Steve Carroll  Galatians 5:13-15 NRSV For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Reflection: Paul tells the Galatians that the commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, summarizes the whole law. This commandment, as many of you will know, did not originate [...]

Belinda Weatherly Galatians 5:7-12  RSV You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?  This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine; and he who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.  But if I brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?  In that case the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.  I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves! Reflection: I was privileged to participate [...]

Rachel Fisher Galatians 5:2-6 (NIV) 2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has [...]

Steve Biegel Galatians 4:21-5:1 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is [...]

Peggy Roe Galatians 4:8-20 NRSV 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. 9 Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits?[a] How can you want to be enslaved to them again? 10 You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. 11 I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted. 12 Friends,[b] I beg you, become as I am, for [...]

Mike Mosby Galatians 4:1-7 This is what I am saying: When young children inherit all that their father owned, they are still no different from his servants. It doesn’t matter that they own everything. 2 While they are children, they must obey those who are chosen to care for them. But when they reach the age the father set, they are free. 3 It is the same for us. We were once like children, servants to the useless rules of this world. 4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, who was born from a woman [...]

Erin Campbell Naman Galatians 3:23-29   “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.  Therefore, the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and [...]

Making Room Again Shelby Olive Galatians 2:15-21 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners, 16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to [...]