We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Notice a fundamental truth here: Paul is saying that the Covenant of Christ is not a continuation of Moses, but a continuation of the Covenant of Abraham. The Covenant of Abraham was reborn in Christ; He wasn't merely the fulfillment of Moses, but of the promises of Abraham. And the Covenant of Abraham was a covenant of faith, not law. Moses was just a passage for faith. Abraham had more than one son, so having his DNA was not the basis of the promises. It was on the basis of election activated by faith.

It was the written form of an anguished cry Paul makes at the start of this chapter. Who has done this awful thing to you? Paul had been careful to lay out before them the meaning of the Cross. They surely understood that it was their cross, too. Their old lives were crucified. Did the Holy Spirit wait until they went back and complied with the Jewish identity, becoming "Sons of the Law", or did He fill their souls the moment they heard the gospel? And having been born by the Spirit, were they now going to rely on the flesh to finish the job? If they had embraced the Law, the Jews would not have harassed them and stirred up Roman officials against them. They didn't claim Christ's miracles by the Law, nor the strength to face testing by the Law.

Paul does not bother to distinguish here between the bogus Talmudic law and the Covenant of Moses. At it's very best, the Law did not produce faith, only a national identity. That was as much as it could do. Jews harped on being Sons of Abraham, but that doesn't wash. Abraham didn't just credit the promises; he invested his whole soul into them in faith. That was the basis for God calling him "righteous", the substance of his covenant. It had nothing to do with genetics; the true children of Abraham's covenant were children of faith. Indeed, the promise to Abraham is that every nation and tribe on earth would be blessed by his faith, not those who issued from his body.

In theory, the Law could grant you peace with God only if you kept it perfectly. No one managed to do that (not even Moses who presented the Law). Thus, the Law only confirmed the Curse of the Fall by making it painfully obvious that flesh was not capable of obeying God. The true standard of righteousness starts with faith. Christ absorbed the Curse of the Fall on our behalf; He extinguished the Curse on the Cross. This was the whole point of the Cross: to bring the Covenant of Faith to the whole world. That was the promise of Abraham's Covenant, God's plan from the very beginning.

Consider the authority of a covenant sworn by ordinary men. Once it is established and sealed, no power of government would dare set it aside. Even Rome enforced a man's last will and testament who was subject to Roman authority, strictly by the letter. Paul makes the point that the promise to Abraham applied only to one line of inheritance, and that was by faith, not by birth. The Messiah was the named heir of Abraham, the one for whom the promise of faith stood.

So, when the Law of Moses came along 430 years after Abraham, it did not alter that Covenant of Faith. God Himself was the guarantor of that covenant, validated by Abraham's faith. Whatever the Covenant of Moses could do, it did not include something previously locked up under the Covenant of Abraham. The promise of the final covenant of the Messiah was already sealed before the Law was ever given. The Law of Moses must yield to the Covenant of Faith as prior law.

Then what was the point of the Law? What did it have to offer? The Nation of Israel was like a minor who would inherit faith once they grew up. They were submitted to an appointed guardian, a nanny to raise them until they were supposed to be ready to inherit the promises of faith. It was essential the Israelis grow up to understand their sinful fleshly natures, and the necessity of redemption. The Law simply pointed out the need for faith. In this, the Gentile nations were the younger siblings under the same custody, and Israel was the firstborn who should have gotten there first. Paul notes in passing that angels were administering this custody arrangement.

Moses was the mediator of this custody. A mediator stands between two or more parties. God is one party, the senior party. Moses did not contradict the will of God. If Moses could have redeemed everyone, then the Covenant of Abraham was a fraud. No, Moses made obvious the need for the Messiah already promised in Abraham.

The Law was meant to awaken in everyone a desire for redemption and that redemption was coming. The Law is a tutor who trains us to understand and value Christ. The will has been unsealed and read; it is faith in Christ. The period of minority has passed. Everyone who has entered Christ has entered into the adult world of faith. Everyone in Christ has nailed their flesh to the Cross, and lives now by faith in Him. In baptism the Galatian Christians swore their allegiance to Him as Lord, and now wear the vestments of His authority. They have renounced their human identity; they are no longer Jews and Gentiles, not slave nor free, no longer male or female, etc.

