Galatians 3:1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
vs 2 This is the one thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the words of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
vs 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Paul here is asking the People of the Wind why they have turned in their status of freedom in the Spirit to become prisoners of the Law.
Paul asks them who has bewitched them, who has cast a spell over them that they would trade in the radical Spirit Wind freedom that Jesus bought for them with His own blood... why would they trade this in for rules and regulations and oppressive structures of religion.
He wants to know how they received the Spirit in the first place. Was is by the sweat of their own brow? And if they did not receive this Freedom by the sweat of their own brow and the carrying of heavy burdens, when did they start thinking they had to start picking up heavy loads and tying them up on their backs?
Who was bewitching their freedoms away from them? Who was demanding that they submit to structures and orders that wound them and break them down?
And this is the question we have to ask ourselves. Who is sucking our freedom away with their doctrine. Who is trying to separate us from the Spirit and freedom we have in Christ?
Jesus said, "Come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."
Are the teachers you are listening to giving you rest? Or are they wearing you down with their obsession with certain structures?
Are the teachers you are listening to allowing you to be free in the Spirit Wind, or do they require you to be mired in the bog of their doctrine?
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3 comments:
Great post! Indeed! WHO is putting such heavy burdens on men and women? Why are men being told they must be aggressive and exercise authority over others, while women are told them must give up authority over themselves to allow their husbands to regulate their lives.
The insistence that husbands take authority over their wives is oppressive to both husbands and wives.
A person I once knew told me how he had felt such pressure to be manly, to be physically strong, to take charge. That was NOT the type of person he was, so life became a daily litany of his failures. His inner bent was to dress in pretty clothes, to feel beautiful, not to be muscular. After a mental breakdown from all the pressure, he ended up becoming a she.
Interestingly, I've been told my social scientists that sex-change is virtually unheard of among American Indians. Indians do not pressure men to be macho. If a man wants to care for children, that is fine and respectible.
The freedom to be who God made us to be, practicing our gifts and talents, rather than being stuffed into prescribed boxes is spiritual freedom in Christ indeed!
I say it with Paul: who has bewitched the current church to teach that we must follow the doctrines of men? And why do the people buy that doctrine? Why do they "turned in their freedom of the Spirit to become prisoners of the law?"
It is out of fear that men build up structures and use them to control people.
Yes, there are things, we, people of the Spirit Wind, should not do. We should not lie, cheat, steal, commit adultry, fornication.
We should love others as ourselves, take care of our responsibilities, tend to our homes and children, if we have them. We need to be faithful to our spouses, if we have them.
But men are not content that women will do these things on their own, guided by the Spirit Wind. Out of fear, and in many cases, a sense of entitlement, they must build and enforce structures that ensure their needs and their desires to rule are met. And they must enforce those structures with a, "Thus saith the Lord," and a threat of hellfire in order to get women into the places that men want for them.
Yes, it is a terrible and destructive conspiracy of bewitching and spell binding, twisting and threatening that these men engage in to get women to play their roles.
Sorry, as you said, men are hurt by the bewitching too.
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