6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will have to pay the penalty, whoever that may be.11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.
12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
My thoughts -
Paul is calling out those within the church who were requiring that Gentile converts be circumcised and held to the entirety of the law. We saw yesterday how this had caused a rift between him and the church of Galatia. Paul has had no kind words to say about this practice and ha his harshest words to so about those who were agitating for it:
As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
There is no love in that statement. We can walk that back and say that Paul didn't mean it literally, that he was being figurative and that the image of emasculation as the farthest logical conclusion to the zealous promotion of circumcision is an appropriate one. That works on a level but this gets me thinking about how well I deal with those who claim to love God but do not love others, and instead dish out a tyrannical gospel which presents God as something of a cosmic bully holding all to a standard none can live up to. There is no love in me for religious zealots and hypocrites who withhold grace accepting certain preconditions be met, principally that the recipient of grace look and act exactly like them.
Paul claims here, echoing the words of Jesus found in Matthew 22, that "the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Are we doing that? Are we capable of doing that? We can be as righteous as anyone has ever been, we can have a zeal and a passion for Godly things that is unmatched in this world, we can have as much wisdom and be as eloquent as anyone ever has been, and still fall woefully short here. Without love we are nothing.
Which brings us back to Paul "emasculation" desire and my own issues loving those who are religiously intolerant. Can we withhold God's love from those who withhold God's love? Isn't this something of a Catch-22? Far brighter minds than mine I'm sure have reflected on this issue. What did they come up with? What do you think? I honestly find this to be something of a conundrum.
I think we should, if we err, err on the side of loving others. I have my own issues to work out. But one thing I am convinced of is that I should share the love of God with all God's children, even and especially those I don't really like. Maybe they too have been oppressed by a rigid and unbending theology of a tyrant God and are unable to experience God's love for themselves.
Again, what wrestling with the Scriptures! I really admire this in you! I think we can make a connection between what Paul says here and what Jesus says right after introducing the 'Our Father'...that those who don't forgive their debtors will not be forgiven by God. But I really really think you have a great heart, especially in what concludes this post!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the idea that there's "no love" in Paul's statement. In a sense and for the most part it seems you're right. There certainly ain't no warm fuzzies there. But I'm curious if Paul, in saying this, is expressing that them causing harm to themselves is the only hope that they may somehow see the folly of their ways. What if he's hoping for their ultimate redemption and sees them going to their logical conclusion as the only way. Does that make sense? I'm not suggesting this is really the case, but just curious if it could be.
As for the "no love" comment, that was mostly rhetorical, in the sense that one might say that there is "no love lost" between two feuding parties. It's an aggressive statement, even a bit violent. I can't read Paul's heart or his intent but I wanted in no way to sugar coat it or talk it down. This is some no holds barred stuff from Paul. Maybe there's love in the sentiment behind it. Maybe he's hoping that some extreme thing like that would awaken whatever is necessary to lead to repentance in the agitators, but I know that if I were to say something like that it would be in the hopes that they'd just go away.
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