God's Children and Heirs

From Darkness to Light  God's Call and Responsibilities Not Many Elite Called Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5)  Galatians 4:1-7 The Message 4 1-3 Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives. 4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, "Papa! Father!" Doesn't that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you're also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance. For Reflection "The adoption language in Galatians is framed in masculine categories (the word in Greek is not "children" but "sons"), and this is not incidental. In the Jewish culture of the time, the inheritance and leadership of the family were located in the male heirs and male family members. Yet, strikingly, as Galatians itself demonstrates, just as circumcision had been replaced by the more egalitarian initiation sacrament of baptism, the benefits of "sonship" were now extended to all genders and socio-economic statuses—women, men, children, and even slaves. All human beings were to be equally included in the new covenantal family of God solely on the basis of God's grace expressed by the sacramental covenant badges of faith and baptism (see also Galatians 3:28-29)."* *https://www.workingpreacher.org/authors/john-frederick.  John Frederick (Ph.D, University of St. Andrews) is Lecturer in New Testament at Trinity College Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. He previously taught as Assistant Professor of Theology and Worship Arts Coordinator at Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, Ariz., and before that as Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. From 2011-2013 he lectured in New Testament Greek at the University of St. Andrews. He is the co-editor of Galatians and Christian Theology (Baker Academic, 2014) and a co-editor and co-contributor to Ecclesia and Ethics: Moral Formation and the Church(Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016). His forthcoming book on a theology of worship entitled Worship in the Way of the Cross will be released by InterVarsity Press in early 2017. John is a musician and songwriter who served as worship leader at such churches as Park Street Church in Boston. Pray Pray and give thanks to God, who has adopted you into the household of God; equal to all of God's children. Meditate on the fact that you are a child of God. What would change if you believed that yours shared divinity with God in the depths of your soul? Forward to a friend Sign up for our mailing list!