A group of Christians were gathered for a Bible study, and a woman named Mary mentioned that her sister was in labor, and asked that the group would pray for her. After praying, a woman inquired whether the infant was a boy or a girl. “It’s a boy,” Mary replied. ”Call your sister right now! make sure she doesn’t get that poor child circumcised!” the woman exclaimed. Mary was taken aback by this woman’s audacity, and frankly, confused. Awkward silence filled the room. The woman went on and confidently explained herself, “You see, the Bible says that ‘if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.’ So, if you let your nephew get circumcised- oh! the poor child will be consigned to the fires of hell, because Christ ‘will be of no advantage to him’. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Granted this is an absurd situation, but it wouldn’t do to just dismiss her, after all, Galatians 5:2 reads, “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” How would you respond to this woman? This situation faces us with is the question of hermeneutics, that is, how to interpret a text.
I want to remind you of the series we did not too long ago at Grace based on How To Read the Bible Book-by-Book by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. Our pastors taught us to read the Bible in three basic steps: Carefully, Canonically, and Theologically. I want to spend some time showing how reading Galatians carefully can make sense of this woman’s absurd use of Galatians 5:2. I hope you can see how important context is to the interpretation and application of a text.
Galatians is a letter of Paul written to the church in Galatia. We learn early on that the Galatian church isn’t doing too well. Paul writes, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel!” (1:6) After spending time establishing his authority as an apostle, we see more hints of what the problem at Galatia is. Paul writes, “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (2:16) It seems like the Galatians sought to ‘justified’ before God by practicing the ‘works of the law’, but Paul says people are justified solely by faith in Christ. (and this brings us to the text in question) “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (5:1) What is this yoke of slavery? It is submission to the law, as though one will be justified on account of ‘works of the law’ and not faith. Paul writes, “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. ” (5:2-4) In this context, circumcision has a very particular meaning, doesn’t it? It is not the mere act of circumcision that Paul rejects- it is circumcision as a symbolic gesture of submission ‘to keep the whole law’ and find one’s own righteousness outside of Christ. The one who does this has ‘fallen from grace’. It’s no wonder that Paul would so strongly warn against circumcision and those who preach it! With a dash of irony Paul wishes that “ those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (5:12)
I hope this has shown you what kind of absurd conclusions we can reach about the meaning of a biblical text if we don’t pay careful attention to its original context. We may think the woman from the opening parable is ridiculous, but we often make comparable interpretations- particularly of especially difficult or especially familiar passages.
Many speculate about the ‘unforgivable sin.’ I would challenge you to return to Mk. 3:22-30 and look carefully at the context. Ask, who is Jesus speaking to? what is he responding to? is this saying a command or a statement of reality? who is the Holy Spirit revealed to be and to do in Mark?
I would also challenge you to read the parable of the Sower (Mk 4:1-20) in the context of Mark. This is a text so familiar to us that we often apply it directly to our context without asking how it fits in its original context. Read the text and ask, “who have we seen in Mark’s Gospel that have responded to Jesus in each of these four ways?”
