One of the most common frustrations in conversations between Hebrew Roots believers and mainstream Christians is that both sides accuse the other of reading the Bible selectively. The HRM says mainstream Christians ignore the Hebrew background and squeeze the text through a Greek philosophical lens. Mainstream Christians say the HRM forces a predetermined conclusion onto every verse. Both accusations contain partial truth - because both sides often engage in exactly what they accuse the other of doing.

This article is an attempt to cut through that impasse by demonstrating what careful, honest biblical interpretation actually looks like - step by step, on two passages. First on a passage where both sides agree completely, so the method can be seen working on neutral ground. Then on a passage where the sides disagree, so the method can be applied to contested territory and the reader can see where it leads when followed honestly.

The method used here is not a novelty. It is what scholars call grammatical-historical exegesis - reading a passage by attending to its words, its grammar, its immediate context, its broader canonical context, and the meaning those words carried for their original hearers. No special tools are required. A Bible, a willingness to read carefully, and the discipline to let the text set the agenda rather than the conclusion you brought to it. That last requirement is the hardest one.

Before we begin, one ground rule worth stating: the goal of interpretation is not to win an argument. It is to understand what the text says. An interpretation that cannot be falsified - that absorbs all counter-evidence without revision - is not interpretation. It is advocacy. Genuine interpretation carries the risk of finding that the text says something other than what you expected. That risk is not a threat. It is the point.

Part One: Common Ground - 1 Corinthians 15:3–4

We begin on agreed territory. Both mainstream Christianity and the Hebrew Roots Movement affirm that Jesus died for sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. This is not a contested claim. Beginning here serves a purpose: it shows the method working on familiar ground, so that when the same method is applied to contested ground, the reader can see that the method has not changed - only the passage has.

The text: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)

Step One: Immediate Context

Before examining any word, read what surrounds the passage. 1 Corinthians 15 opens with Paul reminding the Corinthians of the gospel he preached, which they received, in which they stand, and by which they are being saved - "if you hold fast to the word I preached to you" (15:2). He is not introducing something new. He is reminding them of something foundational that was established at the beginning of his ministry in Corinth.

The chapter then extends for 58 verses, making it the longest sustained argument about the resurrection in the New Testament. The immediate occasion is that some in Corinth were saying there is no resurrection of the dead (15:12). Paul's argument: if there is no resurrection, Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins (15:17). The resurrection of Christ is the foundation on which everything else rests. Verses 3–4 are the compressed statement of that foundation - the irreducible core.

The phrase "as of first importance" - Greek en prōtois - means first in order of priority, first in rank, the thing that comes before everything else. Paul is not saying this is merely the first item on a list. He is saying this is the load-bearing truth on which the rest depends. Immediate context establishes: these two verses are Paul's deliberate statement of the non-negotiable gospel core.

Step Two: Larger Context - Who Wrote This, To Whom, and When

Paul writes to the church at Corinth, a Greek city whose population was predominantly Gentile, with a Jewish minority. He writes approximately 53–55 AD, within twenty-five years of the crucifixion. He addresses people who are already believers but are confused about the resurrection - possibly because Greek culture was hostile to the idea of bodily resurrection (Acts 17:32 shows this reaction directly). The Corinthian context matters: Paul is defending bodily resurrection against Greek philosophical scepticism, not against Jewish denial.

The larger canonical context is essential. Paul's gospel does not exist in isolation. He grounds it in "the Scriptures" - twice. This is a pointer telling the reader to look backward into the Hebrew scriptures for the meaning of the events he is describing. Without that look backward, the words "for our sins," "buried," and "raised on the third day" cannot be fully understood.

Step Three: Word Study

Apethanen hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn - "died for our sins."

The preposition hyper with the genitive means "on behalf of," "for the sake of," "in place of." It carries substitutionary weight - someone acting in the place of another, bearing something on another's behalf. Paul uses it consistently in substitutionary contexts: Romans 5:8 ("Christ died for us while we were still sinners"), Galatians 3:13 ("Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us"). The phrase "for our sins" identifies the specific burden being borne: not our circumstances, not our mortality in general, but our sins specifically - our moral failure before God. The death is purposive and particular.

