The Tuesday group in which I participate is picking up the study of Galatians. I am behind getting ready for it. I started reading the book this morning for an overview Tuesday. Not a good example nor good practice but I am still a bit jet lagged from the trip to Elbonia. Not an excuse but it is the reason.
If you have read Galatians recently you know that the tone of the book is different from Paul’s other epistles. He goes through his typical greeting and then without mincing any words jumps right into their knickers. He is exercised with that church. His first word to them after the greeting in Greek, 1:6, is the verb “I marvel.” He is not marveling at their great faith. He marvels that they have abandoned it. Quickly.
The Galatian believers had embraced adding requirements to the gospel, specifically circumcision. They said that we needed to accept Christ but we also needed to be circumcised. Paul said in the strongest terms available that notion was accursed, not the gospel.
What would he say to us today? What have we added? I have been told by some folks that in order to be saved I had to be baptized. Others have told me that I was not saved if I have not spoken in an unknown tongue. Still others have suggested other additions, like I had to be in their group because it was their group that had the truth. I wonder if Paul would have marveled?
Personally, I am not real interested in being accursed. It seems to me that it might be important to make sure that I know what the gospel really is and that I neither add nor subtract from it.
The Galatian believers had embraced adding requirements to the gospel, specifically circumcision. They said that we needed to accept Christ but we also needed to be circumcised. Paul said in the strongest terms available that notion was accursed, not the gospel.
What would he say to us today? What have we added? I have been told by some folks that in order to be saved I had to be baptized. Others have told me that I was not saved if I have not spoken in an unknown tongue. Still others have suggested other additions, like I had to be in their group because it was their group that had the truth. I wonder if Paul would have marveled?
Personally, I am not real interested in being accursed. It seems to me that it might be important to make sure that I know what the gospel really is and that I neither add nor subtract from it.
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