Paul wrote a lot of letters to different churches in the cities he used to visit. Throughout these letters, the terms Law, Grace, and Freedom were recurring themes. Paul must have thought these things were important. There is a dynamic relationship between these three things in which each one must be held at a tension with the other two in order for things to work the way God intended. Over and over again, Paul reveals the tension between the freedom that we receive in Christ and the Law that we were under before. He emphasizes in this writings that those who believe in Christ, through God’s grace, have been freed from slavery under the law. This slavery under the law doesn’t refer to physical slavery, but it is the restrictions of the Old Testament law.
In his writings, Paul wants to make sure that people knew that just because we have freedom in Christ, that doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want. We should keep in mind what others will think if they see us using our freedom inappropriately. We do not want to be responsible for turning people away from Christ. For example, to his church in Ephesus, Paul wrote that the women should not wear braided hair and lots of jewelry. This is because then people would think that the church condoned the lifestyle that extravagant apparel represented, which was that of a New Roman Woman. Also, we need to realize that we do not deserve to have this freedom. Our new relationship to the law is that it is there to show us that we need the grace of God. We’re not good enough by ourselves to keep the law. Thats why it is important to accept God’s gift of freedom through Jesus Christ.
