HERMENEUTICS OF ELEUTHERIA IN THE STRUGGLE FOR IDENTITY IN GALATIANS 5 1-15 AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR THE CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE BELT OF NIGERIA

📄 Project Abstract

In this age, a common phenomenon that has been embraced by most human society is freedom. Great numbers of communities have the challenges and agitation to be completely free from all kinds of bondage or slavery in its minutest form. Consequently most human communities are grabbling with the fundamental question of their freedom or liberation which is tied to some enslavement of some sort of existential factors affecting them either positively or negatively. Indeed the Christian community particularly in the Middle Belt of Nigeria as an integral part of the larger society is also confronted with a seemingly similar situation or the question of real freedom, or a misunderstanding of the concept and perhaps a flawed interpretation of what freedom in Christ actually mean. Thus, it is argued that, Christianity is a religion of freedom par excellence (Hodgson, 1976, p. xiv). Pauline studies have been a matter of great controversy over the years among many New Testament scholars. Interpretin...