Galatians 4:21

Listen, you mob that want to follow the Jewish law, you don’t really know what that law says.

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

In Context

20You see, I really worry about you. I wish I could go there and be with you now, to talk with you the right way, and help you.

22You see, God says in his book that Abraham had 2 sons. The mother of one son was Hagar. She was a worker. She was like a prisoner, and she had to work all the time for Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and she got no pay. But Sarah was the mother of the other son. She was always a free woman.

Read all of Galatians 4

Cross References

John 5:46You see, Moses wrote about me. So if you really believe the things that Moses wrote, you will believe in me.

John 12:34But the people in the crowd said, “God’s book says that the Christ, the special man that God promised to send to save us, he will live for ever. But you say that they will lift up the man from heaven and put him on a cross to die. Are you talking about the same man? Who is this man from heaven?”

Romans 3:19You know, it’s like this. God gave his law to the Jewish people for them to follow. And God is the judge of everybody in the whole world. And nobody has kept all of that law, so nobody can argue with him. Nobody can tell God, “I have kept all those laws, so I’m all right. You can’t punish me.” We can’t say that, because we all broke that law at some time. So why is the law there? It is there just to let us know that we always go wrong. That’s what it is there for.

Romans 7:5You know, we all have a bad part in us that wants us to do bad things. And at first, when we didn’t believe in Jesus, that bad part in us was our boss. And when that law told us not to do bad things, that bad part in us made us think about those bad things and want to do them, and so we did them anyway. So we had to die.

Matthew Henry on Galatians 4:20-21

Affectionate Remonstrance. ( a. d. 56.) 19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, 20 I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. That the apostle might the better dispose these Christians to bear with him in the reproofs which he was obliged to give them, he here expresses his great affection to them, and the very tender concern he had for their welfare: he was not like them—one thing when among them and another when absent… Read the whole commentary →

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