Crumpled Notebook

Apparently I came up with a fairly decent analogy tonight in our Women’s Bible study, so I thought I’d blog about it because it was a good Bible study.

We’ve been studying Galatians for the past few weeks and talking about freedom. Tonight we were looking at Galatians 3:28–4:11. We started off talking about the differences in taking something and receiving something. I think we all kind of felt like receiving something sounded better than taking something. Like, you receive a gift. Taking seemed more purposeful, like that you had control over getting whatever. Taking something is an action. Receiving something is more passive. You don’t have to do anything except be open to receiving it.

Anyway, at one point we started focusing on this portion here.

Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives. Galatians 4:1-3 (The Message)

So we were tasked with understanding what Paul was talking about when he talks about the children being heirs but also equal to the slaves, and just the entire section. It seemed a little hard to understand on the first read through. So, here was kind of my thoughts on it.

Let’s say a father has a son. This father owns a big ranch. While the son is still under the care and control of the father, the father gives him chores. Water and feed the animals, plant the seeds, till the ground, etc…all the things a rancher might to do take care of his ranch.

Once that son has received his inheritance (the ranch), he is free to do whatever he wants with the ranch. He can choose not to feed the animals or take care of the land. The ranch (or gift) is his regardless. However, if he does the things his father taught him, take care it, his ranch will flourish. It’s all a matter of what kind of ranch he wants to live on. It doesn’t mean it’s always going to flourish, or that if he doesn’t feed the animals one day that they will die. It just means that he can choose to do the things that will prosper his ranch in the long run, or he can choose not to do them. It’s still his ranch.

The comparison being that, the chore he had to do as a child were kind of like the laws of the Old Testament. Once Jesus came, and we accepted that gift of salvation, it’s ours…just as, once the son turned of age and received his inheritance, it was his. We can make our choices. The son didn’t keep his ranch by continuing those chores. He was free to make his own decisions, based upon the ranch he wanted to have,  just as we are free to make our own decisions. They may not be the same as our parents or other people, but they are still our choices to make. And hopefully, we will want to make the choices that flourish our lives and not leave them in ruins.

Tags: freedom, galatians, ranch