This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1

Galatians 3:22-29

Brothers and sisters:

Scripture confined all things under the power of sin,

that through faith in Jesus Christ

the promise might be given to those who believe.

Before faith came, we were held in custody under law,

confined for the faith that was to be revealed.

Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ,

that we might be justified by faith.

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian.

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek,

there is neither slave nor free person,

there is not male and female;

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants,

heirs according to the promise.

This is one of those passages that are incomprehensible without a knowledge of the Greek text-or at any rate without a better translation than this one. The word here translated “disciplinarian” is “paidagogus” which has given us the English word pedagogue, a teacher. The paidagogos in a Greek household was usually a slave, who had the task of looking after, and educating, the family’s children, until puberty. He would have been responsible for their good behaviour. But his real function is that of child-minder or parental substitute. It’s this function that Paul compares to the function of the Law: the Jewish Torah was a kind of substitute parent who kept people safe and reasonably well-behaved, until they discovered, through Christ, their own Parent.

Paedagogus and child

“Now that faith has come we are no longer under a paidagogus (substitute parent)

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.”

This reveals Paul’s logic: the move from substitute parent to true parent. In Christ, the true child of God, we are liberated from the child-minder, to live in the love of the father; and this shared identity supersedes all the determinants of race, society, and sex: we are one in Christ.

But how does this all apply to Galatians, who as Gentiles, were never subject to the Jewish Law in the first place? Paul’s main argument is to remind them that they already live in the freedom of God the Father, through Christ, and that they mustn’t revert to childhood and desire a substitute parent in the Jewish Law.

Perhaps we can analyse many failures of Christianity through the ages as retreats into legalisms that avoid the glorious (and terrifying) freedom of the children of God.

Luke 11:27-28

Gospel

While Jesus was speaking,

a woman from the crowd called out and said to him,

“Blessed is the womb that carried you

and the breasts at which you nursed.”

He replied, “Rather, blessed are those

who hear the word of God and observe it.”

Jesus is not, as is sometimes thought, showing impatience with emotion per se, but rather with emotion fixated on his personality. There is no blessing in a personality cult of Jesus, but only in hearing and obeying the word of God he speaks with his life.

The great Scottish hymn writers John Bell and Graham Maule took one of the banalities of Christian emotionalism, the description of Jesus as the “Most Precious Word of Life” and wove it into a hymn about the incarnate word:

In a byre near Bethlehem ,
Passed by many a wand’ring stranger,
The most precious Word of Life
Was heard gurgling in a manger,
For the good of us all.

And He’s here when we call Him,
Bringing health, love and laughter
To life now and ever after,
For the good of us all.

By the Galilean Lake
Where the people flocked for teaching,
The most precious Word of Life
Fed their mouths as well as preaching,
For the good of us all.
And He’s here…..

Quiet was Gethsemane,
Camouflaging priest and soldier;
The most precious Word of Life
Took the world’s weight on his shoulder,
For the good of us all.

And He’s here…..

In a garden just at dawn....

On the hill of Calvary –
Place to end all hope of living –
The most precious Word of Life
Breathed his last and died forgiving,
For the good of us all.
And He’s here…..

In a garden, just at dawn,
Near the grave of human violence,
The most precious Word of Life
Cleared his throat and ended silence,
For the good of us all.
And He’s here…..

©1987  WGRG, Iona Community, Govan, Glasgow G51 3UU, Scotland

True devotion is a mixture of emotion, understanding and commitment.