February 24, 2025: Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4:21-31
Blessings and Peace be with you on this day.
In these past few weeks, we have had many guests in our community who were here for the gem show, the 100th anniversary of the rodeo, and a special bike racing weekend, along with a brewery crawl downtown this past weekend. These are wonderful opportunities for us all to welcome and offer opportunities for people to give up an hour on Sunday morning to join us for worship. I hope that when such an opportunity arises that you feel ready to offer that invitation. In prayers this morning, please pray for Logan and Caleb for God's speed for them as they travel on their senior trip to California during this week. Please pray too for Mark and Linda, as well as their son who lives in California. He lost his home in the L.A. fires last month. Continue prayers for Kandice and Lisa as Kandice deals with a very difficult to treat cancer. Now prayers of thanksgiving are always important too. Thanks to God for good friends who hold us in their care, thanks for a job interview for Jesse right after we prayed about it during service, thanks for safe travel for Ron & Becky from Minneapolis to Tucson this last week, thanks for our congregation's 75th anniversary of serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ, thanks for the Gospel's guidance for us in difficult times and presence with us too in times of joy and celebration, thanks for the joy of the music of hymns that fill our hearts with the Good News. In a very special prayer, ask for safety for a now adult former foster child of Sharyn's, who has disappeared after a very difficult weekend of personal struggle. His name is Brandon. Prayers too for the homeless in our community, especially this morning for Tom, who Jesse and I assisted yesterday on the way home from church.
Today we move on to chapter 4:21-31 in Paul's letter to the Galatian Church. At the beginning of this letter Paul spends a great deal of time in the Christology and theology which lies behind Paul's witnessing to them about the nature of their relationship with Christ as the new Christians in the Church, and the issues which surround their problems with having listened to the Jews who came into their community and worked to convince them that they needed to adhere to the Jewish rules for living their lives in order to be the best, like the Jews, in the new Church. Of course, one of those rules was that they needed to be circumcised in order to attain that "most important" in the church. Today's reading continues to unfold the understanding by Paul that all of those rules for living that had to also be followed according to the Jewish Christians were God's old solution (Old Testament) for having a better relationship with the Jews, but they were never able to keep their part of that agreement due to the nature of sin in their lives. Now the new solution (New Testament) of God has fully covered the old solution plus having brought a new solution. That new solution is Jesus Christ. Now, for them, and for you and me, there is no longer any need to attempt to keep all of those old rules for living that no one was ever able to follow. Instead, now belief is key. The Spirit's gift of faith is the means by which you and I now participate in God's new solution, and keeping God's 10 commandments is the means by which we give thanks to God for having already become the Saved through Jesus Christ.
For the Galatian Christians, because of their new understandings, were tempted to be led by the Jews who asked more of them than the faith gifted by the Holy Spirit. That was a huge problem for Paul, who as a former Pharisee saw the old solution as an entrapment for the Jews which prevented them from coming to Christ in faith. There is a good reason for the differentiation between being a Jew of the old solution of God and being a Christian of the God's new solution for the problem of believers who had already failed at completing their part of the old solution. Paul makes it most clear that there are two families of Abraham, one which is born of the flesh, Hagar's son Ishmael, and one who is born of the Spirit from Sarah, Isaac. Even though God offered both mothers a promise for their children, the first born of the flesh was frequently at war with those born of the Spirit. A review of these stories can be found in Genesis 16 and 21. The argument of the Jews in Galatia may well have been that they were the true superior Christians who came first, and those who came second only by faith, the Gentiles, were inferior until they became like the Jews. Paul preaches and teaches that it is those who come by faith who are the true children of God. Until the Jews can come solely by faith, they will remain the people of the flesh who can never participate in the new solution of God.
Tomorrow we will continue in chapter 5 of Paul's letter to the Galatian church.
In Christ's love, Pastor Kim
Comments