There’s an old African proverb that says: When we go hunting ivory, we usually find that there is an elephant attached to it.

The same thing might be said of freedom; we can never be truly free if we do not see and respond to that which goes along with freedom, which is rarely free and comes at a price.

Led by Paul, the Galatian Christians had been freed from pagan beliefs and practices. Anyone who comes to Christ finds a new sense of freedom. But the opportunities to slip back into bondage are always present.

This is what happened in Galatia. Under the influence of outside Judaizers, they were influenced to seek circumcision in order to be authentic followers of Christ. They felt they were free to make that choice for themselves.

But Paul told them bluntly that if they sought circumcision they were no longer free of the law. To assent to circumcision meant to assent to the Jewish law. That is not freedom, because if you buy into one part of the legal obligations, you have to be willing to accept the whole ball of wax.

If any of them received circumcision it would prove that they did not have full confidence in Christ. We must make our choice between the law and the lawgiver.

William, Temple says: “For no law, apart from a Lawgiver, is a proper object of reverence … The reverence of persons can be appropriately given only to that which is at least personal.” Jesus was frequently charged as forsaking the law, but he always made it clear that his loyalty was to the Lawgiver.

For example, Jesus could and did say: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you …” (Mt. 5:21,22).

Paul tells the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (5:1). That’s the hard part – for no sooner are we freed from something than we look for something else to hold us in bondage.

One of my classmates in my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania proclaimed to our dormitory: “Free at last! Finally free!” He finished off his first “free” night away from home by going out and getting drunk. He passed from one bondage to another.

This was not just a danger in the time of Paul and the Galatians; it can happen to us as Christians, as well. Freed from the rituals and practices of other generations, we may just as easily accept bondage to new rituals and practices.

A friend of mine grew unhappy with the pettiness and strife in the church he attended and joined another church in which he would be free of those conflicts. But he found he had substituted one kind of bondage for another.

Paul warns us: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another’” (5:13-15).

How many of us have been members of churches where the people pretty well live by the Ten Commandments, but not the Sermon the Mount? Where people bite and devour one another?

Flesh versus spirit

Paul compares and contrasts two vital factors: the flesh and the Spirit, between our most base self and our highest self. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other …” (5:17).

The “works of the flesh” contain behaviors we would expect: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery …” Paul’s list does not end there – where we can probably feel pretty smug – but goes on to include “enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissention, party spirit, envy …” all of which we can find in most congregations.

We may abstain from “drunkenness” but embrace “dissention;” we wouldn’t be caught dead “carousing,” but we might be guilty of “jealousy” or “party spirit.”

So what does Paul want from us and our churches? Try this checklist: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Against such there is no law! (5:19-23).

Paul then adds another dimension: They are to rehabilitate those who trespass. “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness” (6:1). The Christian thus is called, not so much to condemn, but restore.

If we are to be concerned with sins, let us focus on our own first. “Look to yourself, lest you, too, be tempted” (6:1). Instead of placing burdens on one another’s backs, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2).

In his play “The Great God Brown,” Eugene O’Neill has Brown say: “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue!”

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.