Galatians is written by the Apostle Paul to the church in the city of Galatia. We are going to read thru the book this week but it is helpful to read thru from 1-6 at one sitting and then look at the chapters individually after you get a picture of the whole. Some Bibles give you an introduction to let you know some facts about the book and you can also look into a commentary of some sort. But this month we will study Galatians this week, Ephesians next week, Philippians the next, and Colossians the last week of March. They are all short books written by Paul to different churches with different problems. I will post something each day but then on your comments it would be good if you share with us something you have learned in your reading and studying. Don't be intimidated, just pretend we are sitting around a table sharing what we each have learned that day.
Galatians has a basic theme of Freedom and unity in Christ. This church was so keen on keeping the "law" that they were splitting their church along racial lines - Jews from Gentiles.
In chapter one Paul takes great pains to let us know that he doesn't take his "orders" from anyone but Christ and - this is the verse I like - in verse 10 he says "Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant."
You didn't sign up to live this Christian life to please people. In fact, you may have noticed, you can't even please your family sometimes as a Christian. That's why we need to know what God's Word says so we can do what He would do and say what He would say. Our heart has to be focused on Him and His Kingdom if we are to do anyone any good.
Thank you Lord that I don't have to be in bondage to a bunch of rules but if I will serve You and do Your will there is freedom to be more than I would be on my own!!!
Something else we are going to do this month is to get others following this blog and reading their Bibles with us. Let the word out - tell someone else about this - and enjoy reading Galatians!!!
2 comments:
I like verse 10 also. If my goal is to persuade people and the expense of pleasing God, then I'm not a bondservant. I love that word "bondservant". A bondservant is someone who willingly gives up their freedom to be enslaved. I always imagine when slavery existed here in the US what this might look like. It would be a slave who, after the Civil War, was allowed to go free, but chose to go back and serve the family who once owned him, and of his own free will, became a slave to that family b/c he loved that family. We are that to Jesus when we give our lives to Him. I love that He is our provider, defender, etc, and I have willingly handed my life over to Him to do with whatever He chooses. it gives me freedom from fear of man! That is a great verse.
Before Paul’s conversion, he was on a mission to destroy the Christians; after his conversion, Paul’s mission was to build up the Body of Christ…not through the religious law he was so very able to keep, but through God’s grace and faith in Him. In my bible, the intro to the book of Galatians says that the Jewish Christians struggled with a dual identity…the Jewishness compelled them to strictly obey the law, while their new faith in Christ provided liberty. We struggle in the same way; our struggle is between the old man and the new man… between the world’s system and God’s way of doing things. We live in this world but are no longer enslaved to it!
The other thing that caught my attention as I read Chapter 1 was vs. 23 … the very people Paul tried to destroy saw that God had changed Paul’s life. I have to ask myself… when people see me, do they see God in me and/or, if they have known me for any length of time, do they see the changes God has made in me? And the same question in my relation with other Christians.
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