Who prevented you? (5.7-9)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

You were running well. Who prevented you…? [Ga 5.7] Literally this is “You’re running well. Who cut you off?” Somebody got in their way as they were running the race.

Paul liked his sports metaphors, although I notice most of them have to do with track and field. Probably because they’re not as morally problematic as the gladiatorial contests.

This persuasion does not come from the one who calls you, [Ga 5.8] and the one who calls us is of course the Holy Spirit. Paul can’t figure out what has managed to throw the Galatians off their race, but the one thing he knows for sure is it’s not the Spirit.

You notice he doesn’t automatically claim it’s the devil. And it might be the devil, but Paul doesn’t know, and he’s not gonna foolishly jump to conclusions—like way too many of us Christians do. Most of us figure if it’s anti-God in any way whatsoever, it must be Satan behind everything.

In Jesus’s parable of the four seeds, [Mk 4] in which seed is thrown on the ground and different things happen to four of them, only one of those seeds was affected by the devil: The seed which was eaten by birds. [Mk 4.15] That leaves two other seeds which didn’t take root and produce fruit. There’s also the rocky soil, representing distress or persecution; [Mk 4.17] and the thorns, representing the wealth and cares of this world. Satan’s hardly the only thing that stops God’s seed from growing roots in us and sprouting. Evil people can do just fine without any help from the devil.

In my experience, what I’ve seen that causes a church to go legalistic, is the leadership goes out of their way to make people afraid. Get people to believe if they don’t behave just right, God’s gonna be very angry with them. If you listen to this hogwash long enough, it’s gonna brainwash you.

Maybe that’s what was happening in Galatia. But I don’t know, ’cause the bible doesn’t say. I’m just saying that’s what frequently happens nowadays. Fear makes people afraid to disobey, so fearmongers stoke up fear. It’s not the devil; just very devilish individuals.

A little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough. [Ga 5.9] You might remember Jesus’s one-line parable,

Mt 13.33: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into fifty pounds of flour until all of it was leavened.”

In this parable, leaven is a good thing: If the Holy Spirit can get into an organization, he can transform the whole thing.

In Paul’s saying, leaven is a bad thing: A bad teaching can infest an entire church. And every once in a while I find a Christian who insists “leaven” is some kind of bible codeword, and always means something evil: “No, leaven is always bad; Jesus’s parable is warning people that a little evil can infest the church.” Same thing as Paul’s saying. The major problem with this interpretation: Jesus says God’s kingdom is like leaven. And God’s kingdom is never a bad thing.