Higher Octane – Need a Tutor? Not Anymore!

I wrote some devotional material for a church a few years back. Be encouraged today!

Years ago, I tried my hand at professional math tutoring for a few short months.  Wow, that takes patience.  The biggest thing I learned (re-learned, if I’m honest) is that knowing more than the other person doesn’t make you a tutor.  Being able to understand the learners, identify where they are failing, and give them the specific tools or training they need to stop failing and start succeeding — that’s a tutor.

Since the Galatians had gotten confused on the purpose of the law in their lives, Paul spent some time in Galatians 3 sharing how the law had worked in their previous lives, and what it means to them now.  They had lived under the curse of the law.  Free from that curse in Christ, they should not depend on the law for their salvation.  Having a relationship with their God through Jesus nullified the curse, and gave them not only a heavenly promise, but a current peace and love — which was the original purpose of the law.

Here’s verse 24: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”  The Jews had been the people of the law.  Grateful for a good tutor, they were now in graduate school, having graduated to faith.  They could now learn with Paul as family.  They could appreciate the tutor of the law, but they did not have to drag themselves to those strict, laborious tutorials, nor suffer punishment for learning gaps.  The law had done a great job for them:  showing them God’s character, His holiness, and His supreme nature.   

I see one of my previous high school teachers now and then; he doesn’t need me to keep coming to his government class.  I think he is more satisfied that I can be a citizen on my own.  In Christ, the Galatians had come to have full knowledge and full access to God.  We can respect our teachers today, but we must graduate, and become a “doer of the Word” ourselves. The law doesn’t do this for us. Christ “graduates” us into successful citizenship when we receive Him by faith.

Keep shiftin’.