Galatians 5:7
7 Ye did run [trecho] well [kalos]; who [tis] did hinder [anakopto] [egkopto] you [humas] that ye should [peitho] not
[me] obey [peitho] the truth [aletheia]? KJV-Interlinear
7 You were running well; who
hindered you from obeying the truth? NASB
Paul often uses the terms, running or running in a
race, to describe the Christian life that is on its proper course and advancing
and functioning as it is supposed to function.
And, initially the Galatians had been approaching their Christian life
with gladness and zeal, but then they got distracted with false teachings
requiring them to do things in order to have or even to hang on to their
salvation.
Part of that false teaching was the requirement of
following the Mosaic Law and specifically of being circumcised.
This false teaching was being promoted by followers
of Judaism, who had been opposing Paul and Pauls teaching of salvation by
faith.
Paul has been explaining throughout this book, that
works, which is the subject of the Law, is a dead end path to nowhere. That the Mosaic Law taught not salvation by
works, but that works cannot be kept, illustrating why they cannot be kept, and
that something else greater than works, was necessary in order to save as well
as maintain ones spiritual life after salvation. That something else is faith.
Faith, is often times called the Law of Christ or
the New Covenant of Christ. But faith is
faith no matter what phrase you describe it by.
Paul tells the Galatians, that they have been doing
well and doing things right, but then what happened?
And the question is rhetorical, as we already know
what happened.
They got distracted by false teaching, and they got
distracted because they drifted away from correct teaching. They are the cause of their own problem.
Obeying the truth, is a phrase that simply means
they listened to false things and followed them, rather than continuing with
correct teaching.
And when anyone does not pursue and engage in
correct teaching, then they by default, will drift away to false teachings. And unfortunately that is the state of our
world today.
People seem to want to come and go in their daily
life with little regard to what or how they should pursue their spiritual life,
if they even think of it in the first place.
And when they do, it is all pretense and therefore they get led
astray. Pretense is a form of works in
disguise and is a trap for false ideas.
The Galatians did not continue following Pauls
teachings and so they came up with bad ideas.
People today, have access to good daily bible
studies, but they don’t pursue them, and therefore they get fouled up. And the sad part is that they do not realize
that they are fouled up until it is too late.
After all, to give ones-self up for a few minutes
every evening for a bible study, seems to be a huge burden on the use of ones
time. So the priority of ones life is on
the many things in life that you do, rather than on the small investment in
ones eternal future.
Esau traded away his whole eternal future for a
single meal. That was a stupid
trade. But then people trade away their
entire eternal future simply by ignoring their eternal future. Again, a stupid trade.
Especially when following a daily study takes so
little time when compared to everything else that you do in the course of a
day.
So what is the smart thing to do?
