January 27, 2025: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 3:1-9
May the light of Christ live in, with, and around you in the season of Epiphany.
Good morning on this bright Monday. I want to say a great thank you to everyone who made our Saturday 75th anniversary luncheon possible. We had over 70 people present, enjoyed wonderful music, gave away great door prizes, and the fellowship in Christ was wonderful. On Sunday morning, the day of our anniversary at church, the bell choir began the service with a really great festival piece as they rang us into worship for the day. Today we begin another year in our ministry for the Gospel. It is amazing to now be part of the history of our congregation, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been served with joy and thanksgiving. Coming up this Friday we have our Foodies of Faith meeting at 11:30AM at Cheddars on Broadway. If you have not signed up, but would like to join us, please call the Church Office at 520-623-3661. On Sunday we will meet at 8AM for food before the congregational meeting at 8:30AM. Please bring a food item to share on Sunday before the annual meeting. In the Church we truly enjoy this season of Light in the life of Christian people. We all know what is coming with Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent in March and Holy Week in April, then darkness will grow until the glorious celebration of Easter morning and the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the days of our desert winter begin to warm, our hearts are filled with joy in the new life of God's creation that appears as we get closer to the warmup which we know is coming after the short winter here in Tucson.
Today we move forward in Paul's letter to the Galatians 3:1-9. Thank you for joining me in this conversation about this text today. Paul begins this passage with a short study on the place of works vs faith and belief. We know that it was difficult for those who had access to Jewish/Christian converts, whose earlier lives and relationship with God had been based on the keeping of the Torah as the means to being right with God. In many ways they wanted to blend their history of keeping the Torah with their newfound faith in Jesus. In the new Church, under leaders who still believed that works were the way to be in God's favor, pressure was put on the new gentile believers to have to keep the laws. When Paul talks about the flesh in this passage, he is speaking of the works that must be completed to earn justification before God, including circumcision. Surprisingly, it is Paul who concludes that it is only by Grace and Faith that people who have believed will be justified. Obviously, from the content of other letters of Paul, this is still an issue in the early church who has sometimes fallen under the teaching of Jews who are now under Roman rule, but who were initially dispersed from Jerusalem as it was conquered hundreds of years earlier. The issue of getting circumcised was certainly a part of those works of the flesh which were supposed to make certain that a person would be received by God, but Paul knew better. After years of living in the law of the Torah, and being a defender of its application, Paul's conversion brought him to the new understanding that in people's sinfulness, works, earning salvation, could never work. Salvation required perfection of behavior, which no one except Jesus Christ had ever been capable of doing. And further, it took a perfect one to pay the full price for sin. We are unable to do that for ourselves. It is by having justification through the perfection and sacrifice of Jesus in whom we believe by the power of the Spirit's gift of faith in our lives that we reach righteousness. But for Paul, the teaching of the Jew converts that the "Law" of the Torah must also be completed, was in complete error. Later we will learn that the actions of thanksgiving that come from we who are saved by Jesus and faith in Him, are just that, actions of thanksgiving that our faith calls us to do. When Paul first came to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his preaching was guided by the Spirit, and by that Spirit the Galatians were called to faith in the Savior. However, they were quite easily led to believe that having faith in Christ was inadequate on its own merit. Here is the crux of Paul's argument. The Torah cannot merit salvation because of the sin which lives in all people who try to keep it. Now let us talk about being the children of Abraham. It was only by Abraham's faith and trust in God's command that he was justified. Though the Jews can claim a heritage blood relationship with Abraham, they cannot, by works, come to the same relationship with God as Abraham did through belief. We who believe in Jesus Christ are made right with God by Word, Faith, and Grace alone, and that can only happen by the Spirit. So, by belief in Christ, we become the children of Abraham, just like those who have a different kind of claim on their relationship to Abraham.
Faith can never be just a temporary badge to be exchanged for something else later on. Faith is the ONLY thing that gives us forgiveness, life, and salvation through Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow, we will continue in chapter 3:10-14. God bless you and keep you every day of your life.
With love in Christ, Pastor Kim
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