This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Li Wangyang, Chinese Trade Union Activist “found dead” in hospital

Li-wang yang in middle

GALATIANS 3: 3-13

3You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!²The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?³Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?⁴Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing.⁵Well then, does God^*supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

6 Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’,⁷so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.⁸And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.’⁹For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.’¹¹Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law; for ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’^*12But the law does not rest on faith; on the contrary, ‘Whoever does the works of the law^* will live by them.’¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’—¹⁴in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

one fundamentalist

The English translation fails the reader by using the word “law”, which has various meanings in Engish, rather than the precise referent of Paul’s Greek, namely the Torah, the Jewish law. Those who are leading the Galatians astray, according to Paul, are not urging obedience to any old law, but as the issue of circumcision proves, to the Torah. The implication is that Christian faith is a sect of Judaism and that allegiance to Jesus requires prior allegiance to the Torah of Moses. Paul is utterly opposed to this, not merely on the ground of the independence of the Christian gospel, but even more on the ground of its efficacy: no one is made right by doing the duties of Torah Paul says, because no one is able to do them all. Something more transforming is needed. This comes through trust in Jesus Messiah which is also trust in God. I translate the Greek “pistis” as “trust” although it is usually translated “faith”, to show that Paul is not talking about belief in doctrine but trust in an identifiable person, Jesus Messiah, which leads to the sort of trust in God which Abraham showed when he set off on his journey to a new land. Of course trust leads to doctrines, but trust comes first. This trust, Paul says, makes people right. To those who trust, God gives the Spirit who enables miracles of love amongst the trusting community.The Torah puts all who do not keep it under a curse, including Jesus Messiah, rejected as a Torah breaker, along with all sinners and gentiles. Paul is exaggerating here as the Torah does of course make provision for the forgivness of sin and provides a means of atonement. Nevertheless the Torah demands that people choose obedience, which is rewarded with life, or disobedience which is punished with death. There is a savagery to the Torah which for some, is part of its appeal. Although Paul never explains why Torah-obedient people rejected Jesus Messiah, he states that Jesus “became” a curse for sake of human beings-in another place he says Jesus “became” sin for us-and he sees this as his greatest act of love for humanity. The fact that in the crucifixion of Jesus Messiah, God has put himself on the side of the sinners, the Torah-breakers, the Gentiles-and of even Paul himself whose vicious zeal made him a murderer of Christians- is for Paul the fundamental fact which turned his world upside down and made him an apostle to the Gentiles.

more fundamentalists

For these reasons, Paul is wonderfully relevant to our world in which competing religious certainties cause violence. Paul knows that Torah is holy: it reveals the will of God for people. But if it becomes the possession of the believing community rather than an expression of God’s goodness, if it becomes a substitute for God rather than a way to God, it is an instrument of oppression.  This can be seen in the clash of different fundamentalisms in many parts of the world. Paul believed that Jesus Messiah, a victim of religious intolerance,  was a a direct expression of God’s kindness and a means of human community across ethnic and religious boundaries, so that the (Jewish) blessings of Abraham could come to the rest of humanity (Gentiles).

NB : Paul’s exposure of what he saw as a corruption of Torah should not be used as a critique of contemporary Judaism.