Kata tas graphas - "according to the Scriptures."

This phrase appears twice - once for the death (verse 3) and once for the resurrection (verse 4). Graphas is the Greek word for writings, used consistently in the New Testament for the Hebrew scriptures. Paul is making a claim about correspondence: these events did not happen in a vacuum. They happened in fulfilment of, in accordance with, as the culmination of what the Hebrew scriptures had been pointing toward. This forces the interpreter to ask: which scriptures? The answer runs across multiple texts. Isaiah 53 - "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities." Psalm 22 - the righteous sufferer whose hands and feet are pierced, whose clothing is divided by lot. Jonah 1:17 - three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, which Jesus himself identified as a sign pointing to his burial and resurrection (Matthew 12:40). Hosea 6:2 - "after two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up." The "third day" is not incidental. It is scripturally loaded.

Egēgertai - "he was raised" or more precisely "he has been raised and remains raised."

This is a perfect passive indicative. The perfect tense in Greek describes a past action with continuing present results. Paul does not write ēgerthē (aorist - simply "he rose"). He writes egēgertai - he was raised at a point in the past and the result of that raising continues into the present. The resurrection is not merely a past event. It is a present state. Christ is not someone who once rose. He is someone who rose and is risen - currently, permanently, irreversibly. The passive voice means God raised him - the resurrection is an act of the Father, not merely something that happened to Jesus. These two grammatical features carry enormous theological weight that a simple English "rose" does not capture.

Step Four: Building the Meaning

Put the word study and the contexts together. Paul is handing on - using the technical language of rabbinic tradition (paredōka... parelabon, I delivered... I received) - the foundational truth he himself received, presumably from the Jerusalem apostles (Galatians 1:18–19). He received it and is now passing it on unchanged. This is not his innovation.

The content: a specific person called Christ - the Messiah, the anointed one of Israel's expectation - died. The death was substitutionary, bearing sin on behalf of others. The death was scripturally anticipated - it happened in accordance with a pattern the Hebrew scriptures had been tracing for centuries. He was buried - the burial confirms the reality of the death; this is not a swoon, a near-death, a spiritual metaphor. He was raised - God acted to reverse the death. The raising happened on the third day, also scripturally anticipated. And he is currently raised - the perfect tense declares a permanent, ongoing state.

The conclusion is inescapable and uncontested: the gospel Paul preaches is the death of the Messiah for human sin and his bodily resurrection from the dead, both events happening in precise fulfilment of the Hebrew scriptures, both events constituting the irreducible core of the Christian faith.

Both sides agree. Good. Now the same method, applied to a contested passage.

Part Two: Contested Ground - Galatians 3:23–25

The text: "Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." (Galatians 3:23–25)

The HRM position on this passage is that Paul is describing the law's role in restraining Israel from paganism until the Messiah came, and that "we are no longer under a guardian" means we are no longer under the law's condemnation - not that the law's requirements no longer apply. The mainstream position is that Paul is stating plainly that the Mosaic covenant's custodial role has ended with the coming of Christ, and that believers are no longer under it as a governing framework.

The method will adjudicate between these positions. Let the text decide.

Step One: Immediate Context

Galatians 3 is the theological centre of the letter. Paul has already established in chapters 1–2 that his gospel came by revelation from Christ (1:12), that he opposed Peter at Antioch for conduct "not in step with the truth of the gospel" (2:14), and that "a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" (2:16). He has argued that the Galatians received the Spirit by hearing with faith, not by works of the law (3:2–5), and that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness (3:6) - four hundred and thirty years before the law was given (3:17).

The immediate context of verses 23–25 is a sustained argument about the law's purpose and duration. Verse 19 asks: "Why then the law?" and answers: "It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made." The word until appears before we even reach verse 23. The law was added for a purpose. It had a terminus. It was added until something arrived.

Verse 22 says the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, "so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." The imprisonment served a purpose - it drove toward the promise. The promise is the destination. The imprisonment was the road.

Verses 23–25 are the conclusion of this argument. Before faith came. Until Christ came. But now that faith has come. These are temporal markers - before, until, but now. They divide history into two periods: the period before Christ's coming, governed by the law's custodial role, and the period after, characterised by faith's arrival. The immediate context is saturated with temporal language that the HRM reading has to work very hard to neutralise.

