have all due respect, I think they might be wrong on this one. I don't think Paul's lost his mooring here. I think he's entirely moored. I think it's the Galatians who've lost their mooring. And Paul shrewdly is choosing at this time to tell the truth about how that makes him feel. Alright, we got just a little bit of time left here. Let me take a quick run at this Galatians 4.12, which I think is the trickiest phrase in this whole emotional appeal section, but I think we can unravel it. I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. I think it's discernible. I think what he's saying is I used to put my hope in the law, then I abandoned that and I put my hope in Christ. Now the tables have kind of turned, and you guys have put your hope in the law, and now it's time for you to abandon that and re put your trust in Christ or solidify that decision. In other words, in the past, I've been where you guys are now, and now, oh how the turntables have turned, you're where I was before I knew Christ, and now you need to make the same leap that I made. Maybe I'm wrong. It's a challenging turn of a phrase, but the final clause here, the final sentence of this verse is you have done me no wrong. Time-wise, we're gonna unpack that one tomorrow because I think there he's talking about, he's contrasting his relationship with the Galatian church with the agitator's relationship with the Galatian church. And I think Paul is saying in the middle of this emotional appeal, I actually love you. I'm actually trying to help you. I don't actually need anything from you, even though in the past you've been completely willing to give anything I would need from you. These people do need something from you. They're manipulating you, they're working you over. There's a certain pathology with them that is really twisted up. So we'll unpack that contrasting a little bit more tomorrow. The point is it was infinitely reasonable of Obi-Wan to understand you only get to fire off this emotional, heartfelt shot one time. And he saved it and he employed it when it made the most sense, given the setting, given the moment, given the place he was in the conversation with Anakin in Star Wars episode three. It was rational, even though it was emotional. So, Paul is doing something very rational here, even though it's also emotional and entirely true. More on this passage next time around, and thank you for not making fun of me for crying. I'm so fragile right now. What the heck is the matter with me? Whatever, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.