Galatians 4:17-20

Summary retelling of Galatians 4:17-20

Paul reminds the Galatians that the people who have come in to teach them things in addition to the Gospel do it in such a manner as to make the Galatians feel good about themselves.  But there is little point to it.  Rather than making the Galatians feel good about their relationship with God, these people are trying to make the Galatians feel as though they are dependent upon them and their traditions.  It is great to feel good about things that are worth feeling good about – like our relationship with God.  Paul reminds the Galatians that when he was with them their spirituality with God was the main focus.  Paul then confesses that he wishes he didn’t have to be so blunt, but he is genuinely perplexed about the decisions that the Galatians are making.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Human beings are an incredibly manipulative group.  Most of us like to feel needed.  In fact, this is a serious problem in our culture called “enabling” and “co-dependency.”  We like to figure out how to put people into positions that they feel that they need us so that we hear from them how great we are.  This is horribly manipulative because even though we are helping people we are doing it all for the wrong reasons.  We aren’t helping people because we genuinely care about them; in this case we are helping them because we want to feel important.  A selfless act becomes selfish.  This is precisely the practice about which Paul accuses the people who have come into the middle of the Galatians.  They set up traditions so that they can be appreciated for helping them keep the tradition alive.

How big of a problem do you see this in the church?  Do you know any people who do things not because God has asked them to do them but rather because they want to keep the tradition alive so they can feel important?

Second Thought:

There is a serious spiritual side to this issue as well.  Yes, it is bad to manipulate people into making you feel important.  But spiritually, what is even worse is that when the focus becomes about ourselves it is no longer on Christ.  The danger of doing things out of meaningless tradition is that Christ no longer is the focus of the event.  We learn to love nostalgia more than Christ.  We learn to love the stable more than the risk.  We learn to ignore God’s call for us to step out in faith and instead we hide behind our feelings of “not being called” because something is different.

How good are we at taking what should be the focus and making the focus on something that is far easier?  When you think about this dynamic, why does it make sense that Jesus prepared His disciples so much for choosing the harder path: the narrow gate?  What can this passage teach us about why Jesus would want us to learn to not always pick the safe and traditional approach?

Third Thought:

Paul is genuinely perplexed by the Galatians.  He knows they’ve seen evidence of the Holy Spirit among them.  Yet he cannot understand why they would ever give up the Spirit for the things that make them feel comfortable, traditional, or safe.

Have you ever been perplexed about people who have every reason to be spiritual yet for one reason or another cannot make the right spiritual decision?  How do you handle such instances?  Would you rather feel safe in your comfort zone or feel safe in your relationship with God?  (Because, you know, with God you don’t usually get to remain in your comfort zone if you genuinely want to be in Him.)

Passage for Tomorrow: Galatians 4:21-27