I learned a lot about Rules

Galatians 4:21-31

What a profound question: “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?”  It is believed that Paul was not just referring to the Law of Moses, but to the Books of the law, the Pentateuch.  “The word Pentateuch means "five vessels," "five containers," or "five-volumed book." In Hebrew the Pentateuch is Torah, meaning "the law" or "instruction." Another name for the Pentateuch is "the five books of Moses." (What is the Pentateuch? By Mary Fairchild)  

As you read verse 21, what is the Spirit saying to you, are you a rule keeper, do you live life by the many do and don’ts of the past, from some teacher, or pastor, or are you allowing the Spirit of Christ, who indwells you, to bless you with the freedoms we have in Him?  As one who grew-up in the Baptist church, (very small and very judgmental little churches) I learned a lot about rules; we Baptist did not dance, nor date girls who did.  We did not drink or associate with those that did, so what did I do, the very opposite, until I came to Christ at the age of 27.  As a Baptist, those rules never got in my way I operated by the rules while around Baptists, that is unless they were rule breakers like myself, and the rest of the time I lived independent of the rules.

It was only after I entered into Christ that the rules came back, it was not conviction from the Spirit of God, but from what I’ve referred to as Channel One, the deceptive channel in my mind that sounds just like my voice and wants to enslave me once again to what the apostle Paul calls the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world.  As a Baptist I was trained like a birddog by rules that would make your flesh better, like being at church every time the doors were open, any form of drinking was sinful, that Jesus never drank, and dancing would turn your heart from God.  As I began to explore the Scripture the Holy Spirit began to teach me it is not what I put into my mouth that corrupts me, but what I allow in my mind and heart. 

Paul is using the birth of two sons, Ishmael from the slave women, and Isaac from the free women, or woman of promise.  Ishmael is an example of the best the flesh can do, but falls short of the promise of God.  Where as Isaac, the promised child, was by faith in a promise made many years before it happened.  “Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” (Galatians 4:24-26, ESV)

The false teachers came from Jerusalem, to the young Christians at Syria, Antioch and Galatia, they were Jews living by rules but not by faith, and they represent spiritual slavery through the law.  But those living by faith are the Jerusalem above and this takes place only in the new heaven and new earth.  Many of us come into Christ with baggage; habits, traditions, and rules, not from faith, but from the past, and those will war with the Spirit and we must drive them out of our mind and heart by renewal in God’s Word.  For we are the children of the free woman, we are the children of promise.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice