1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
– Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (NRSVUE)
“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another” (Galatians 5:1, 13). In this bold declaration, Paul reframes freedom not as personal autonomy but as a Spirit-led commitment to mutual care. Freedom, in this sense, is not a private possession but a relational, political calling. This vision is not confined to Paul’s letter; it comes alive today in surprising ways and unexpected places.
In December 2023, heavy monsoon rains devastated parts of southern Tamil Nadu, India, flooding the railway line between Tiruchendur and Chennai. Around 800 passengers on the Thiruchendur–Chennai Express were stranded overnight at Srivaikuntam Railway Station. With floodwaters cutting off access, rescue operations struggled to reach the site. Nearly 500 passengers remained trapped for over 36 hours—without food, electricity, or communication
Amid the crisis, something extraordinary happened. A tiny nearby village, Pudukudi Melur, with only 30 households, stepped in. Despite their own homes being flooded, the villagers carried provisions to the local temple kitchen and prepared meals for the stranded. Passengers recall being given sweet pongal, lemon rice, tamarind rice, milk—even being invited to help cook. Many have since said, “We are alive today because of the Srivaikuntam people.”
What is most striking is that the villagers didn’t stop to consider entrenched social divisions. In a context where caste, class, and religious boundaries often govern interactions, especially in rural South India, the villagers acted not from duty to social norms but from compassion and shared humanity. Had they been more rigid in following caste or religious boundaries, they might not have offered help. But in a moment of crisis, they broke with those expectations. Their freedom from oppressive social codes enabled them to love, serve, and sustain life.
This story raises a deeper theological and political question: what does freedom truly mean? In much of the Western imagination, freedom is often framed as individual autonomy, the right to self-determination, to choose without interference. It is linked to notions of independence, personal rights, and liberation from constraint. While such freedom has its place, it can also foster isolation, competition, and a sense of entitlement disconnected from the needs of others. It tends to be self-referential, freedom from something, rather than freedom for the flourishing of others.
By contrast, the kind of freedom we witness in Pudukudi is communal and relational. It is not freedom from responsibility but freedom to serve, to break cycles of exclusion, and to extend life-giving solidarity. This echoes Paul’s radical vision in Galatians 5: “For freedom Christ has set us free… through love become slaves to one another” (Gal 5:1, 13). Here, freedom is not the absence of obligation but a reorientation of allegiance, from law to love, from hierarchy to mutual care.
Freedom Reimagined as Love-in-Action
In verses Galatians 5:13–15, Paul makes a significant turn in his argument, directly confronting any misunderstanding of Christian freedom as license for self-serving autonomy: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” (Gal 5:13)
This is a striking inversion of both Greco-Roman and contemporary assumptions about freedom. In the Roman imperial world, freedom (libertas) was tied to status, property, and power, the privilege of elite male citizens who had legal autonomy and social authority. It was defined over against slavery, dependence, and otherness. In this cultural matrix, freedom was the right to dominate, to control one’s destiny, household, and others. This paradigm also influenced hierarchical structures within early Christian communities and continues to shape modern notions of freedom, where it is often equated with individualism, personal choice, and non-interference.
Paul, however, radically subverts this paradigm. He insists that Christian freedom is not freedom from obligation but freedom for service. The Greek verb he uses douleuete (“serve as slaves) is both provocative and deliberate. It draws from the vocabulary of domination, only to invert its logic. In Christ, Paul suggests, freedom finds its truest expression not in mastery but in mutual servanthood. This is not forced subjugation but a voluntary, Spirit-empowered commitment to the wellbeing of others. Freedom becomes relational, ethical, and sacrificial.
Such a vision resonates with and redefines Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” which Paul cites as the fulfilment of the law. Love, not legal adherence or identity markers (such as circumcision), becomes the new covenantal ethic. This love is not sentimental but active, embodied, and socially accountable. It challenges the community to reimagine power not as control or entitlement but as responsibility and solidarity.
Paul’s warning in verse 15, “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another,” is a metaphor for the social breakdown that results when freedom is misused. The imagery seems to portray a community folded in on itself, where freedom, severed from love, spirals into mutual ruin. Paul shows that when people only think about themselves, whether by following rules too strictly or ignoring them completely, it harms Christian life; but true freedom comes when we serve each other with love.
This idea of freedom as love in action matters even today. It challenges ideas that put individual freedom above caring for others. It speaks against unfair systems like caste, racism, or patriarchy that use religion or culture to exclude people. It calls Christians to live in a way that focuses on others, using freedom not for ourselves, but to bring justice, healing, and inclusion.
Seen in light of the villagers of Pudukudi, who, in the face of disaster, chose to serve strangers with food, presence, and dignity, we catch a glimpse of what Paul envisions: a community freed not just from oppressive systems, but for the flourishing of others. Their freedom was not abstract or ideological. It was embodied in rice, milk, shelter, and shared labour. In doing so, they revealed a gospel of freedom that resists domination and insists on mutual care.