Step Two: Larger Context - The Letter and the Canon

Galatians was written approximately 48–50 AD to Gentile churches in the region of Galatia. The crisis Paul addresses is specific: people have come into these communities - the circumcision party, whom Paul calls "false brothers" (2:4) - and are teaching that Gentile believers must be circumcised and observe the law of Moses to be fully saved and fully included. Paul's response is not measured. He calls this "a different gospel" (1:6) and says those who preach it should be "accursed" (1:8–9). He calls the Galatians "foolish" for being bewitched by this teaching (3:1). This is the most urgent, least diplomatic of Paul's letters - because the stakes are the highest.

The larger canonical context includes Romans 7:1–6 (believers died to the law through Christ's body so as to belong to another), Romans 10:4 (Christ is the telos - end, goal - of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes), Colossians 2:14 (the record of debt with its legal demands was cancelled and nailed to the cross), and Hebrews 7:12 (when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law also). Galatians 3:23–25 is not an isolated statement. It is part of a consistent canonical pattern across multiple letters by multiple authors.

Step Three: Word Study

Phrouroumetha - "we were held captive" or "we were kept under guard."

The verb is phroureō - to guard, to keep under military watch, to confine. It is used for a garrison guarding a city (2 Corinthians 11:32), for the peace of God guarding the heart (Philippians 4:7), and here for the law keeping people confined. The image is not benign classroom supervision. It is guarded confinement - the law as a constraining force that holds people in a defined space until the appointed time. The confinement is purposive - not punitive for its own sake but oriented toward the revelation of faith. But it is confinement nonetheless.

Paidagōgos - "guardian" (ESV), "schoolmaster" (KJV), "tutor" (NASB).

This is the decisive word, and its meaning in the Greco-Roman world is specific enough to settle the interpretive question on its own. A paidagōgos was not a teacher. This is crucial and often missed because the KJV translates it "schoolmaster," creating a false impression. The paidagōgos was a household slave - usually educated, often foreign - whose specific function was to escort children to and from school, supervise their behaviour and conduct, and ensure they arrived safely at the teacher. He was responsible for the child's behaviour outside the classroom. He had disciplinary authority. He was often strict and sometimes feared.

But - and this is the word's most important feature for Paul's argument - his role had a built-in expiration date. When the child reached adulthood, the paidagōgos's supervision ended. The child was no longer under his authority. Not because the paidagōgos had failed or was bad, but because the purpose of the arrangement had been fulfilled. The child had arrived at the stage of life the arrangement was always pointing toward. The supervision ended not by abolition but by completion.

Paul could not have chosen a more perfectly suited image. The law as paidagōgos was real authority, genuine discipline, a good arrangement for its season - but always temporary, always pointing toward the adult stage it was preparing for, always designed to end when the destination arrived. Verse 25 states the arrival: "but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." The child has reached adulthood. The paidagōgos's supervision is over.

The HRM reading - that "no longer under a guardian" means free from the law's condemnation while still under its requirements - requires the paidagōgos image to mean something it cannot mean. A child who is free from the paidagōgos's punishment but still required to be escorted by him everywhere, still required to follow his rules, still supervised by him in all matters of conduct - is not free from the paidagōgos. They are still under him. Paul says they are no longer under the guardian. The image means what it means: the supervision has ended.

Eis Christon - "until Christ" (verse 24).

The preposition eis with the accusative here indicates direction and terminus - movement toward a goal that, when reached, ends the journey. The law was our guardian moving us toward Christ. Christ is the arrival point. When you arrive at a destination, the journey is over. The guardian's role was to bring us to Christ. Christ has come. The role is complete.

Nun de - "but now" (verse 25).

These two small words carry enormous weight throughout Paul's letters. Nun de - "but now" - is Paul's standard formula for marking a transition from the old state to the new. Romans 3:21: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law." Romans 6:22: "But now that you have been set free from sin." Romans 7:6: "But now we are released from the law." Colossians 1:22: "But now he has reconciled." Every time Paul writes nun de, he is marking a before and after - a transition that has occurred historically and that changes the present situation. The "but now" of Galatians 3:25 is the arrival of faith, the coming of Christ, the end of the guardian's season.

