Galatians 4 - EasyEnglish Bible 2024（EASY）

Chapter 4Paul explains what it means to be God's children

1I will explain it like this. Think about a son who will one day receive what belongs to his father. While he is still a child, he is no better than a slave in the family. This is true, even though all his father's things belong to him.

2He has to wait until the time that his father has decided. Until then, the son has to obey his teachers and the guides who take care of him.

3In the same way, we were children like that in God's family. The spiritual powers that rule this world controlled us as their slaves.

4But when the time that God had decided arrived, he sent his Son into the world. A human mother gave birth to him. He was born a Jew, under the authority of God's Law.

5In this way, he made us free from the authority of the Law. Before that, we were like slaves under the Law. But God's Son paid our debt, so that God would accept us as his own children.

6Because we are his children, God has sent his Son's Spirit to live in us. His Spirit causes us to call God, ‘Father, my Father’.

7So you are not slaves any more, but you are God's children. And because of that, you will receive all the good things that God has promised.

Paul warns Christians not to believe in special rules

8Before, when you did not know God, you served false gods. They were not gods at all, but you were their slaves.

9But now you do know God. I should really say that God knows you. So you must not turn back to serve the powers that rule this world. They are weak and their ideas are useless. Do not choose to become their slaves again!

10You obey rules about certain special days, or months, or seasons, or years. That is how you want to please God.

11So I worry about you. I worked very hard to help you. I do not want my work to have no results.

12My Christian friends, please become like me! Please do this, because when I was with you, I became like you. You did not then do anything wrong to me.

13Remember that I first came to you because I was ill. That was when I first told God's good news to you.

14I caused trouble for you because I was ill. But you did not insult me. You did not tell me to go away. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel from God, or even Christ Jesus himself.

15But now you do not seem to be happy with me. I can say that you would have pulled out your own eyes to help me. You would have given them to me, if that had been possible.

16But now I seem to have become your enemy! Is that because I am telling you God's true message?

17Those false teachers try very much to please you. But they do not really want what is good for you. They want to keep you for themselves. Then you will only want to listen to them.

18If someone really wants to help you, it is good for them to try to please you. But they should do it all the time, not only when I am there with you.

19My children, I feel like a mother who is giving birth to you again. I will continue to feel that kind of pain until you have Christ's nature in your lives.

20I would like very much to be there with you now. Then I could change the way that I speak to you. As it is, I do not know the best way to help you.

Paul explains about Hagar and Sarah

21I say this to you people who want God's Law to have authority over you. Think carefully about what that Law really says.

22The Bible says that Abraham had two sons. The mother of one of them was a slave. The mother of the other son was a free woman.

23Hagar was a slave. Her son was born as a result of what Abraham himself decided. But Abraham's wife, Sarah, gave birth to the other son. That son was born as a result of what God had promised to Abraham.

24These two women are like pictures of two covenants that God made with his people. Hagar is like the covenant that God made on Mount Sinai. That covenant causes people to become slaves.

25Hagar is like a picture of Mount Sinai in Arabia. Also, she is like the city of Jerusalem here on earth now, because that city and its people are slaves under the authority of God's Law.

26But Abraham's wife, Sarah, is a picture of the new Jerusalem that is above. Sarah was a free person, not a slave, and she is like our mother.

27It says in the Bible:

‘Be happy, you woman who could not have any children!

You have never known the pain of a child's birth.

But now shout loudly because you are so happy!

Yes, be happy, because the lonely woman now has more children

than the woman who has a husband.’

28You, my Christian friends, are like Sarah's son, Isaac. Like him, you became God's children as a result of God's promise.

29Isaac was born because of God's Spirit. The son who was born in the human way gave much trouble to Isaac at that time. You who are believers now receive the same kind of trouble.

30But this is what it says in the Bible: ‘Send away the woman who is a slave and her son. That woman's son will never receive anything from his father. The son of the free woman will receive all those good things.’

31So, my Christian friends, we are not children of the woman who is a slave. No, we are children of the free woman.