6/17 - Galatians 1

Galatians 1

Ryan, an engineer (not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead) and my wife who is with me,

To the people reading this blog:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

OK that might have been cheesy, but I love Paul's greetings at the beginnings of his letters (see v.1-3 of this chapter if you missed the joke). He always greets the churches with love and with words of encouragement and hope, something desperately needed as the church was being founded. OK, on with chapter 1.

"I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ" (V. 6-7)

His first charge to the Galatians is to beware threats to the faith, not from outside but from within. One of the biggest opponents of early Christianity, as evidenced by Paul's many warnings, and likely even more dangerous than the Roman government who intentionally persecuted believers, was false teachers. These people, whether intentionally or not, would add requirements, ceremonies, old standards and other "spiritual acts" to the gospel as necessary for salvation and therefore stir up confusion. These teachers, known as Judaizers, would convince people to do these acts thus undermining the doctrine of justification by faith. How unfortunate that today we face the same thing and in my opinion, our biggest problem isn't abortion, gay marriage, atheism, the youth or anything else society would have us believe - its us. Our Americanized version of Christianity - singing songs on Sunday, not cussing too much, not drinking too much, looking for more blessings from email forwards than the actual Word of God, all the while keeping our faith to ourselves and offering just enough of ourselves to get by - this is a far greater challenge for us (Ephesians 6:12).

The remainder of this chapter gives us a good history lesson about Paul who, being one of the rising stars of Judaism, literally encountered Jesus Christ and was called to preach to the Gentiles. But before he goes out to accomplish this, he spends three years and then some time with the apostles learning about the faith. After this, he experienced the fruit of his ministry - "“He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God in me" (v. 23-24). This is a good model for us as well - to learn about the faith and then take it to others in a knowledgeable and effective way. A wrong way to take this, I think, would be to get stuck in the mindset of "I'm not ready yet" as an excuse for not sharing your faith with others. We have an opportunity on a daily basis to get ourselves ready. Everyday we should train ourselves in His word and be prepared to share with someone (1 Peter 3:15).