"The Inheritance... the Promise."

I ask for the grace to pray and meditate faithfully.  I ask for patience, tolerance, empathy, and compassion.  I pray for the grace to abstain from anger, anxiety, compulsive behaviour, discouragement, and self-importance.  I pray for the grace to know and follow Christ more closely, seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly.


Galatians 3:15-18
15 Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. ¹⁶Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, ‘And to offsprings’, as of many; but it says, ‘And to your offspring’, that is, to one person, who is Christ. ¹⁷My point is this: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. ¹⁸For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise; but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.


1) "...a covenant;" "...through the promise;"


2) This is an example from daily life? I feel this passage would benefit from reading multiple translations. I'm not sure Paul gets to split the hair "offspring" vs "offsprings". A mass noun is a mass noun in English. I fear his argument is so comprehensive as to nullify everything he's said in other letters about honouring those who first received the promise. I do appreciate that the "promise" predates the "law." I would agree that Gentiles do not need to follow the letter of the law in order to receive the promise. But I'm quite sure, I would not choose take this line of argument. It is too ease to twist it into an anti-Semitic argument. And Paul is wrong anyway, because supersessionism was good biblical theology. With the prophets, the "new" regularly superseded the old. So I wouldn't name this one of Paul's more stellar moments in argumentation. I guess that's what happens when we are angry.


3) What is the invitation in all this? To accept the promise, for all people.  It isn't God's thing to make favourites, or to exclude based on practices or rites.  God wants to know if we love one another, and serve the least of these.


"Holy One, make us worthy witnesses to your presence and promise."


Breathprayer: "the inheritance... the promise."