“A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. 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. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Galatians 5:9-17
“Gratify the flesh”; if you say that phrase to a modern person, they would more than likely take it as some kind of sexual euphemism. Interesting then that Paul was not talking about debauchery in this context but what could have passed for religious piety. Circumcision. Furthermore, it was not gratification through one’s own pleasure but through others’ suffering! Notice this clearly: this gratification of the flesh was being done by circumcised men coercing others to become circumcised. It was not even the self-righteousness of electing circumcision for himself that condemned these mutilators but the imposition of the rite on those upon whom there was no Mosaic obligation.
Paul wanted to make clear that in the context of this new Christian religion it was not the removal of flesh that made one holy but one’s active devotion to God in the Spirit. In the same way, we cannot make restrictions for ourselves that God has not and impose them on others for our own satisfaction!
Ethan Kirl
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