In the Covenant of Christ, we have also entered the Covenant promises of Abraham. How could anyone possibly revert to their status as minors under a guardian whose mission has been fulfilled, and is no longer in authority?

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Paul continues the narrative of his dealings with the original Hebrew Apostles and the community they led in Jerusalem. After some 14 years of working without them in Syrian Antioch, the Lord commanded him to return visit Jerusalem again. We can be sure the Lord foresaw the conflict about to arise, and wanted Paul to be certain in his own mind that it was bogus. He took with him Barnabas (the Cyprian Jew who came to Christ) and Titus (a Gentile convert).

Paul conferred in a private meeting with the church leadership. They were all satisfied that what Paul had been teaching all along was consistent with how they remembered the message of Jesus. While there, no one pressured Titus to hide his Gentile background. They recognized Titus as a fellow follower of Christ just as he was.

Paul comes back to the current dispute behind this letter. Near as we can tell, the Judaizers who came up from Jerusalem to Syrian Antioch were mostly genuine Christian converts. Their emphasis was that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. The bunch who spread out across Galatia were dominated by fake converts seeking to restore not just Moses, but the Talmud. They had piggybacked with the real converts who were already causing enough trouble. Paul describes this latter group as seeking to enslave both Hebrew and Gentile coverts under Jewish civil law, not Moses. This was a form of espionage, a purely political operation that aimed to expand the Jewish tax base, among other things.

In other words, Paul claims these agents knew they were lying about what Jesus had taught. And as soon as Paul spotted them, he made a very public denunciation that the rest of the community in Antioch supported. Keep in mind that Jesus treated the Talmud as valid Jewish civil law, but not a valid expression of Moses. Paul noted the same distinction in how he dealt with Jewish persecution.

Backing up again to that private meeting in Jerusalem, Paul noted that it didn't matter who was who. This was all about the gospel message, not persons claiming leadership. As it was, they could not add anything because Paul had left out nothing essential. They recognized Paul as having been with Jesus on different terms. They clearly understood that Paul had been commissioned by the Lord to take the gospel to Gentiles, equal to Peter's commission to the Hebrews. Paul notes that this conference included James (Jesus' brother), as well as Peter and John (Jesus' cousins). When they mentioned how important it was to engage in charity among the poor, that was nothing new to Paul.

Thus, Paul was their equal in their own eyes. And he did not hesitate to call them out when they were wrong. Later on, when Peter came to visit a while in Syrian Antioch, the Hebrew Apostle that had been first to visit in a Gentile home and share the gospel some years before, he naturally ate with Gentiles, too. Such mixing was forbidden by the Talmud, but that was a misreading of Moses. Still, it was ingrained in Jews as a mental reflex. When a delegation from James came up to get a feel for the ministry there in Antioch, Peter seemed to be taken with a false guilt about mixing with Gentiles, and began to withdraw socially, and pressured others, to the point even Barnabas was sucked into it.

I'm willing to bet Paul used humor with Peter in pointing out the hypocrisy. Here was Peter, who for some years had obeyed the Covenant of Christ and neglected the Talmud, to the point he almost lived like a Gentile himself, and he's going to be aloof from Gentiles because they didn't adhere to Jewish civil law?

For the Galatian churches, Paul recounted his reasoning on the matter. Jews were born under the Covenant of Moses. Even the rabbinical traditions recognized that merely fulfilling the external obligations of Moses did not bring peace with God. They recited daily about the necessity of personal feudal submission to God. Thus, Jews should be the first to recognize that the sacrifice of their Messiah was necessary to wash away their sins; He was the only one who had standing to claim a pure life. So, having once claimed Him as their Messiah and King, how can they renege on their allegiance to His Law by go back to the Law that died on the Cross with Him?

The national identity of Israel as God's people ended at the Cross. That identity was translated into a spiritual kingdom, whose King is Jesus. To follow Jesus meant renouncing that old national identity. How could Paul go back to building up the failed nation of Israel, as if to take it all back from the Messiah's hands? It is tantamount to rejecting the Father's policy in His Son of reaching the whole world without dragging Gentiles under the Law of Moses.

