the Week of Proper 20 / Ordinary 25
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THE MESSAGE
Galatians 3:3
Bible Study Resources
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Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
But here's the part I don't understand, after getting into God's outfit by believing in Jesus, why are you now trying to be perfect by your own works?
Are you so foolish? having made a start in the Spirit, will you now be made complete in the flesh?
Are ye so senseless? having begun in Spirit, are ye going to be made perfect in flesh?
Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now going to be made complete by the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?
Are ye so thoughtless? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now going to reach perfection through what is external?
Are ye so foolish? Hauing begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now perfect yourself in the flesh?
Are ye so vnwyse? Ye beganne in the sprete, wolde ye ende now the in the flesh?
have you so little understanding, as having begun in the spiritual doctrine of the gospel, to turn again to the law?
Are you so foolish and senseless? Having begun [your new life by faith] with the Spirit, are you now being perfected and reaching spiritual maturity by the flesh [that is, by your own works and efforts to keep the Law]?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?
Are ye so vnwyse that after ye have begonne in the sprete ye wolde nowe ende in the flesshe?
Are you so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are you now perfected in the flesh?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
so thoughtless are ye! having begun in the Spirit, now in the flesh do ye end?
You began your life in Christ by the Spirit. Now are you trying to make it complete by your own power? That is foolish.
Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?
Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh?
How can you be so stupid? Do you think that by yourself you can complete what God's Spirit started in you?
Are you that stupid? Having begun with the Spirit's power, do you think you can reach the goal under your own power?
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Are ye so foolish, that after ye haue begun in the Spirit, ye would now be made perfect by the flesh?
Are you so foolish, after having begun with spiritual things to end now with things of the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having started out with the Spirit, are you now ending up with the flesh?Galatians 4:9; Hebrews 7:16; 9:10;">[xr]
Are you so foolish [fn] that having begun in the Spirit you are now finishing in the flesh?
Are ye so foolish, that having begun in the Spirit, ye now would consummate in the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?
How foolish can you be? You started the Christian life by the Holy Spirit. Do you think you are going to become better Christians by your old way of worship?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?
So thoughtless, are ye? Having made a beginning in Spirit, are ye, now, in flesh, to be made complete?
Are you so foolish that, whereas you began in the Spirit, you would now be made perfect by the flesh?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to be made complete by the flesh?
Are ye such fooles, that after ye haue begun in the spirite, ye woulde nowe ende in the fleshe?
You began your life in Christ with the Spirit. Now do you try to complete it by your own power? That is foolish.
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
How can you be so foolish! You began by God's Spirit; do you now want to finish by your own power?
So ye ben foolis, that whanne ye han bigunne in spirit, ye ben endid in fleisch.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
having: Galatians 4:7-10, Galatians 5:4-8, Galatians 6:12-14, Hebrews 7:16-19, Hebrews 9:2, Hebrews 9:9, Hebrews 9:10
Reciprocal: Galatians 3:1 - Foolish Galatians 4:9 - how Ephesians 5:15 - not Hebrews 10:32 - call
Cross-References
The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."
He told the Woman: "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you."
He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, ‘Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."
God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know your intentions were pure, that's why I kept you from sinning against me; I was the one who kept you from going to bed with her. So now give the man's wife back to him. He's a prophet and will pray for you—pray for your life. If you don't give her back, know that it's certain death both for you and everyone in your family."
"But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He'd curse you right to your face, that's what."
"Oh, friends, dear friends, take pity on me. God has come down hard on me! Do you have to be hard on me, too? Don't you ever tire of abusing me?
Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?
Gill's Notes on the Bible
Are ye so foolish?.... Is it possible you should be so stupid? and do you, or can you continue so?
