February 25, 2025: Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:1-6
May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ surround your life today, and may you bring Christ's Grace into the lives of all people with whom you have contact.
Please remember the prayers that we prayed yesterday. They are all still needed. A reminder today about Sunday's carry-in lunch after worship. Our theme is Spring Salads and/or any other food to accompany the salads. Thanks for being with us to participate in the Christ-fellowship which is always with us as come together around food.
Today you and I are going to move into the 5th chapter of Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians. It is in this chapter that Paul gets even more firm in the way in which he talks about there being no necessity for circumcision, or its being the measuring rod for escaping the inequality in the early church which the Jews have been teaching. A good way of seeing this is to talk about people who come to the airport to take a plane to their destination in the Pacific Ocean, compared to people who have decided to drive their cars all the way. The first group of people will certainly be rewarded with the completion of their journey when they arrive at their destination, however, the group who has decided to drive will only be able to sit at the ocean's shore thinking that their car will somehow get them there. After all, the car seems to have supplied their travel needs in the past, but now it is completely inadequate for the travel task at hand.
The Jews, according to Paul, were like the people in their car. The law was their means of being in a right relationship with God, but it was only right for the time of its use, but now completely inadequate for the work of getting them into God's Grace. Now the people who stepped away from that traditional way of travel to accept and desire a new method of completing their journey, were the ones who came to trust in that new way for how their journey would be completed. This group is the Gentiles the new Christians who come to God as He fulfills His promise to Abraham, giving faith in Jesus Christ as the only true way to come to the completion of being righteous before God. No matter what a person may choose to do, trying to make a right way to God through the law is not possible. Just like that car that sits at the ocean's shore, which is completely unable to complete the journey no matter how badly the driver might hope it could. But those who choose to ride that passenger jet to their journey's end will succeed because this new means of travel is the only way to get there. (I am aware that one might choose to travel by ship, but that is not an option that is available. God did not give that method or make it available.)
Next Paul takes the step to ensure that the Gentiles understand that you cannot be justified through works. The works (the law) alone are not enough. That means that when one comes to faith in Jesus as the Savior, it is by the love of Christ, that the work of the Savior gets done by the faithful. It is Love that does the works of Christ, because Christ's gift of faith guides the faithful to let love guide the work to which all the Baptized are called. To choose to live by the law alone isn't enough. People of faith must live in, with, and surrounded by, the Love of Christ, and carry that Love to the LORD’S children. I hope and pray that you are joining me in this journey in Jesus Christ so that lovingkindness might be how we live each day.
With love in Christ, Pastor Kim
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