Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 217 · August 5
Neither Jew Nor Greek
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:28 is a sentence about who inherits.
Read the two verses it stands between. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Then the famous line, then the conclusion the chapter was built to reach: And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Paul has been arguing about a will, and about a covenant no later law can annul. The question is whose name is in it.
The list of pairs is not fixed, which is how you can tell it was never a slogan. Corinth gets Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, baptized into one body by one Spirit. Colossae gets a longer one: neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. Scythian was that world's word for the least civilised person it could picture. Each church is handed its own wall.
The idea is older than Paul and describes God before it regulates a room. Moses says of him that he regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. Peter says it in a Gentile's house: Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. Romans puts it flat, there is no respect of persons with God.
Now the warning. James is writing to congregations that held the doctrine and used it as decoration. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and the seating gets arranged accordingly: Sit thou here in a good place, and, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool. James calls it sin: ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. Quoting Galatians 3:28 has never yet moved a footstool out of a room. Somebody does the seating every week, and the person you have quietly put at the back is named in the will beside you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 217 is Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (Psalm 139:13-14).