Contemplative Bible Reading

Galatians 4:8-10 (New Living Translation)

8 Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. 9 So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? 10 You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.

Paul tells the Galatian Christians,

Before your were Christians, you followed the cultural norms (today these are binge drinking, binge sex, and weekends that are un-remembered due to drugs) and you suffered immense physical and emotional pain because of it. Now you live in Christ where you don’t have to do these things. When peers pressure you to fall back into the culture, you shrug it off because you have a different life in Christ.

Are you going to fall back into the pain and anguish of the culture?

We face the same today. We have a life in Christ where we are honest with one another. We trust our spouses, and they trust us. We aren’t looking over our shoulder at every little creak in the floor. We don’t double check our fellow Christians to see if they are cheating us. We don’t live in that world any longer.

Or do we?