The Fruit of the Spirit as Political Resistance
Paul’s contrast between “flesh” (sarx) and “Spirit” (pneuma) in Galatians 5:16–21 is not about separating body and soul or condemning the physical self, but rather highlights how patterns shaped by domination, egoism, and alienation fracture relationships and harm community life. The “works of the flesh” Paul lists such as sexual immorality, jealousy, anger, and divisions are not just personal sins but signs of broken social bonds that erode trust and solidarity, especially in a divided community like Galatia. These behaviours reflect both unchecked self-interest and legalistic pride, each rooted in self-reliance that fosters control, rivalry, and violence instead of mutual care. Paul’s message is deeply communal: the flesh produces social systems of domination and exclusion, mirroring the imperial values of hierarchy and self-exaltation, which he exposes as signs of spiritual decay.
In direct contrast, Paul outlines the karpos (fruit) of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (vv. 22–23). These are not random moral qualities. Nor are they simply internal virtues for private consumption. They are deeply political dispositions that resist empire, unsettle hierarchies, and cultivate a radically different social imagination.
Unlike the “works” of the flesh, which Paul describes in the plural, the “fruit” of the Spirit is singular. This suggests coherence and unity: these attributes are not separate accomplishments but a communal manifestation of life in the Spirit. They are the visible outcome of a Spirit-formed people living out a new relational ethic. The metaphor of fruit implies cultivation, growth, and dependence on a shared source God’s Spirit. It also suggests time, process, and the necessity of a communal soil in which this fruit can grow.
In the Roman world, where power was maintained through violence, order, and patronage, Paul’s vision is profoundly subversive. Joy and peace resist fear. Patience and kindness undercut domination. Gentleness and self-control oppose the brutality of imperial masculinity. Faithfulness challenges the shifting allegiances of power-dependent relationships. In short, the fruit of the Spirit represents a kind of spiritual and social revolution, an alternative polity rooted in divine love rather than imperial control.
The Spirit is not merely an internal guide or moral force; it is the very agent and criterion of Christian freedom. The Spirit enables the community to live beyond the binaries of law and lawlessness, beyond fleshly competition and self-interest. It is the Spirit who creates a new economy of care, rooted in mutuality, trust, and nonviolence.
Paul concludes in verses 24–25: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” This is both a declaration and a call. To “crucify the flesh” is to reject the value systems that glorify domination, consumption, and exclusion. It is to opt out of the imperial imagination and embody a Spirit-led community whose ethos is liberation, not control; healing, not harm.
Paul’s vision of freedom in Galatians 5 challenges both Roman imperial power and legalistic exclusion by redefining freedom as a Spirit-led community life shaped by love, humility, and shared responsibility. For those oppressed by empire, enslaved, colonized, or marginalized, this freedom is not just personal but a call to resist and transform systems that dehumanize. Paul’s call to “serve one another through love” demands structural change, not charity, urging communities to replace domination with mutual care. Today, his message challenges us to ask who truly experiences freedom and calls us to embody justice and liberation rooted in the Spirit’s power.
To conclude, firstly, Paul challenges us to reject the idol of individualism. Christian freedom is not private liberty; it is mutual belonging. It is not freedom from others, but freedom with and for others. This calls us to resist economic systems and ecclesial cultures that prioritise self over solidarity.
Secondly, Paul disrupts legalistic faith. Any discipleship defined by rule-keeping without love becomes spiritually barren. His ethic is not about control but about fruitfulness—the slow, Spirit-led cultivation of joy, peace, and justice in the fabric of our shared lives.
Thirdly, and perhaps most urgently, Paul invites us to reimagine church not as a sanctuary from the world but as a counter-community within it. A Spirit-filled Church is one where hierarchies are dismantled, burdens are redistributed, and love is the organising structure—not sentimentality, but the hard work of justice and compassion.
This is not abstract idealism. It is a call to inhabit freedom as collective liberation: in policy, in protest, in pastoral care, and in presence. Galatians 5 remains a radical summons, to live out the gospel not in isolation but as a people who have chosen the path of love, for the sake of one another, and for the healing of the world.
As the villagers of Pudukudi Melur showed in their moment of radical hospitality, true freedom is not about protecting one’s rights or maintaining boundaries; it is about breaking them open in love. Their response, like Paul’s vision, offers a political theology from below: a witness to the Spirit’s power to create communion where division ruled, generosity where scarcity loomed, and life where systems abandoned it.
To take action is to live by the Spirit: to embrace relationships rather than rivalry, to nurture the fruits of peace and kindness amidst injustice, and to stand alongside those whom society marginalises. It means understanding freedom not as a possession, but as a shared practice, one that dares to envision a different world and begins to create it, one meal, one act of love, one Spirit-guided choice at a time.
