December 14, 2016
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Sons and Mothers

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Opening Prayer

Almighty God, still my worries and quiet my mind. Open my ears to hear Your Word and my heart to be filled with Your Spirit.

Read Galatians 4:21-31

[21] Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? [22] For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. [23] His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. [24] These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. [25] Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. [26] But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. [27] For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” [28] Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. [29] At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. [30] But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” [31] Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:3). Our new life though the new birth is one of joyful hope.

 

The background to these verses is in the Old Testament (Gen. 16,21). Abraham and Sarah had been promised a family but they were old and childless, so they found a way to realize God’s promise without truly relying on it. Abraham fathered a son, Ishmael, with their slave-girl Hagar. Then, years later, the promise was fulfilled through Sarah’s son, Isaac, the one God had intended all along. It was a strange family that resulted. Genesis pictures the five—one father, two mothers and two sons—as a tangled and unhappy household; yet God still treated them with patience and purpose.
Paul’s main angle in using this story is to contrast the two mothers and the two sons. Hagar the Egyptian, the girl from Sinai, reminds him of Israel’s Law, which was given there. Hagar was a slave, living without freedom, which is how Paul wants his readers to think of the Law: “we were held in custody” (Gal. 3:23). It was a kind of slavery. If the Galatian Christians want to live under the Law, they will find it a severe and difficult taskmaster. They will be Hagar people, constrained and controlled, children of the second-best and strangers to the promise.
Paul describes Sarah, on the other hand, as a symbol of freedom. She represents heaven’s purpose working itself out on earth. She is the mother of a family of faith that reaches beyond all human limits and boundaries. This, Paul says, is what it means to be children of Abraham (Gal. 3:7): freedom from the enclosing limits of Law, liberty to embrace the life of the Spirit and an unrestricted fellowship that stretches across the nations and continents. To be free in Christ is to be citizens and children of “the Jerusalem that is above” (26). This is the freedom Paul wants the Galatians to enjoy.

The background to these verses is in the Old Testament (Gen. 16,21). Abraham and Sarah had been promised a family but they were old and childless, so they found a way to realize God’s promise without truly relying on it. Abraham fathered a son, Ishmael, with their slave-girl Hagar. Then, years later, the promise was fulfilled through Sarah’s son, Isaac, the one God had intended all along. It was a strange family that resulted. Genesis pictures the five—one father, two mothers and two sons—as a tangled and unhappy household; yet God still treated them with patience and purpose.

Paul’s main angle in using this story is to contrast the two mothers and the two sons. Hagar the Egyptian, the girl from Sinai, reminds him of Israel’s Law, which was given there. Hagar was a slave, living without freedom, which is how Paul wants his readers to think of the Law: “we were held in custody” (Gal. 3:23). It was a kind of slavery. If the Galatian Christians want to live under the Law, they will find it a severe and difficult taskmaster. They will be Hagar people, constrained and controlled, children of the second-best and strangers to the promise.

Paul describes Sarah, on the other hand, as a symbol of freedom. She represents heaven’s purpose working itself out on earth. She is the mother of a family of faith that reaches beyond all human limits and boundaries. This, Paul says, is what it means to be children of Abraham (Gal. 3:7): freedom from the enclosing limits of Law, liberty to embrace the life of the Spirit and an unrestricted fellowship that stretches across the nations and continents. To be free in Christ is to be citizens and children of “the Jerusalem that is above” (26). This is the freedom Paul wants the Galatians to enjoy.

 

Apply

How have you discovered God’s goodness and grace during times of tangle and tension in family life? Remember to give thanks and do not be afraid of difficulties ahead.

Closing prayer

Merciful Lord, I thank You for the freedoms I have in Christ—freedom from sin, despair and futility, to name a few. All praise to You.

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