Ed and I have been receiving weird PHP warnings at the top of some pages on the forum. You will know them if you see them. Nothing to worry about right now, since they just are just cumbersome notifications. Everything seems to be working fine. If you encounter them, simply scroll down and the page content should be below the warnings.

I have noticed on the Who's Online page (it's linked on the forum home page at the bottom of radixfidem.org), that there are a lot of hits from unregistered visitors, from a range of IPs originating in Hong Kong. On the server side, I banned that range of IPs, so they can't see the site unless they register. I'm seeing guest hits right now but they are scattered geographically and they don't seem suspicious.

I'll check on things later or tomorrow, but keep this site in your prayers, if you can.

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 reiterates the imagery of preservation of an estate until the heir reaches the appointed time and condition of bequest. The emphasis is that all of God's Elect, Jew and Gentile, were the estate, and Christ was the heir. But we were minor children, as well, as part of the divine household estate. We were under the various elohim powers God appointed over the nations of the world, all of us under one law covenant or another. For us, it was no different from being slaves, just like any minor heir prior to the bequest of the estate. Jesus was the natural born heir, but we have received an adoption that elevates us to the status of true younger heirs behind Him as Firstborn. The mark of that adoption is the Presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ in our hearts. Because of this, we can call Him by the personal terms of endearment used by natural children -- "Daddy! Papa!"

Paul follows a tangent thought here: Gentiles were under the control of lesser deities, the Elohim Council in God's courts. Those were not gods, not honestly classed as such in the Creator's eyes, but they played that role, seeking to skim off some of His glory for themselves. But now that the Galatian believers had become acquainted to the true God and Creator, were they going to return to that slavery under those lesser beings who were just scam artists at best?

Paul mentions that they were now enslaving themselves under Talmudic holy days, something wholly inappropriate for Gentiles who did not inherit any of Israel's national history. There were a whole bundle of special observances that God had not commanded, but which the Pharisees had forced into civil law, choking the common Jewish people with an excuse for yet one more abusive tax. Paul kept his Jewish habits rather private, living more like a Gentile than a Jew among them. How many Jews did they know who would even admit to such a thing? Did not Jews typically hector their Gentile neighbors about pagan habits that interfered with nitpicking Jewish observances? The Galatian Christians should stand with him in rejecting that legalistic nonsense; he certainly didn't feel insulted that they would ignore the Jewish calendar.

He mentions some physical condition that compelled him to spend time in Galatia, apparently when he had planned not to even go there. There are a couple of plausible guesses what he refers to, but it doesn't matter. Whatever it was usually caused superstitious Gentiles to spit at him, but instead, the Galatians received his gospel message with frank enthusiasm. What happened? It sounds like the Judaizers had managed to turn them against Paul personally.

Was it not odd how the Judaizers treated the Galatian Christians as suckers? First they come courting the churches, appealing to their vanity. Then, they start telling them how awful they are for not embracing Judaism, using the old trick of provoking desire for the snake oil by talking about how hard it is to get. And Judaizer religion was snake oil, indeed, completely worthless. To Paul, it feels like having to give birth to the same child again, after they had grown quite a bit. Whatever it was that compelled him to struggle physically to bring them the gospel was worth it, but this pain and sorrow of countering the Judaizers was egregious and unjustified.

Do they really want the Law? Paul will give them a bit of Old Testament the Judaizers would prefer to hide. He talks about Abraham who had an elder son (Ishmael) by his household slave, Hagar. However, Isaac was his natural born heir. The distinction is that Isaac was born in response to a promise from God, whereas Ishmael was born from a mere human choice. Paul will use this story as an allegory -- in the same rabbinical style the Judaizers would.

The Covenant of Moses was like Hagar, rooted in the customs and laws of slavery. Israel as an earthly nation was purchased from slavery in Egypt. Like a concubine, her children held limited privileges, represented by earthly Jerusalem (Zion). But the legal wife was Sarah, and her children were full heirs, which is the Covenant of Abraham/Christ, represented by the spiritual Jerusalem (Heaven). The faith covenant is everything the law covenant could not be. Paul is being terse here by letting the implications seep through without words.

Continuing in that vein, Paul refers to Isaiah 54:1. The ancient prophet paints the image of what those returning from Babylon could have if they rose to faith instead of wallowing in mere law and all its limitations. Would the Judeans coming home be more like a bitter old woman who lost her children? Or would they return in full faith in Jehovah and be more like a young bride that has not yet had children? If the latter, then they could expect a whopping large faith family that would inherit the heavens.

Those who put their faith in Christ are like children of that prophetic promise. Yes, Christians would face persecution from Jews, as Isaac faced from Ishmael, and for the same reason. But those who retain their status as Jews are born for slavery to the law, while the children of faith inherit as fellow heirs with the Son of God. Only a fool would go back into the slavery of the Law Covenant.

Ben reported on a mild earthquake hitting parts of OK in today's daily update.

Ed - did you notice it at all? It was in the OKC area, close to midnight.

Let's lighten things up a little. Would anyone care to speculate?

I've noticed that some of the most academically oriented sites hosting daily articles are manifesting typographical errors they would previously have not allowed to slip through. It's not just one site nor one particular orientation; it's everywhere. On the one hand, I suppose it's proof the material is written by a human. On the other hand, it seems to indicate a shift in things that I'm not sure I can properly attribute.

What do you think?

Hi family

My best friend and neighbor, Michelle, just left my house on her way home.  Her son is on his way to come get her and take her to the ER at our preferred hospital in Raleigh.  She has been having tightness of the chest for over two weeks now.  Around 4ish she starts getting these spells that cause a lot of different symptoms.  She has been trying different things and trying to figure out what is going on.

Enough of that!  She was up visiting and we decided she needs to go to urgent care.  Then we thought eh, they'll probably call an ambulance.  Then we thought, uh yeah, no.  So, I called her son and we all agreed she needs to go to where the good care is and where she is most comfortable.  He is a Raleigh police sergeant and a very no nonsense kind of person.  She will be in good hands.

She has had her share of being in the hospital, but it has been three maybe four years since her last time.

So, may we all pray that she is blessed with relative peace of mind, courage and strong faith to get her through this.  That Father will bless her with compassionate, patient and wise doctors.  And, most importantly that she find healing and come back home.

Thank you!!!

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.