So we too, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elementary principles of the world.
Parallel translations
- WEB So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world.
- KJV Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
- BSB So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.
- NKJV Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
- NLT And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Before Christ, we were held in bondage under the 'elemental principles of the world.' Paul describes life under law and the old order as a kind of spiritual slavery.
Overview
The phrase 'elemental principles' (Greek stoicheia) is debated: it may refer to basic religious regulations, the law as a system of external observance, or the spiritual powers behind pagan and legal bondage. Either way, Paul's point is that this was a state of immaturity and slavery from which Christ has freed us. The contrast sets up the liberating work of God's Son in the verses that follow.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Col 2:8Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.
- Col 2:20If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Gal 4:9But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?
- Gal 2:4This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage;
- Gal 4:31So then, brothers, we are not children of a servant, but of the free woman.
- Acts 15:10Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
- Rom 8:15For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
- John 8:31Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples.
- Gal 3:19What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.
- Gal 3:23–25But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, confined for the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
- Heb 7:16who has been made, not after the law of a fleshly commandment, but after the power of an endless life:
- Matt 11:28“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.
- Gal 4:25For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in bondage with her children.
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 4:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.