having begun in the Spirit; that is, either in the Spirit of God, whom they had received through the preaching of the Gospel. They set out in a profession of religion in the light, under the influence, and by the assistance of the Spirit; they began to worship the Lord in spirit, and in truth, without any confidence in the flesh; they entered upon the service of God, and a newness of life, a different conversation than before, a spiritual way of living in a dependence on the grace and help of the divine Spirit: or in the Gospel, which is the Spirit that gives life, is the ministration of the Spirit of God, and contains spiritual doctrines, and gives an account of spiritual blessings, and is attended with the Holy Ghost, and with power. This was first preached unto them, and they embraced it; this they begun and set out with in their Christian profession, and yet it looked as if they sought to end with something else:
are you now made perfect by the flesh? or "in" it; not in carnality, in the lusts of the flesh, as if they now walked and lived after the flesh, in a carnal, dissolute, wicked course of life; for the apostle is not charging them with immoralities, but complaining of their principles: wherefore, by "the flesh" is meant, either the strength of mere nature, in opposition to the Spirit of God, by which they endeavoured to perform obedience to the law; or else the law itself, in distinction from the Gospel; and particularly the ceremonial law, the law of a carnal commandment, and which consisted of carnal ordinances, and only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh; and also their obedience to it; yea, even all their own righteousness, the best of it, which is but flesh, merely external, weak, and insufficient to justify before God. This is a third aggravation of their folly, that whereas they begun their Christian race depending upon the Spirit and grace of God, now they seemed to be taking a step as if they thought to finish it in the mere strength of nature; and whereas they set out with the clear Gospel of Christ, and sought for justification only by his righteousness, they were now verging to the law, and seeking to make their justifying righteousness perfect, by joining the works of the law unto it, which needed them not, but was perfect without them.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Are ye so foolish? - Can it be that you are so unwise? The idea is, that Paul hardly thought it credible that they could have pursued such a course. They had so cordially embraced the gospel when he preached to them, they had given such evidences that they were under its influence, that he regarded it as hardly possible that they should have so far abandoned it as to embrace such a system as they had done.
Having begun in the Spirit - That is, when the gospel was first preached to them. They had commenced their professedly Christian life under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and with the pure and spiritual worship of God. They had known the power and spirituality of the glorious gospel. They had been renewed by the Spirit; sanctified in some measure by him; and had submitted themselves to the spiritual influences of the gospel.
Are ye now made perfect - Tyndale renders this, “ye would now end.” The word used here (ἐπιτελέω epiteleō) means properly, to bring through to an end, to finish; and the sense here has probably been expressed by Tyndale. The idea of perfecting, in the sense in which we now use that word, is not implied in the original. It is that of finishing, ending, completing; and the sense is: “You began your Christian career under the elevated and spiritual influences of Christianity, a system so pure and so exalted above the carnal ordinances of the Jews. Having begun thus, can it be that you are finishing your Christian course, or carrying it on to completion by the observance of those ordinances, as if they were more pure and elevating than Christianity? Can it be that you regard them as an advance on the system of the gospel?”
By the flesh - By the observance of the carnal rites of the Jews, for so the word here evidently means. This has not ever been an uncommon thing. Many have been professedly converted by the Spirit, and have soon fallen into the observance of mere rites and ceremonies, and depended mainly on them for salvation. Many churches have commenced their career in an elevated and spiritual manner, and have ended in the observance of mere forms. So many Christians begin their course in a spiritual manner, and end it “in the flesh” in another sense. They soon conform to the world. They are brought under the influence of worldly appetites and propensities. They forget the spiritual nature of their religion; and they live for the indulgence of ease, and for the gratification of the senses. They build them houses, and they “plant vineyards,” and they collect around them the instruments of music, and the bowl and the wine is in their feasts, and they surrender themselves to the luxury of living: and it seems as if they intended to perfect their Christianity by drawing around them as much of the world as possible. The beautiful simplicity of their early piety is gone. The blessedness of those moments when they lived by simple faith has fled. The times when they sought all their consolation in God are no more; and they now seem to differ from the world only in form. I dread to see a Christian inherit much wealth, or even to be thrown into very prosperous business. I see in it a temptation to build himself a splendid mansion, and to collect around him all that constitutes luxury among the people of the world. How natural for him to feel that if he has wealth like others, he should show it in a similar manner! And how easy for the most humble and spiritually-minded Christian, in the beginning of his Christian life, to become conformed to the world (such is the weakness of human nature in its best forms); and having begun in the spirit, to end in the flesh!
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Galatians 3:3. Having begun in the Spirit — Having received a spiritual religion, which refined and purified your hearts; and having received the Holy Spirit of God, by which ye were endued with various miraculous influences; and the spirit of adoption, by which he were assured of the remission of sins, and incorporation with the family of God:
Are ye now made perfect by the flesh? — Are ye seeking to complete that spiritual religion, and to perfect these spiritual gifts, by the carnal rite of circumcision? It appears that by the Spirit, here, not only the Holy Spirit, but his gifts, are to be understood; and by the flesh, illud membrum in quo circumcisio peragitur; and, by a metonymy, circumcision itself.
