Galatians 4

[laughs] I shouldn't have been.

There's a verse in the Bible, I gotta tell you where it is, okay? It's in Galatians 4:16, okay? "Have I become your enemy because I told you the truth?" I used to tell that to my patients.

I'm the bad guy here? Whoa.

You're telling me I'm not normal.

But for now, let's review a concept called a tale of two sons.

Let's go to Galatians 4.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Now, you've learned over the past several weeks that Paul is using the events of Abraham's life that produced Ishmael and Isaac as an allegory for one's approach to the law here in Galatians.

Ishmael is himself blessed and loved by God, but the process that produced him, it wasn't born of God.

Ishmael is the result of human effort in trying to make God's promise come about through human strength.

How fun is that? You get to study that in the book of Genesis, the shadow and type of our Lord.

That is what cults are made of.

If people try to, Galatians 4, 17 says, they zealously court you, but for no good.

Yes, they want to exclude you, that you be zealous for them.

They're trying to get you just to be zealous for them, not be open to the Lord.

So if potential sons or disciples if they leave, if they abruptly leave the relationship, don't receive that as personal rejection.

Keep praying for them.

Galatians 4, 19 says, my little children for whom I labor and birth again until Christ is formed in you.

So don't write them off your list.

And in fact, I would say that there are many times when pastors and preachers in evangelical churches do allegory in their moral applications and the rhetorical flourishes that are really, they wouldn't call them allegory, but really are and are fitting within the biblical tradition and the Christian tradition about how to teach the Bible.

You want to talk about the biblical tradition, we can talk about Paul in Galatians 4, right? He literally uses the word allegoromena, an allegory.

Sometimes we might translate that as a type or a figure, but he uses the word allegory.

And the church fathers look at that and say the biblical authors were doing that and they were showing us that we can read the Bible allegorically and that there is allegory in the Bible.

In Galatians 4, the Apostle Paul makes his most polarizing, most scandalous argument against Torah observance.

Now remember, this is the Apostle Paul, also known as Saul, to go by his Hebrew name.

He was a Pharisee of Pharisees before he became a follower of Christ.

And every time you make a little bit of a leap or you move forward just a little bit in your understanding, it helps you know God more fully.

So that's what I'm all about, and thank you for tuning in.

Now let's get into our study, and let's recall— that we ended our last galatians live stream in verse 16 of galatians chapter 4 where paul asks the galatians have i then become your enemy by telling you the truth you can see that right here on the screen if you're watching this on youtube or rundle youtube or rumble and you have the screen up in galatians 4 16 paul says to them have i become your enemy by telling you the truth He's perplexed.

He's puzzled by the fact that these people, the Galatians, people who came to become Christians because of Paul's witness and his example, he's perplexed that these people who were at one point so honoring of him have now seemed to completely turn the other way and become his enemy.

And remember, so far in the letter, Paul's used words like bewitched, And he's about to use the word perplexed in the passage that we're studying today.

But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.

Galatians 4 verses 22 and 23 Abraham had two sons.

Ishmael and Isaac were beyond all dispute veritable sons of Abraham.

Yet one of them inherited the covenant blessing, and the other was simply a prosperous man of the world.

The Parting Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son.

For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

Galatians 4.30 isaac and ishmael live together for a time the self-religionist and the believer in the promise may be members of the same church for years but they are not agreed and cannot be happy together for their principles are essentially opposed As the believer grows in grace and enters upon his spiritual manhood, he will be more and more disagreeable to the legalist, and it will ultimately be seen that the two have no fellowship with one another.

they must separate.

And manipulation, intimidation, and domination is not of God.

Galatians 4, 17 says, they zealously court you, but for no good.

Yes, they want to exclude you that you may be zealous for them.

You need to watch out for anybody that offers to mentor you where they're trying to cause you to become zealous for them.