As a Jew, Paul followed Christ through the completion of the Law. There was nothing left for the Covenant of Moses to accomplish. Jesus paid the ultimate price to finish it. His new identity was in the Messiah, so that means following Him to the Cross, and burying his old Jewish identity. But he was also resurrected with Christ to a new identity. Now he lives by personal commitment to Jesus as Lord, allowing Him to use his body and manifest Himself anew. Christians are His body now; He shows Himself in their lives, having bought them by His own blood.

The key is ditching one's human identity, whether Jew or Gentile. The Kingdom of Heaven is a wholly different kind of identity that transcends all of that. Paul's Jewish birthright did not include divine grace; it simply opened the door for it. Having gone through that door into God's grace, it would be sheer folly to back out now. It would mean Christ died for nothing. Trying to reassert the Jewish identity was backing out of God's grace available only in His Son.

The Judaizers among the Galatian churches were trying to drag everyone back into a Jewish national identity, out of divine grace.

Just a little after noon, Lyn's son Joe sent me a text that said, "I have some bad news. Can I drop by?"  

After these months, years actually, of spending time with Lyn and Joe, getting to know them both and becoming friends, it was hard to read those words.  I knew what they meant.  Anyone would.  And, of course, this was not unexpected.  It was still hard to read those words.

Joe came over a little while later, walking through our backyards up on to the deck and knocked.  
He said about 11pm last night, he and his dad were sitting at the kitchen table, going over the day and making plans for tomorrow.  Suddenly his father slumped forward.  Joe jumped up and lifted his dad up into an upright sitting position to help him breathe while he dialed 911.  His dad was unresponsive.  In the ambulance, Lyn coded and they were able to resuscitate him.  At the hospital, all Lyn could do was moan and say "help me".  He coded again and then he was gone.  Joe got home about 4am this morning.

We cried, talked, I gave him a hug.

Then, we got some business done.  I called the hospital and we all talked on speaker and made arrangements to have his dad taken to the funeral home up the street.  We called and informed Blue Cross of his passing.  Then we cried some more.  I made him a copy of the template I had made years ago of "what to do just in case someone dies", which is basically a checklist of everything you will need to do/think of/find etc. upon someone's passing.

I told him the important "todo's" for today or tomorrow and next week.  Whatever he needs me to help him with, take him to, call for, ask of, arrange for........  I will do it.  His dad was all Joe has.  

He's back home now, doing whatever he's doing. I want to call him but I won't.   I will probably text him later just to check in.  He knows he is welcome anytime, day or night.

Prayers please, dear family, for my little friend (almost a son to me by now) Joe.  I prayed with him and asked Father to give him whatever he needs for Father knows better than any of us what that might be.

Thank you family.  Love you all.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The label "Galatia" refers to the first few churches Paul established in what we now call Central Turkey: Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, and any satellite churches those congregations may have established later. This is Paul's earliest letter, likely written in around AD 48 shortly before that first council in Jerusalem (Acts 15, variously dated between 48-50). What we find in this epistle is very much like what he said at that meeting.

The problem was Judaizers. While the meaning of that term morphed a good bit over the following years, at this early stage in things, it was used to indicate a faction of converted Pharisees. They clearly understood that Jesus taught Moses. They probably understood His rejection of the Talmud. They also understood the necessity of faith that Israel had abandoned long ago, and were intent on restoring the true Old Testament religion. But they got hung up on the part about Jesus being the Messiah of Israel. They insisted that, to follow Christ, Gentiles had to come under the Covenant of Moses. They did not understand that the Law of Moses died on the Cross, and that Jesus had proclaimed a New Covenant that eclipsed it.

For them, it was not a question of continuity between the Old and New Covenants, but that they insisted the New was a continuation of the Old. This was a doctrine based on the residual racism of the Talmudic teaching, a spite for Gentiles. Gentiles could not go to Heaven as Gentiles. But this was false even under Moses. Under Moses, Israel was supposed to accept Gentiles who observed the Noahic Law, something Israel had long forgotten. So, the outcome of the Acts 15 council was that Gentile Christians could defer to Noah.

Paul and his companions had returned to Antioch in Syria after that first missionary journey. During his time there, teachers came up from Jerusalem demanding that the Gentile believers fully convert to Judaism. The controversy spread like wildfire. Paul wrote this stern warning to those churches: Don't be suckered into this nonsense. After a brief introduction, Paul plunges right into it.

