Another weekend has come and
gone. Where has the time gone? I thought
this was supposed to be a long weekend? I hope you had a great holiday weekend
and were able to enjoy time off work with family and friends. I’m currently
house hunting and put in my first offer on a house yesterday! Unfortunately,
the offer didn’t work out and the search marches on. It’s a tough market out
there to be sure! As I write this, strong storms are surging through the
Franklin, TN area. My power went out briefly, so if I don’t finish this post
you know why. Let’s pray that the storms
pass with no significant damage.
Over
the past few nights, I’ve gotten back into the Word of God. I spent time
reading through the entire Epistles of James and Galatians (They are short!). Daily reading of the Word was one of the “Spiritual
Terraces” I wrote about in my sophomore blog post.
You can read that post here: https://kendalwordandsacrament.blogspot.com/2019/05/spiritual-terraces.html
Getting
back into the Word has been very edifying for me. I can honestly say I’ve taken
something away from each chapter I’ve read. I’ll work through James in a future
blog post when I compare James’s words to Paul’s writings in the Book of
Ephesians. So for tonight, I’ll reflect
on what I took from Paul’s epistle to the churches in Galatia.
A
little bit of trivia to start out with! Galatians is the only one of Paul’s
epistles to specifically be addressed to multiple churches. Paul addresses his communication
to the “churches of Galatia”. In this particular epistle, Paul sounds like a
disappointed parent admonishing his children for turning away from the true
Christian faith. I don’t yet have children, but I’m sure the parents out there
can empathize with Paul! I’m sure I will know the feeling one day.
Paul
tells us that the Christians in Galatia have fallen victim to the Judaizers. Who
are the Judaizers you ask? They were religious teachers who insisted that in
addition to following Christ, Christians much also observe the Jewish Mosaic
law in order to be saved. Paul points out the Galatians were still engaging Old
Covenant circumcision (replaced by Baptism in the New Covenant no less!) as a
result of the erroneous teachings of the Judaizers.
So
how was the heretical Gospel proclaimed by the false teachers able to take root
so quickly after Paul had initially departed from Galatia? First, the Judaizers
engaged in political-ad style attacks on Paul and his teachings. They claimed
that Paul’s teachings did not accord with those of James, Peter, and John. To
set things straight, Paul recounts the story from the Acts of the Apostles in
which Peter was eating and fellowshipping with the Gentiles (Galatians 2: 7-14).
In Chapter 5, Paul notes that the Judaizers claimed that Paul had once taught
that circumcision was necessary. Paul makes it perfectly clear he no longer
believes circumcision to be necessary in 5:11, saying “And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer
persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased.”
In
addition to the smear campaign, the message proclaimed by the Judaizers could
have been seen as a very attractive one. I read several commentaries on
Galatians that note that the Judaizer Gospel was a way for the Galatians to set
themselves apart as a higher order of Christians – ones that relied on obeying
the law of Moses in addition to placing faith in Jesus Christ. Sounds pretty heretical doesn’t it? No
Christians today would ever place their eternal hope in anything but Jesus, would
they?
Let’s
not be too hard on the Judaizers and Galatians. Our churches today are littered with people
who try to earn God’s favor through various good works. I count myself among
them sometimes (Hey, I’m working on it!). My pastor (Dr. Matt Pearson) points
it out in his sermons all the time. To many of us measure our justification
before God by how many Bible verses we have memorized, how many committees we
serve on, or how many rosaries we pray (Shout out to my Catholic readers!). Let
the Galatians be a lesson for you. When the temptation to justify yourself on
works arises, remember Paul’s admonition to place our faith in Christ – and Him
alone.
One
last thing I wanted to touch on – Paul’s insistence that we must persevere in
our faith. Galatians 6:2 implores us to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so
fulfill the law of Christ”. In Chapter 5:19-22, Paul warns the Galatians “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”. Let’s draw a distinction here – In the
same letter in which Paul declares us free of the law of Moses, he binds us to
the law of Christ. How do we fulfill the law of Christ? When God draws us out
of the darkness and into an intimate relationship with Him (a work of grace),
Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us through the work of the cross. As part
of the intimate relationship, God graces us perpetually through His word as
well as the sacraments. This grace alone (and nothing we conjure up of the
flesh) allows us to fulfill the law of Christ – to love God and love neighbor.
In Christ,
Kendal May
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