Today, I am reading and commenting on Galatians 1-6.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians contains a lot which is easy to misunderstand.  For most of the letter Paul condemns those who insist on living according to the Law of Moses.  He points out that unless one can keep every bit of that Law being circumcised is of no value.  Indeed, he points out that we should not dedicate ourselves to following specific rituals and feasts on specific days.  Doing so makes those things into idols which we worship in place of God.  Paul reminds us that the original covenant was with Abraham, more than 400 years before Moses and the Law given at Mount Sinai.  We do not need to become Jews, to enter into the covenant which God gave to the descendants of Jacob at Mount Sinai, in order to receive the salvation which comes through faith in Christ and His death and resurrection.  Through Christ we are all returned to the state in which God created us, we are all returned to the image of God.  As a result, in Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile, no slave nor freeman, no male or female, just people made in the image of God.

Now, having spent most of his letter telling us that we should not allow ourselves to be bound by the law, Paul also tells us not to allow ourselves to be bound by sin.  In fact, he tells us that if we have been saved by faith in Christ we will live by the Spirit.  If we live by the Spirit we will not gratify the desires of the flesh but will display the fruit of the Spirit.  In doing this Paul is referring to the same idea which Jesus was talking about when he said “Thus by their fruit you will recognize them.”  While Jesus was primarily talking about recognizing false prophets, Paul shows us here that it is not just about recognizing others.  He tells us that we should judge ourselves by our fruit, and we should strive to produce the fruit of the Spirit rather than demonstrate the acts of the flesh.  You can read the acts (or fruit) of the flesh in the passage, but I want to list the fruits of the Spirit which we should strive to produce: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  The great things about these is that the more we exhibit these traits, the easier it is to practice them…and the harder we find it to indulge in the acts of the flesh.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  Galatians 1-6.

In his letter to the Galatian believers Paul addresses two issues in the Galatian Church.  Having written that I went back to the passage to compose my thoughts about the first issue and realized that in some ways they are different expressions of the same issue. Paul begins by writing that the reports he is receiving suggest that the Galatian believers were being led astray by some teachers who had arrived and claimed to be preaching the Gospel, but were teaching something contrary to what Paul taught.  Paul insists that anything contrary to what he originally preached to them is NOT the Gospel and anyone who so preached should be under God’s curse.  Paul points out that he was not attempting the approval of any human beings (note the similarity to what he wrote to the Corinthians about things other teachers were saying about him).  Paul writes that if he was seeking human approval he would not be a follower of Jesus.  Which suggests that the two issues Paul addresses later in this letter were about attempts to please others rather than God.

Which brings me to the first false teaching Paul counters in this letter.  Some among the Galatian believers were teaching that followers of Jesus needed to follow the Law of Moses, including circumcision for the men, but not limited to that.  Those who followed this teaching were insisting that Christians needed to practice the feast days of Judaism and all other aspects of the Law of Moses.  Paul points out that if we seek to gain righteousness through following the Law, we will be enslaved by the Law, but that we have been freed by Christ and are no longer bound by the Law.  Paul writes that we must choose whether we will live in slavery to the Law or the freedom of Christ.  Paul makes the point that we cannot succeed in being good enough to get into heaven, we can only get into heaven by accepting God’s gift through Christ and putting our faith in Him.

Having established that we have been called to freedom in Christ, Paul then addresses the second false teaching he wanted to counter.  Paul writes that we should not use our freedom in Christ to indulge our sinful desires.  Rather we should humbly serve others with love.  Rather than use our freedom to satisfy our physical desires, we should seek satisfy the Spirit.  He gives a list of the sort of things which grow out of seeking physical pleasure.  I am not going to rewrite that list here because Paul’s list in the passage is well written.  I am however going to reproduce at least part of the list of things which Paul tells us grows out of seeking the please the Spirit, because no one can claim there is anything wrong with any of these: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Whatever we choose to do, we should ask ourselves in what way that action is an expression of one or more of the things on that list.   If the answer is that it is not in any way an expression of something off of that list, we should refrain from that activity and replace it with something which is an expression of that list.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Galatians 1-6.

It seems clear to me that Paul wrote this letter in response to some who were teaching that followers of Christ needed to fully obey the Laws of Moses, almost certainly with an emphasis on circumcision and the Festivals laid out by Moses.  Paul makes the point that what he teaches could not have been made up by men because he began teaching it without being taught it by any other person.  He claims to have learned what he taught by Divine revelation.  There are those who claim this shows that Paul taught something different from what was taught by those who had walked with Jesus on this earth.    However, Paul points out here that those who had come to faith in Christ before him did not ask him to add, or remove, anything from what he taught.