Step Four: Building the Meaning

Put it together. Before faith came - before the arrival of Christ and the age of the Spirit - God's people were held under confinement, guarded by the law. This was not a mistake. It was purposive. The law kept Israel oriented toward God, restrained from the full expression of sin's consequences, moving toward the appointed time of Christ's coming. The law functioned as a paidagōgos - a temporary supervisor whose authority was genuine but whose role had a built-in expiration date determined by the child's arrival at adulthood, not by the supervisor's failure.

Then Christ came. The faith whose arrival the law was always oriented toward has been revealed. The offspring to whom the promise was made has come (3:19). The paidagōgos's purpose has been fulfilled - not negated, not abolished, but completed. And the consequence is stated plainly, in the present tense, with the temporal marker "but now": we are no longer under a guardian.

The word study on paidagōgos forecloses the HRM reading. The guardian's authority was not over punishment alone - it was over supervision, conduct, escort, the entire framework of the child's guided life. Being "no longer under" the guardian means the entire supervisory arrangement has ended, not merely the punitive dimension of it. A child freed from the paidagōgos's punishment but still required to follow his rules and be escorted by him has not been freed from the guardian. Paul says they are no longer under the guardian. The language means what it says.

The temporal markers confirm it: before faith came, until Christ came, but now that faith has come. Three temporal markers in three verses, all pointing to the same transition: a before and an after, defined by the coming of Christ as the arrival point the law was always moving toward.

The conclusion the text reaches: the Mosaic law functioned as a temporary custodial arrangement for the period before Christ's coming. That period has ended. The arrangement has been fulfilled - honoured, completed, brought to its appointed destination - not abolished. Believers in Christ are no longer under the law's custodial supervision, not because the law was bad but because the child has grown up, the destination has been reached, and the guardian's season is over.

The Method Side by Side

Compare how the method operated on both passages.

In both cases the same steps were followed. Read the immediate context to establish what the passage is doing and why. Read the larger context to understand who is writing, to whom, when, and in what canonical framework. Examine the key words carefully in their original language, attending to what those words meant to their original hearers. Then build the meaning from those components, letting the text set the agenda.

In 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, the method produced a conclusion both sides agree with. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are the foundational gospel events, scripturally anticipated, substitutionary in character, and permanently significant because of the perfect tense's ongoing force.

In Galatians 3:23–25, the method produced a conclusion one side resists. The law functioned as a temporary custodian whose season ended with the coming of Christ. The paidagōgos word study, the temporal markers, the immediate and larger context all point to the same place.

The method did not change between the two passages. The same tools, the same steps, the same discipline of letting the text speak. The difference in conclusions reflects a difference in what the texts say - not a difference in the interpretive framework applied.

If you accept the method's results in 1 Corinthians 15 - and both sides do - intellectual consistency requires accepting its results in Galatians 3. The method is either reliable or it is not. If it is reliable, it produces both conclusions. If it is not reliable, it produces neither.

A Word to the Honest Seeker

If you have come to this article from within the Hebrew Roots Movement, or from a background sympathetic to it, the Galatians 3 conclusion may feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is worth sitting with rather than immediately deflecting.

The discomfort is not evidence that the conclusion is wrong. It is evidence that the conclusion challenges something you have invested in. Those are different things. The question to ask is not "how can I answer this?" but "what does the text actually say?" - and to ask that question with the same openness you would bring to a passage whose conclusion you find comfortable.

The paidagōgos is not an insult to the Torah. It is one of the most dignified images Paul could have chosen - a trusted, responsible, authoritative role in a well-ordered household. The law was real, was from God, did exactly what it was assigned to do, and pointed with extraordinary precision to the Christ who arrived to fulfil it. Calling the law a paidagōgos is not diminishment. It is description of its God-given function and its God-given season.

The season ended when Christ came. Not because Moses failed. Because Christ arrived. And the arrival of the one the law was always pointing toward is not bad news for those who love the law. It is the best possible news - the law's deepest hope, confirmed.

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. - Galatians 3:24–25