9/19/26 Equal in IAM

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Today we are going to get into the proper theological position of who God loves and what that means. There needs to be caution in this because of the algorithm can get bucked rather easily because of a demographic represented in the Bible being spoke of in certain manners. Paul addresses something here that is not commonly taught about being in Christ. We are 12 weeks in and still dealing with the spiritual component of what being in Christ means, hoping to draw awareness of the multifaceted blessings of what it means to be in Christ. Paul in this scripture draws a number of clarifications from 3 different subjects to make his point.

His first is Jew & Gentile. This is obviously who the Bible is addressed to. The OT is written by Jewish writers intended for Jewish audience, inspired by Holy Spirit but has affects on the world outside of the Jewish audience known as the Gentiles. In the HEB the term gentile is the word Goy, meaning heathen or nation, most commonly used for non-Israelite people. In the NT, the GR word is ethos and used for gentiles but also used for Greeks.

When the bible first opens in the book of Genesis there is neither until after the fall and in Genesis 12 we see the 1^st mention of Israelites. The word of Adam and shortly thereafter Gods’ people were the world. Then with Abraham that changed to the Jews. But in John 3:16 it was revealed that the children of God were about to expand. In other words at the ministry of Jesus, the Father foreknew that Israel would not accept Jesus as Messiah despite Jesus spending an over 3 year ministry to reach his people.

Then the church was given birth at Pentecost & the mission was to reach the world. This is why there is no Jew or Gentile ethnicity who are to receive credence over another.

Paul then swings to social economic class when he says there is no Slave or Free. The proper phrasing would be bond or free as in bond-servant. Realistically the term covers the intentionality of the service with either an involuntary or voluntary servant. In our world it would be do you need to work for a living or not? Some of us do not need to but we do anyway, many of us need to and do not want to because we do not like what we do or who we do it for. The employment situation globally is a subject which normally provokes a value to people that is not truly accurate as to we are what we do & our value derives from that. This has for many been a source of identity as we are at work more than we are with our families & our friends.

But guess what, in God’s eyes none of that matters.

Paul then tackles gender, and its sad that in this day in age I have to remind that according to biology there are only two, Male or female. This is not going to mess with the algorithm like a previous topic, no this can turn a portion of the audience against me because it provokes the force of destruction known as feminism that sadly has been pushed hard and destroyed many aspects of the nuclear family in our culture. Hollywood & corporate America push it in their imagining but do not practice it in the corporate office.

The church in some respects has not helped, in the proper understanding of the value of being male or female. Some denominations possess doctrine that limits what women can wear, & how they can look in their lives, others forbid them from preaching, others say they are to be submissive to all men no matter what. Some of this is a ridiculous misunderstanding of the context of where these scriptures are coming from in reflection to the literal aspect of those scriptures. The fact of these instances of the roles of women in ministry, as wives, as parents & in how they look in public is what is not seen. I am not declaring that everything is about a role, what I am saying is that we have instances within scripture of women are oft misunderstood.

This section is about the comparison between seemingly opposite parallels and men do have a mantle of authority and the responsibilities therein. This means that any men who are not living up to their responsibilities are oftentimes not recognizing their proper roles. There are instances where it is simply impossible for individuals to meet their proper roles and sadly the lack of grace in the church culture it seems often overlooks this.

Essentially this is the primary role of a man is to be responsible and to be a leader. This is not to say that women cannot be responsible and are not leaders, they are but the parameters of which in scripture and the circumstances of which are vastly different for the arenas in which responsibility and leadership is to show itself. The bottom line to all of this is the understanding that despite the different roles they are no different than Jew and gentile, bond and free, as the scripture says, all one in Christ Jesus. There is no bias, there is no preferential treatment. There is one view & one view only that the Lord has, you are redeemed by my Son. I see my Sons blood upon your soul. Everything is equal. There are many preachers in this day and age that will give you examples as to how certain classes or certain ethnicities or a specific gender is superior to the other biblically and they do not address this verse. But I am here to tell you we are all one in Christ Jesus.

This means there’s to be no division, there’s no divisiveness, that no one can boast superiority over the other in the eyes of our Lord and savior. All who have his blood upon them are free. All who have his blood are redeemed. All who have his blood can stand before almighty God and he will draw them near because all are equal because we are all equally fallen.