Lesser gods and special days. (4.8-10)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

But in the past, since you didn’t know God. [Ga 4.8] Here Paul’s obviously talking about the Galatians’ past as Greco-Roman pagans.

Most people have the assumption that Galatians, as members of the Roman Empire, worshiped the Roman Empire’s gods. Not necessarily! The Roman Empire had a sort-of freedom of religion: They let you worship whatever gods you pleased, in whatever pantheon. You could worship Greek gods and their Latin counterparts; or Asian gods, Egyptian gods, Persian gods, Nabatean gods, Germanic gods, Hindu gods, whatever. And Jews could of course worship the LORD, and Christians worship Jesus. Although the Romans could always ban one particular god—and that’s what led to Jewish and Christian persecution.

But Greco-Roman paganism was extremely superstitious. For two reasons: Their gods didn’t talk, and their gods weren’t good.

I didn’t discuss in class how their gods didn’t talk. Mainly because that’s kinda obvious: Of course they didn’t talk; they’re not real! But because the Greeks thought they were real, they’d try to figure out what their gods wanted, and since their gods couldn’t straight-up tell them, they had to look for clues. In nature. Therefore anything, anything, could be a sign; and they’d make themselves bonkers looking for signs. I grew up in a non-Pentecostal church, and those Christians will sometimes do the very same thing: They’ll look for signs! “God, if you want me to buy that new car, let me see five red cars on the freeway today.” And if they do (and they probably will), supposedly that’s God. But really that’s superstition.

The bigger deal is these gods weren’t good. They were mighty, and that’s why people worshiped them: Sacrifice a pig to Zeus, and Zeus would owe you one, and maybe give you nice weather. But like I said, Zeus wasn’t good: According to the myths, he could always refuse the deal, or even renege on it for some petty reason.

While we tend to focus on the Olympian gods, because they’re the stars of all the myths and Greek plays, more often Greco-Roman pagans were dealing with lesser gods—the ones they called δαιμόνια/demónia, which is where we get our word “demon.” They were everywhere. These were gods for every little thing you could think of. Gods of your neighborhood, gods of your family, gods of money and property and luck and health and resources. Things which Paul said by nature are not gods. [Ga 4.8] But Greeks worshiped them anyway, and believed if you offended any of them they’d make trouble for you. So Greeks were constantly on their toes, practicing this superstition or that, trying to keep all these gods and demons happy.

And these things aren’t even gods! And why on earth would the Galatians want to backslide into that lifestyle? ’Cause that’s what Paul was seeing among them.

You are observing special days, months, seasons, and years. [Ga 4.10] Meaning pagan holidays, horoscopes, and pagan “lucky days.” They were going back to what their culture practiced, instead of recognizing God’s above all that, and following Jesus should put us above all that.

And why should our lifestyles have to change radically just because it’s summer or fall? Or the Halloween season, or Christmas season, or Eastertide? Why are we swayed by our workplaces’ Monday blues, Wednesday hump-day attitudes, and thank-God-it’s-Friday enthusiasm? Why are we one way on Sundays and another way on weekdays?