The gospel message of Christ that Paul first brought to those churches had not changed. This message took priority over any fresh word, even from angels. Anyone who came along insisting on some new requirements to following Christ was accursed. The Law of Moses didn't do Israel much good; it was the faith behind the Law that mattered.

Paul was not trying to make peace with the Jews who crucified Jesus, and would some day try to kill him, too. Having gotten a PhD in Judaism and risen quite young to leadership serving the Sanhedrin, Paul knew more about it than the Judaizers roaming around. After God drove him through a conversion experience like no other, it wasn't simply apostolic teaching that he parroted. He had spent time with the risen Christ to catch up with the Twelve. It turned out to be the same message they first proclaimed after Pentecost. Except, Paul knew from the start that he was called to minister to the Gentiles.

He eventually compared notes with Peter in private and confirmed it was the same message. Aside from a brief visit with Jesus' brother James, Paul didn't hang out with any of the other apostles. The only thing the Jerusalem church knew about him was that their former chief persecutor was now onboard with the gospel, and they were thrilled to hear that. At no time did Paul attempt to curry their favor or support. He had a mission and calling direct from God. The message he first brought to Galatia was what he learned from Christ Himself.

These Judaizing goons claiming to come from the church in Jerusalem were not official representatives, but zealots doing their own thing. The Galatian churches should run them off.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The balance of Paul's letter here is almost entirely personal in nature. It is by far the strongest defense of his apostleship. While very critical historically, telling us so much about Paul the man, and incidentally very much about the folks at the church in Corinth, there is very little doctrine, which is the subject of this study.

However, there is one strong statement of doctrine in 10:1-11. Here again, I can offer nothing better than my previous written comments:

Jesus once said that the traditions of humanity, specifically the Talmud, were a poor replacement for the Word of God. Those who regard His Word as mere traditions of men prove they are spiritually dead, for no one in the Spirit can think that way. [It is, after all, the Spirit of Christ.] The one indicator we have of spiritual birth in someone is how they respond to the Word. A spiritual message brings a spiritual power to bear; the mind and flesh must obey, however poorly. Human traditions of scholarship could only apply to the level of the fleshly intellect and have no place in the Spirit Realm.

While Paul’s scholarship was easily the match of any other, and his ability to understand politics deeply seasoned by experience and his knowledge of God’s Laws, he never relied on these things when it came to matters of the Spirit. Since it seems he lacked some sort of natural charisma or oratorical talent, those were dead issues from the start. Such abilities were fine for mundane matters where the Spirit is silent, but utterly outclassed against the imperatives of the Kingdom.

Thus, moving the hearts of the Corinthians would necessarily be a matter of spiritual power through gentleness, not political power or scholarly argument. Paul jokingly noted that some who operated by fleshly authority found this sort of approach wimpy, inconsistent with his forceful letter writing ability. He much preferred the gentle and friendly approach, but some who operate purely on the level of the flesh were going to see his other side, which he reserved for those who didn’t appear to have a clue about the Spirit. He may have been confined to a fleshly form, but his friendly demeanor was effective spiritual warfare, overwhelming fleshly powers.

Adding to those three paragraphs of commentary, we are reminded that Paul struggled more with the Corinthians over the spirit versus flesh issue than any other church we know about. They were so enamored of their proud Greek heritage of reason, but failed to recognize the even more ancient Hebrew heritage of mysticism. They kept trying to reassert their human judgment against the revelation of God. Shouldn't God be reasonable? There are some things in His ancient Law Covenant that touched on the very root of Creation itself. The issue of sexual defilement is simply not open to moderation, and this was the core issue with the Corinthian church.

I refer you to my most recent blog post: Is It Time?

As I was about to post it, I decided I had to remove one line about not having branding. We do, but we haven't used it as "advertising" yet. I think it's time for that, too.

I'm all for keeping the current "RF" logo. We need to put that on the CatRez blog interface, as well. If you want to refer to our actual online church body, it's "Kiln of the Soul". I was thinking about having a couple of t-shirts with some silk-screened stuff. I think I'm going to post a short series about what "Kiln of the Soul" means, in terms of what people would be getting into if they decide to join our community. Then, after some review, it could be formalized into a document we can add to the library.

Yeah, it's time.