April 9-Mishaps

Happy Tuesday! Well...yesterday, well, this happened and caused some soft tissue damage and has me typing a bit slowly and not able to string my thoughts together quite as well as I normally do (since I type while I talk to myself.) I have a significantly swollen third digit on my right hand which is messing up. But as God knew this was coming down the road (so to speak) for me, He had me start Galatians. When my nephew read yesterday’s, he said “Can I send you some of my thoughts on Galatians?” In answer, I sent him a pic of my finger. So, he’s going to write a few entries for me about this great little letter of Paul’s for me....For the next few days, I cut, paste, edit and probably not very well. Thank you sweet Philip Lane. (He is a theology major and really smart!)

Galatians might be my favorite epistle. I call it "Romans Lite" or "Readers' Digest Romans" because they're both basically about the same core issue, but Romans gets into this extended argument and exegesis and theology. [Note: see, smart, big words] Galatians is a very compressed version.

It's also fun because it's one of Paul's earlier letters and you can see he isn't very diplomatic. He says things you wouldn't normally say in a church letter, like when he says he wishes the Judaizers would go all the way with their circumcision and cut the whole thing off. [Note: Oops!]

When I was growing up, I was told that Galatians was about Jews teaching that we are saved by our good works instead of by faith, but I don't think that's quite right.

There's not really any evidence in first century Jewish writings that anybody ever thought they would earn salvation through good works. However, there is a strong idea that faithfulness to God is defined by keeping the Law (Torah), and that's how you know who the faithful people are. Faithfulness means Law-keeping.

So, now you have these Gentiles coming to believe in the Jewish God and the Jewish Messiah, and they have no idea what the Torah says and aren't keeping any of it. They haven't even done the bare minimum to become the faithful people of God, which is to become circumcised, so you have Jewish teachers telling them that, if they want to belong to the people of God, they have to become circumcised and observe Torah.

We have to cut them (no pun intended) some slack, because up until that time, that's precisely how you joined the people of God. [Editorial note: Don’t we do the exact same thing in our churches and with each other? And if you don’t think so PM me and we will talk...slowly] If you wanted to worship Israel's God, you became circumcised and kept the Law and you were treated like a native Israelite. That's exactly what the Torah requires.

But Paul has seen Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit without doing any of that - they simply believe what God has done in Jesus, believe that He is risen from the dead, and confess Him as Lord. This is how they got the Spirit, not by observing the Law, and this will be the main point Paul makes to prove that Gentiles who turn to Torah for their faithfulness are moving backwards.

They are basically trying to climb back into an elevator that's had its cables cut. Why would they want to do that?

Dear Jehovah Jireh we want to praise your Name for freeing us from a little box—a box where we were bound by the Law and even though it was at one time the way to God, we celebrate you Jesús for being our Way, our Salvation, our Messiah and Lord. Amen and amen. 

Love you dear one, 

Pam...and Philip