January 19, 2022: Day 14 – Galatians 1-6

And we are back!  A couple things happened at once which prevented me from posting as I would have liked.  The first is that I was on vacation until Thursday evening and honestly simply wanted to step away from the blog for a couple of days.  I did that, and now we are back on Thursday evening.  The second thing that happened was that our website is not allowing us to post things and so as a result I was not able to post on Thursday evening as I had planned.  Sorry about all that, but now we are back!

            Galatians, we find ourselves in what is probably the first book of the New Testament that was written.  It was written by the Apostle Paul.  Paul is a hugely important person in the Bible for a variety of reasons.   One of those reasons is that he wrote most of the New Testament.  He also has given us some of the most important theological truths that we find in Scripture, such as the foundation of the Reformation which is that we are saved by grace through faith.  Let’s look at it.

            Chapter 1 Paul greets the churches that he founded, especially the church in Galatia.  Here he is showing his credentials to his readers which is that he was raised as Pharisee and so had everything that anyone needed in order to be a first class disciple of Jesus Christ.  Chapter 2 gives us the basic tenet of the faith that we are “justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing works.”  This is crucial to remember anytime that we find ourselves that we deserve to get into heaven because we are “good people”. 

            Chapter 3 gives us what I believe is one of the more important verses in regards to how to run the church.  Look at vs.28 where we read: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer salve or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  I have often used this verse in order to help people understand the calling of men and women to the ministry of ordination simply because Paul says that all are one in Christ Jesus.  Chapter 4 Paul once again speaks about the persecution that he experiences as a disciple of Jesus, which again should give him some street cred.

            Chapter 5 Paul gives a bit of a moral encouragement to be sure that we do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  This assumes that the desires of the flesh are inconsistent with the desires that God wants for us.  But that is not always the case.  God often gives us our desires and they correspond with his desires for us.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Chapter 6 Paul encourages us to bear one another’s burdens.  And just like that we have made it through Galatians.  Well done!  Let’s move on to Exodus.