I am astonished at your so soon deserting him, who called you through the love of Christ, for a different 'Good News,'

Saw fit to reveal his Son in me, so that I might tell the Good News of him among the Gentiles, then at once, instead of consulting any human being,

If, while seeking to be pronounced righteous through union with Christ, we were ourselves seen to be outcasts, would that make Christ an agent of sin? Heaven forbid!

I have been crucified with Christ. So it is no longer I that live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and, as for my present earthly life, I am living it by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

But the words of Scripture represent the whole world as being in bondage to sin, so that the promised blessing, dependent, as it is, upon faith in Jesus Christ, may be given to those who have faith in him.

But, when the full time came, God sent his Son--born a woman's child, born subject to Law--

And it is because you are sons that God sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, with the cry--'Abba, our Father.'

You, therefore, are no longer a slave, but a son; and, if a son, then an heir also, by God's appointment.

This story may be taken as an allegory. The women stand for two Covenants. One Covenant, given from Mount Sinai, produces a race of slaves and is represented by Hagar

(The word Hagar meaning in Arabia Mount Sinai) and it ranks with the Jerusalem of to-day, for she and her children are in slavery.

But what does the passage of Scripture say? 'Send away the slave-woman and her son; for the slave's son shall not be co-heir with the son of the free woman.'

Brothers, even if a man should be caught committing a sin, you who are spiritually minded should, in a gentle spirit, help him to recover himself, taking care lest any one of you also should be tempted.