For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The key to gaining wisdom is to commit yourself to learning and never stop. If you ever think you have learned all that you need to know, you have become a fool.
It may seem as if all of those in positions of authority have lost sight of the meaning of the word justice, or if they know the meaning they do not think it important. However, the time will soon come when God will sweep aside the wicked authorities and punish them for their sin. God demands that those in positions of authority deliver justice to those under their power. If they fail to do so, if they free the guilty and punish the innocent, God will bring His judgment down on them.
There is only one Gospel. There are not many different versions of the Good News, different ways to get to Heaven. Those who argue otherwise always start out with the argument, “How do you know that you are right and others are wrong?” The answer is that I may not be right, but it is not possible that the Gospel as taught in the New Testament is true AND these other religious teachings are true. Paul is here reiterating this fact, if what he taught was true than these other teachings, which contradicted what he taught, cannot be true.
It took me a long time to understand the point which Paul makes next. Initially, it seems as if Paul is bragging that what he taught was independent of what was taught by those Apostles who had walked as Jesus’ disciples. However, I have come to the realization that that is not what Paul is saying here. Rather, he is saying that the fact that the Gospel he teaches is the same as that taught by the other Apostles is evidence of its truth. He did not learn the Gospel from them. He came to it through direct revelation. However, when he later went up to Jerusalem and met with the Apostles, what he ha learned by studying Scripture and Divine revelation was consistent with what Peter had been taught by Jesus (another form of Divine revelation).
I know there is another message here, but I will write on the one which strikes me today. We need to be call our neighbors to follow God because when God’s judgment comes falling on them, it it will not stop at the borders to their land. Let us seek to reach our neighbors with God’s message before their sin brings God’s judgment upon them. Otherwise we may get caught in the backlash.