Having established his “bonafides”, Paul makes his case.  He actually makes a very good case for something which people struggle with to this day.  He goes through and demolishes the idea that in order to be saved we must follow some set of rules, even the rules laid out in the Law of Moses.  He makes a solid case that those who are trying to convince us to follow some set of rules are doing so in order to get us to follow their set of rules in order to gain power over us.  Then, having established our freedom from a set of rules, Paul warns us of the importance of not succumbing to slavery to sinful desires.   He tells us that the desires of the flesh, sexual immorality, debauchery, selfish ambition, etc. will bind us once more.  Rather we should seek to behave according to the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, self-control, etc..  Let us live by the Spirit, which is eternal, not by the flesh, which is decaying.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Galatians 1-6.

Here, in his letter to the Galatian Believers, Paul warns against following teachers who fail to preach Christ crucified.  Paul writes that we have been freed from the Law of Moses by putting our faith in Christ.  He tells us that we have been freed from the Law by putting our faith in Christ.  We should not allow ourselves to be enslaved once more.  However, our freedom does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be caught up once more in doing sinful things.  Our faith has allowed the Spirit to live within us, so we should live within the Spirit and according to the Spirit.  We should not gratify our fleshly desires by partaking in sinful actions such as sexual immorality, selfish ambition, factions and envy, and the other sins Paul lists here.  Instead, we should follow the Spirit and serve our fellow Believers with humility.  As I read this, it seems that the preachers against whom Paul was writing suggested that it was okay for one to indulge in the fleshly desires Paul described here as long as one followed the rituals of the Law of Moses (such as getting circumcised).  I am going to finish with a few verses from this passage which I find inspiring:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Galatians 1-6.

I have struggled to follow what Paul says in the first two chapters of his letter to the Galatian Believers.  One could easily interpret what he wrote as being disparaging of the Apostles who followed Jesus when He was on earth.  However, that would be to misunderstand what Paul means to say here.  Paul emphasizes that he did not learn the Gospel he taught from the other Apostles.  Rather, he learned it from the Holy Spirit and his study of the Jewish Scripture.  Nevertheless when he and the original Apostles, those who learned the Gospel directly from Jesus, compared notes, they discovered that they were preaching the same message.  I suppose one of the reasons I never fully put that together before is because I never read it trying to understand the argument Paul to which Paul was responding.  As I read this I realized that those whose arguments Paul was attempting to counter had built their case against Paul, and the Gospel he taught, on two contradictory claims.  The first part of the claim was that Paul was teaching falsehood he had been taught by the original Apostles, who had invented it themselves.  The second part was that Paul was teaching something different than the true teachings of the Church.  Paul never addresses the contradiction between these two claims, he merely demolishes both of them.  Further, the way Paul addresses both arguments tells us that the arguments were never made as direct claims.  Instead, those who made them did so by assuming they were true and proceeding from there.  Paul exposes the logical inconsistency by demolishing both claims.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Galatians 1-6

Paul addresses a very complex issue in his letter to the Galatians.  He wrote the letter because some people had come to the Galatians and were teaching them that they had to follow Jewish law in order to be saved. In particular, they were teaching that men needed to be circumcised, but reading between the lines suggests that they were teaching that Believers needed to follow Jewish dietary regulations and other similar rules from the Law of Moses.  Paul makes the point that we cannot be saved by following the Law of Moses, because failure to follow all of it to perfection means we have failed.  He points out that everyone has broken the Law to some degree or another.  Therefore, we can only be saved by faith in Christ, by accepting the gift of forgiveness which God extends to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  This means that we are free from obligation to follow the Law.  In fact, we are completely free to do as we choose.

However. this is where it gets complicated.  Just because we are free to do as we choose, does not mean that we should allow ourselves to become libertines, doing depraved things if they strike our fancy.  While doing good will not save us, the fact that we are saved should cause us to do good.  Paul addressed this same theme in both of his letters to the Corinthians and in his letter to the Romans, which should give us an idea of how important it is.  To summarize: Doing good will not make us right with God, but having been made right with God should inspire us to do good.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Galatians 1-6

I have always struggled to encapsulate Paul’s teachings about living a righteous life, but not being bound by the law.  Today I finally saw the way to sum up Paul’s teaching on the subject.  We cannot find favor with God by following a set of rules.  Our reconciliation with God will not and cannot come from obedience to rules, because no set of rules can cover every possible contingency.  However, once we have been reconciled to God through accepting His gracious gift, we will desire to do what is right.  

In fact, once he has established that we cannot gain favor with God by our actions, Paul goes on to tell us to allow the Holy Spirit to guide our lives.  He contrasts doing what the Holy Spirit desires with doing what our sinful nature desires and writes that our freedom from the law should result in us allowing the Holy Spirit to direct our actions.  I am only going to point our a couple of the things Paul warns us are a result of following our sinful desires: lustful pleasures, hostility, outbursts of anger, envy, etc..  You should read his whole list for yourself and recognize that he states that it is not comprehensive.  I will however list the fruits which Paul tells us will appear in our lives if we follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit and act according to the desires which He gives us:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Especially note that last one.  With a little thought we can see that self-control provides the key to resisting the desires of our sinful nature.  Love informs us as to why we should not give in to sinful desires and self-control provides us with the means to do so.  The other fruits which Paul lists are corollaries of those two.