It’s as if Paul could foresee the misuse, how many would mistake this verse for a social program, even the key verse in all of his writings.
So he writes: “I mean…..,” to point out what he means (Galatians 4:1).
1. It is not a social program. Paul understood the world was coming to an end within his generation. There was no time for a social program, but only for spreading the Gospel as far and wide as possible in the time remaining.
See 1 Corinthians 7:17-31; 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15.2. “I mean,” he writes, that you are no longer slaves, under the law, but through baptism sons (and daughters), heirs, free from the law (Galatians 4:1-7; cf. 3:21).
3. “(B)ut now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God….” (Galatians 4:8), how can you let those artificial divisions into chapters and verses, added later, separating Galatians 3:29 from 4:1, distort what I mean: the Gospel itself?