{"id":41426,"date":"2018-05-07T07:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.olivetree.com\/?p=41426"},"modified":"2022-09-20T12:51:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T19:51:48","slug":"pauls-cutting-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olivetree.com\/blog\/pauls-cutting-remarks\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul\u2019s Cutting Remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Richard N. Longenecker walks through Galatians and Paul’s “cutting” remarks. You’ll find that Galatians is more applicable than you know. Check out this excerpt from the Word Biblical Commentary<\/a> below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul’s “Cutting” Remarks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

you were running well. Who cut in on you to be keeping you from obeying the truth?\u201d \u2014 5:7<\/strong><\/h4><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While the first half of this section on \u201cHolding Fast to Freedom\u201d is, as Betz notes, a \u201chighly condensed section,\u201d the second half beginning with v 7 \u201cis freer, appearing like a rambling collection of pointed remarks, rhetorical questions, proverbial expressions, threats, irony, and, climaxing it all, a joke of stark sarcasm\u201d (Galatians<\/em>, 264). In effect, having argued and exhorted at length, Paul now brings his treatment of the Judaizing threat to a close with this loose collection of comments and remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figurative use of an athlete running in a stadium to represent living one\u2019s life is frequent in Paul (cf. 2:2<\/a>; also 1 Cor 9:24-27<\/a>; Phil 3:14<\/a>; 2 Tim 4:7<\/a>; Acts 20:24<\/a>). Such athletic imagery for life was common in the ancient world\u2026 The verb [translated as] (\u201chinder,\u201d \u201cthwart,\u201d \u201cblock the way) in the context of a race suggests tripping or otherwise interfering with a runner, which inevitably had to do with one runner cutting in on another as they ran and so impeding the other\u2019s progress\u2026 In the foot races of the Greek festivals there were rules against tripping or cutting in on an opponent\u2026just as there are today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus Paul asks his Galatian converts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho cut in on you to be keeping you from obeying the truth?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The question, of course, is rhetorical and calls for the same answer as the question of 3:1<\/a>, \u201cWho bewitched you?\u201d In both cases it was the Judaizers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul’s Shocking Imagery<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

as for those who are troubling you, O that they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.\u201d \u20145:12<\/strong><\/h4><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Having concluded his treatment of the Judaizing threat\u2026Paul now adds an additional, sarcastic comment meant to caricature and discredit his opponents\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greek commentators consistently translated [the key feature of the sentence] as a term for self-mutilation. John Chrysostom, for example, read v 12,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they will, let them not only be circumcised, but mutilated,\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 And most modern translations view the verb in this fashion as well\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latin commentators, however, treated the expression more ambiguously\u2026 So many have understood \u201ccut off\u201d in terms of a withdrawal from the churches or self-imposed excommunication rather than emasculation\u2026 W. M. Ramsay, in fact, mounted a rather vigorous attack against understanding Paul here as using such \u201cfoul language\u201d as castration or mutilation, simply because such a \u201cscornful expression would be a pure insult, as irrational as it is disgusting\u201d (Galatians<\/em>, 438; see also 437-40).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarcasm \u2014 Yes, in the Bible<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yet as insulting and disgusting as it may seem, Paul\u2019s comment should be understood as a sarcastic way of characterizing the Judaizers<\/strong> and his attitude toward them, as most modern commentators recognize (so, e.g., Lightfoot, Burton, Mussner, Betz, Bruce). Indeed, it is the crudest and rudest of all Paul\u2019s extant statements, which his amanuensis did not try to tone down\u2026 Underlying the sarcasm and crudity of the comment, however, is Paul\u2019s understanding of circumcision as purely a physical act without religious significance (cf. 5:6<\/a>; 6:15<\/a>), which when done for societal or physical reasons is acceptable but when done either to gain acceptance before God or to achieve a more acceptable lifestyle becomes simply bodily mutilation (cf. Phil 3:2<\/a>)\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Threats to Christian Freedom<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two dangers threatened Christian freedom in Galatia: the first was the acceptance of Jewish nomism<\/strong> as a lifestyle for Gentile Christians, which in effect brought one right back to the basic question of whether righteousness was to be gained by \u201cworks of the law\u201d or by a response of faith to \u201cthe faithfulness of Jesus Christ\u201d (cf. 2:16<\/a>); the second was the corruption of the Christian life<\/strong> by reliance on \u201cthe flesh\u201d rather than \u201cthe Spirit.\u201d The most immediate danger was that of Jewish nomism, which was brought in from outside the church by the Judaizers. So Paul deals with that first and most extensively in 1:6\u20145:12\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Galatians: It Applies Today<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most often Galatians is viewed as the great document of justification by faith. What Christians all too often fail to realize is that in reality it is a document that sets out a Christ-centered lifestyle\u2014one that stands in opposition to both nomism and libertinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, though applauding justification by faith, Christians frequently renounce their freedom in Christ by espousing either nomism or libertinism, and sometimes (like the Galatians) both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Paul\u2019s cutting remarks in the letter to the Galatians, though directly relevant to the Galatian situation, speaks also to our situation today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn More with the WBC<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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