If you're listening to the Ten Minute Bible number podcast, it's best on the free daily deep minute Bible. And right now we're talking about Galatians.
SPEAKER_00Oh my. Last time around, we're talking about Greek philosophy and Plato and Aristotle and video games with my son and the four elements and fighting dragons and stuff. And you're probably like, what that was a lot, man. Maybe you felt a little overwhelmed by that. I would encourage you not to. You know why? Because you're smart and you're good at understanding ideas and interpreting things. And sometimes it just takes a minute to let new stuff that maybe you haven't heard of before sink in a little bit, but pretty quickly you're swimming in those waters comfortably. So the goal today is to make sense of what Paul is talking about here in Galatians 4, verse 3. It seems like he's acknowledging an assumption that his audience had about the nature of things, the nature of the world. It seems like what he's saying is that was your reality before Christ. But now in Christ, there is something bigger and even truer than the most foundational, fundamental elements of nature that seem to undergird and define everything. I have often said as we've been working through Jesus stuff, like in our first season on Matthew, this kingdom stuff, this Jesus stuff is held out in the Bible as being the truest, realest thing ever, bigger than all other realities, encompassing of all other realities. This is the big one, the big truth. And Paul certainly is saying the same stuff here. So let's dig into this language that we started talking about a little bit yesterday. Here's the passage in question: Galatians 4, 1 through 5. What I'm saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he's no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. All right, that is reading back here in Galatians chapter 4 to the end of Galatians chapter 3, where Paul had been talking about the law and saying the law was good. God did a good job with the law, the law had a very specific role, and that role was to serve as a tutor. It shows us our own failure before God and it shows us our sin and why we need God. It shows us the character of God, it provides order and boundaries to society. The law was good, but the law is not ultimately the end game for right standing with God and salvation. That's Jesus. There was an era in which we were kind of metaphorically kids in the grand estate of God, and that's the era of the law. The law is our strict tutor, but then there is an heir era, H-E-I-R, heir era, where there's a maturing into the role that the father of the house, the head of the household would have for the sons and daughters as they age into this next place. And Paul is saying that Christ is the mechanism by which we become sons, daughters, heirs, agents of the kingdom, robed in the noble clothing of the noble royal head of the household. And so he sets all of that up, and then he pivots saying, What I'm saying is this, as long as the heir is a child, he's no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. To me that feels like he's kind of landing the plane a little bit on those previous points about the law. He goes on. He's subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. Sure, we're understanding the imagery here, I think. But now he says in verse three, so also, and I think you could take that so also as one of two pivots. It could be, in the same way I use it, uh likewise. Likewise, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world or under the elemental forces of the world. We'll talk more about the original language there in a minute. So it could just be a likewise. Yeah, like that, it's just like this. It could be also understood as furthermore, it's not just the law that we were subject to. It's the law and us being locked into nature, those primeval elemental forces that everybody can reason to. Everything's made of some combination of earth and water and wind and fire, something like that, those four elements, that ancient elemental Greek theory of the natural physical world, it might be that what Paul is saying here is that even more so than just being in a state of slavery under the law. We were there, but also we're in a state of slavery and subjection to the elemental forces of earth, just nature as we understand nature, bound in time, bound by the physical world. Now I tend to think it's the latter. I think Paul is expanding his point here to then go on to say that Christ is giving us freedom and right standing before God and a role as an heir in the household of God, which elevates us out of that position, that double position of slave that we were in under the era of the law and locked into the physical world, best characterized by just saying the elemental forces of existence. You need to know that there are really smart people who are better at all of this than I am, who think that what Paul is saying here is that he's just doubling down on the law. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world, or the basic elemental forces. Here's why I disagree with those people who are smarter than me, though. Paul doesn't say basic principles of the world before here in Galatians when he's talking about the law. He says the law, he calls it what it is. Is the law the basic principles of the world? Well, here's where the smart people maybe have a point. Yeah, if if Paul's taking an example from everyday life here and he's saying, you know, these are just it's just the way things work in a household. You start like this, you get tutored, you have a bunch of rules, even though you're eventually going to be an heir to the household, you're just a pup, and you don't get that right standing, that full standing, until later on you sort of graduate into it. So it's possible that Paul's saying the basic principles, the basic elemental order of things in the world is this trajectory of growth that he's describing, where you're a kid, you get tutored, and eventually you get more responsibility, and eventually you have the ownership as an heir of the household. Or maybe he was saying we were slaves subject to the law and also slaves subject to the natural order, but then Christ. And that's the next verse. But when the time had fully come, God sent his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Now, in fairness, I think either interpretation works. It's not like, oh, if it's how Matt thinks it is, then the Bible makes sense. But if it's how those other smart people he's vaguely referencing think it is, then there was probably no Jesus and everything's fake and there's no God and I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life. It's not like that. Either way, I think this is all cohesive theologically. I'm just curious. I'm not like trying to solve Christianity or God or the Bible or anything here. I'm just curious as to what he meant, because I've seen Paul make nods to these Greek ideas about the nature of the world and existence in other places. And I'm curious, is he making one here? And if so, well that kind of takes me down a meaning rabbit hole even further as to what he's driving at. Is he just doubling down on his analogy about the law here and it the role it plays that being similar to like a guardian or a steward or a tutor when somebody's young and learning about how the things are and how the house is and how the master of the house is, and it's he's just kind of landing the plane on it and fleshing it out? Well, yeah, I mean it could be that. That would be great too. But obviously, so much of the tension here in solving it just has to do with the English translation. I got one in front of me that says basic principles of the world. I got another one in front of me that says elementary principles of the world. I got another one that's using language like elemental forces, elements. So maybe there's some limitation in translation. I think what we need to do is in real time tomorrow, do the work ourselves. We're just gonna grind through it and we're gonna see where it goes. And I am not gonna know until we crack this open. Now here's my little secret. Tomorrow for you is like two minutes from now for me, because I'm gonna keep going on this right now because I'm having fun. So I will see you tomorrow now that we have our big conundrum intention set up here, and we'll do some real live Bible work together and see what makes the most sense here, and I think it'll be fun. And even if it turns out that I'm an idiot to have imagined that there's something to be sniffed around at here, we'll learn that together in real time live. I don't mind looking stupid in front of you. Or we'll find out that maybe there is something to the way the King James translated it, and there is a little nod to the Greek philosophy, Plato-Aristotle stuff here, and that will be fun too. But either way, tomorrow will be a fun day because we'll just get out the resources and we'll do Bible digging in real time together. And I think it's gonna be a blast. Okay, for me, I'll see you in two minutes. For you, I'll catch you tomorrow. I'm Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.
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