December 2, 2024: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 1:1-9
Greetings and God’s Peace be with you today and always.
Today we start a new study as we also begin the second day of the Church Year Season of Advent. Yesterday we received enough gifts for the ELCA Good Gifts project to purchase 165 chicks! Wow! I am so happy that this will be yet another opportunity for the generosity of the people of Jesus Christ to act with kindness and love for so many in our world who need an available opportunity, and free gift, to move their lives and economies forward when it can be so difficult without help from us. Thanks. We collect these offerings for the ELCA Good Gifts project through Christmas Eve. Please continue to pray for Kandice, and her wife Lisa, as they live with the strength of Christ's gift of faith in the face of Kandice's difficult cancer battle. Pray too, please, for Teri as she recovers at home from the rebuilding of her leg bone to prepare for a later surgery for her hip replacement. My brother and his wife also need our prayers. His health is very fragile, and after a pacemaker placement, he continues to be too fragile for repairing his blocked arteries. His name is Rick, and his wife's name is Connie. Pray for peace in the Middle East. These wars rage on: Syria, Israel, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We must also pray for peace in the war in the Ukraine with Russia. There have been massive numbers of both military and citizen casualties, as well as the devastation of homes and environments. This coming Sunday, December 8, we will decorate the worship space for Christmas. I hope that you will join us right after worship. Bells will practice at 9AM on Sunday morning this week. Melody and I will host a cake reception after church for our 53rd marriage anniversary. It falls on Wednesday, December 11th. Please join us as we celebrate our love and commitment to one another and the blessings that we have shared during these years which now seem to have flown past.
Today we begin our study of the writings of Paul to the Galatian Church. Galatia is today what we would call Turkey, or Asia Minor. Paul was born in Tarsus which sits on the Mediterranean in the south of Galatia. It only makes good sense that he would move into this area after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. This is a place of familiarity for him. He comes into this area proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ for all people, with no divisions or separations between people due to national identity, wealth, or community status, slaves and the free alike. This is no story to separate people, rather its truth is meant to unify all who hear Paul's teaching and come to believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the only begotten Son of God, the King of all of creation, the bearer of Truth of His Father in Heaven. But as we begin chapter one, we discover that other teachers and leaders have arrived while Paul has been away encouraging other church starts and communities of faith. In their teaching they have created divisions and certain requirements for those who would be members of this new community of believers. We know these kinds of divisions and the hard work that had to be done to stop their effect on our own nation. The segregation of people of color from the dominate white community is just one example. We find these same kinds of erroneous ways of approaching the unity that should be in Christ between all Christians, but we still find ourselves in circumstances of power, authority, and wealth being taught in some "Christian" churches as the way of Christ and His Truth. There will be much work to do between the congregations who see advantage and their power over others as they drive that thinking into the minds of their members, who in my opinion, are, at this time, self-separated from the love of God above all else, and the love of neighbors in the way in which they love themselves. We will all be Christ-driven to restore His healing and hope in places where division has been sown between congregations and Christian communities. As God drove Paul to reach out into the Galatian provinces with Christ's truth and love, there were indeed those who thought that division was best. Yes, best if the church is to never strive to be the people who hear, and work to live the Great Commandment and its companion, to love each other like we love ourselves.
Those who came after Paul sowed division by teaching that Paul was a kind of secondhand disciple of Jesus, that he really did not know everything that he should to hold the new church together. The hope that Paul brought to Asia Minor and Galatia was a bright light of unity in all of the division between Roman conquered nations. In Lutheran thought, the decisions for life in Christ must be based solely on the nature and sense of Christ's teaching. Word Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone, separate, but always one faith founded in God's Love for all of His Creation, and perhaps most especially in we who are His Children and Treasure. Can there be any doubt? After all we are moving ever closer to the world's celebration of the birth of God's Son, God's answer to bring all of creation into harmony and grace. This is God's ONE TRUTH for all time! There is no other authentic way to be right with God. What if a new church came into existence and would only accept members who had adult Baptisms? Those churches exist today, and still cannot see through dialog that they must change and listen to the Word of God, not in the way that they want to understand it, but by the definition which Christ has given us in His Words for LIFE, FORGIVENESS, and SALVATION, and the sacrifice of His sin-free life that every child of God has the assurance of being saved by God's Grace and gift of Faith, and ONLY in that way! All else that we might argue about is, according to Martin Luther, anathema, insignificant in comparison to the REAL TRUTH of God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer of every life, and every piece of His Creation.
God bless you in this Advent season. I will be back with you tomorrow.
With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim
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