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I have always loved the idea of freedom. My teachers told me about that when I was a kid when they were explaining America and how America works and what the British were doing, why we had to have a revolution. I was like, that's awesome. Then I had a government class or two and they explained what the Constitution does and how it's this document that limits the power of the state. And then I found out about the Bill of Rights. What, are you kidding me? Like, there's a whole list of things that the government can't infringe upon. This is rad. Freedom is great. But I also got taught the Spider man lesson growing up by my teachers, by my parents, at church, at. There's a lot of responsibility that comes with the power of freedom in order for society to work. All of these rules, the way America is designed, it assumes an ethical population, it assumes an intelligent population, an empathetic population who will use that freedom for all the opportunities that come with that, for good things. And so I was just sold on that vision already, right? And then I get into college and somewhere along the line, when I was in college, maybe just a little after, somewhere in there, Braveheart came out the story of the Scottish patriot William Wallace, who In the late 1200s, early 1300s, went and fought back against Edward the Longshanks of England. And the whole thing was, you know, the Mel Gibson movie. It was all kind of a metaphor for America and freedom and all of that. And I don't care. Some people would make fun of it for that. Whatever. It's the best picture. This is the best picture in my heart, too. The music is by James Horner. Bagpipes and stuff in the misty Highland mountains. And oh my goodness, it stirred ethnic memory within me. Some genetic deep seated attachment to Scotland and the Vikings. Some mishmash of all of those people. Wow, it was powerful. And that theme word freedom absolutely rung in my ears coming away from that. And I remember shortly after that, one of the next books of the Bible that I read was Galatians and I've got freedom on my brain. What does that mean? Mean as a young man, open road before me. What does my life look like? What do I want to give back? What do I do with this? I was raised around Christian faith. And so I'm asking questions about what does it look like to be someone who follows Jesus and uses the opportunities that are afforded me to do something redemptive with that. And I didn't know, I was thinking about it, I came across Galatians and I Noticed partway through it, the theme of freedom started to come through more and more and more. And that's when I fell in love with this book. And truth to be told, I wouldn't say I've fallen out of love with this book, but it has kicked my butt over the course of the last, whatever, 130 episodes. It's hard. It is way, way harder than I remembered. I think the big themes are there. I think we're getting them right. But, man, you can tell Paul was a very well educated man. He knew this material better than pretty much everybody he was talking to. And he does so much in one sentence. Everything he writes takes us in a billion different directions about the Bible. So I haven't soured on Galatians, not by any means, but I have been humbled by it. This is a challenging book. It's an important book. But when I was a kid or a college student or whatever, and I'd just seen Braveheart and I was reading it, it wasn't challenging at all. It was the easiest thing ever. Kind of like what I was talking about with Jeff when we did that bonus episode a few weeks back, talking about growing up around Galatians and what we do with it. It was just freedom on every page. The idea that in Christ I am set free. I am not bound by this cruel prison master, this cruel steward and supervisor of my life. That is the law. Something I can't ultimately get right anyway. And of course, my brain went right to some of the more Christian, legalistic stuff that I had been around and been raised around. And that had left a really fou taste in my mouth. And like I said, I was trying to decide what do I want young adulthood to look like? What do I want to do with my life? And then enter Galatians, and Paul is talking about freedom and he's calling out these rule mongers and these people who would say, you don't have Christ unless you do these hundred other things that Jesus didn't say that you had to do to have him. And I'm like, yes, I'm on the freedom side. This book is like Braveheart to me. And it was so simple, it was so beautiful, and it was so easy. And in this stuff that we're getting into here at the end of Galatians 3, I'm starting to feel that aroused within me again, that excitement, that remembrance of why I loved this book in the first place, because Paul is getting past the really thick Old Testament sledding stuff that we have worked our way through, and I think we're tracking with him on it. And now he's getting down to the practical stuff. Like for you, my friend who is listening to this, and for 20 year old me who just came out of Braveheart and then went and read Galatians, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do for all of us who are like, okay, great, that's wonderful theology. I think I get it. But what's the point? We're getting into that here and it's all wrapped up with this concept of freedom. But it's freedom that is rooted in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the values of the kingdom of God. And I'm not sure I totally got that when I read it for the first time, but it's popping more now. I'm just going on and on and on. Let me just read the text that we're actually looking at. I'm going to go all the way back to Galatians. Galatians 3:19. I'm going to read all of it to the end of the chapter. And please, as I'm reading this all in one big chunk, have your antenna out for how in this passage we're moving away from that really deep dive, very challenging kind of inside baseball, old school Nuggets fan theology, and into the what do you do with this? What are the implications for you? You listening to this right now? Here we go. Galatians 3:19. What then was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party, but God is one. Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not. For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law. You're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. And that's the end of chapter three. Did you feel the pivot? Do you feel the way even Paul in his writing is like, okay, now let me make eye contact with you. We've done the heady academic stuff. Let me make eye contact with you. Here's the truth of what God has done and how this all works. This is what it makes you a child of God, no longer defined by the social categories that define everything about worldly life. Your economic status, your ethnic status, whether you're a man or a woman, which back then had huge implications on what you could and couldn't do. Nope, nope, nope, nope. All of that is set aside for this greater reality of who you are. If you, like Abraham, have faith in Christ, then you are a part of the promises and the blessings to Abraham, and you are heirs according to that promise. You belong to Christ. And what a contrast that is, because the analogy that Paul's using for the law and for sin kind of overlap throughout this passage. They're both something that pulled in the opposite direction of freedom. Sin is entangling. Sin is ruinous. Sin is shackling. There's nothing you can do to obtain your freedom or to get those shackles off the law. There's a little different analogy that he's employing here. It's like a tutoring slave master. Now, this analogy is a little clunky for us, because when we picture slavery in our day and age in our context, we go right to antebellum American south chattel slavery, African slave trade. But the history of slavery is so much bigger than that one particular expression that is understandably and rightly because of the horrors of it, front and center when we talk about our own history here in my country. But slavery worked a lot of different ways in a lot of different places. Slavery in sub Saharan Africa was very different than slavery in the southern United States. And slavery in the Roman world was very different than the kind of slave that you and I study surrounding the American Civil War. Slaves were tutored, they were nurtured. They could obtain roles of great prominence within a household, whereas in the American south, learning was usually discouraged on plantations in Rome. It was only to your benefit to have lots of slaves who were good at lots of things because they were under the umbrella, part of the notion of your household. And so tutors who were very demanding and very difficult would tutor young slaves up with the hopes that they would rise to roles of prominence within the household. And there was even a mechanism within Roman law for someone to graduate from being a slave to getting to build their own household and obtaining their own freedom. So the analogy is going to break down here a little bit. If you just think of American chattel slavery, Paul is envisioning something still not ideal, but different and more understandable in an ancient world context. And again, that imagery that he's drawing here is that of a tutor for someone who does not yet have ownership over their own life, over their own decisions, over their freedom of movement. But Paul is using language to suggest that that tutor, that is the law, is in charge for the moment to lead us toward Christ, that we might be justified by faith. We're not going to be justified by the tutor. The tutor teaches and points us toward where that justification does happen. And there's a timeline to this, because in Galatians 3:25, Paul says, now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of that tutor. We're no longer under the supervision of that steward who was very demanding, maybe even cruel. We're no longer under the supervision of the law. Rather, this is where we pivot from kind of slave language to something shocking. Child of the master language, heir language. Now the faith has come. You're no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. You are wearing the ornamentation, the sigil, the ring, the colors. You are under the banner of the household as a son, a daughter, an heir, and an agent of the King of Christ. This is stunning language for the ancient world, and frankly, it should be stunning language to us even now. This is a huge pivot in the unfolding of the book of Galatians from very important, very deep water, very looking backwards in time theology to this pivot point where now we've earned the ability to say with confidence, hey, wait a minute, in light of all of that Old Testament theology, what does that make me? I'm no longer a slave. I no longer lack freedom. I have my freedom in Christ. And not just random freedom. I am a son of the master. I'm a son of the king, an heir to this kingdom. Now, Paul's point in the larger letter is, why would you trade that out for any other arrangement? This is the best thing ever. What fool would punt on that and want to go back under the tutelage of the steward or the caretaker who trains you up and points you to where you need to go now that you're where you need to go. Be where you need to go. Don't go back. There's so much more here to unpack. But it's getting exciting, it's getting fun. And it stirs those things in me that were stirred a long time ago when I started thinking about this stuff in the age of Braveheart and my first meaningful read through of Galatians. So much more to come. I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon. Sam.