Gal. 3:19-25, The “school-master” or “tutor”

WORD STUDY: "schoolmaster"  (paidagogos)

Gal.3:25: "But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

·       Versions:

1.    NASV, Weymouth, NEB, Berkeley, NKJV: tutor

2.    Amplified: trainer--the guardian of our childhood

3.    Alford, KJV: schoolmaster

4.    RSV: custodian

·       Concordance: 3x in NT.  Gal. 3:24-25 and 1 Cor. 4:15 (though you have 10,000 instructors you have only one father). Compound word: pais (child, boy) and ago to lead, take one with you).  Strong's def.: a boy-leader, i.e. a servant whose office it was to take the children to school.

·       Vincent: should be overseer, guardian.  Use of tutor is questionable as the schoolmaster overtone of the term outweighs the older meaning of guardian.  The law is here to keep watch over the Christian, not conduct him to school.

·       Vine: idea of instruction is absent.  The idea is of training, discipline.  To use it as a teacher throws Paul's argument into confusion.

·       New Scofield note: child trainer or child-leader.  The passage does not turn on the pedagogue's authority but on the fact that it ceased when the child became a son.  As a son he does voluntarily what the tutor forced.  And if he doesn't, it still does not involve the tutor--it is between the son & his father.

·       Barclay: He accompanied the boy to and from school, carried his books and lyre, watched his conduct, trained him in morals and manners and deportment.  He had a constant and responsible task.  My duty is to make the good pleasant to the boy.  He existed to make his charge independent of his care.  Paul is saying that the law is an inadequate thing, do to come to an end.

·       Interpretation: With this idea of custodian or trainer the passage is more sensible.  The law does not instruct us as a teacher would.  Rather the picture is like a child who is under a servant until he reaches the age of maturity or manhood set by the father (note 4:1-7).  In the 4th chapter note these words concerning physical relationships: So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world...God sent forth His son...that we might receive the adoption as sons.  Even as the servant was trainer over the child and the child was in bondage to him, we were in bondage to the law.  Even as the trainer relinquished all authority over the son at the proper date, so the law has relinquished all authority over us and we are free sons.