Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會
  • Home
  • About Us 關於教會
    • Mission Statement - 使命宣言
    • Statement of Faith - 信仰立場
    • Biblical Marriage - 合乎聖經的婚姻
    • Church Leadership - 教會同工
    • Directions - 路線圖
    • Documents - 表格與文件下載
    • Contact Us - 聯絡我們
    • Ministry openings
  • Chinese Ministry 華語事工
    • 崇拜
    • 講道集 >
      • 主日信息
      • 特會 / 講座
    • 主日學
    • 門訓小組 >
      • 門訓小組介紹
    • 團契
    • 讀經
  • English Ministry 英文事工
  • Youth 少年事工
    • Worship
    • Sunday School
    • Youth Fellowship
    • Events
    • Our Vision
    • Connect with Us
    • Parent Resources
    • Youth Prayer Requests
  • Children's Ministry 兒童事工
    • Children's Worship - 兒童崇拜 >
      • Children's Songs - 歌曲
      • Junior Worship, Archive - 學習內容
      • Junior Worship, Current - 學習內容
      • Preschool Worship, Archive - 幼兒崇拜
    • Sunday School - 主日學 >
      • Preschool - 低年級
      • Middlers, Current - 高年級
      • Elementary, Archive - 高年級
    • VBS-特别暑期聖經班 >
      • EVENTS- 特別活動
    • Nursery - 幼兒照顧
    • Resources - 資源
  • Missions/Evangelism 宣教/佈道
    • Global Mission 全球宣教
    • Missions Ministry 宣教事工
  • Chinese School 中文學校
  • Church Activities / News / Calendar 教會活動 / 消息 / 行事曆
    • Special/urgent 特別/緊急
    • Calendar 教會行事曆
    • Bulletin 週報
    • Archive 檔案 >
      • Pray for Hindus 2018 為印度人禱告
      • Seek God 2019 尋求神
      • Misc. 其他
  • Chinese Student Ministry 学生事工
    • Campus Ministry 校园事工
    • CSF 衣
    • CSF 食
    • CSF 住
    • CSF 行
  • Links 资源鏈接
  Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會

Galatians 3:1–14

10/1/2012

 
Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.

Gospel Forgetfulness
First, a quick note on the first sentence of today's reading, let we think that Paul is being overly harsh.  He is definitely exasperated with the Galatians, but I'm not sure it's culturally appropriate to follow Paul in this regard:
   
    "The “header” for this section, “You foolish Galatians!” is not intended to make friends, but neither was it perceived as a personal insult and therefore unworthy of an apostolic leader...the latitude for acceptable speech in debate was much greater then than it is today. Such “name calling” and heated rhetoric is found elsewhere in the New Testament, whether on the lips of John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7–10), Jesus (Matt. 23; Luke 24:25), James (James 4:1–12; 4:13–5:6), or Paul elsewhere (2 Cor. 10–13). While we may not imitate Paul in this regard, we can learn about different but acceptable forms of rhetoric.
    The term foolish, however, captures Paul’s point: they were illogical in committing themselves to the Pauline message of God’s grace in Christ and then succumbing to the Judaizers’ Moses-gospel. Most doubt that Paul is seriously interested here in the “who,” for he already knows the answer to this question: the Judaizers. Rather, his question is rhetorical in preparation for the following exclamation: “How could you have been fooled2 after learning about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ!” [1]

Let's take a quick moment today to just emphasize what the point of Galatians is.  As we move forward, Paul is going to be speaking a lot about the purpose of the Law and the role it plays.  As we saw in the introduction, this book is certainly about the relationship and interaction of Law and Gospel - it is theologically very rich in those areas. THEOLOGICALLY, that is the theme and focus of the book.  But I would say that the main force APPLICATIONALLY is what I would call "Gospel forgetfulness".  We see it all over this passage.  Paul preached the true Gospel of freedom to the people of Galatia, but they "forgot" it, going back to the slavery of the Law.  Paul seeks to remind them: 

"Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?  Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?  Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?  Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?"

It might seem strange to us at first that people would be so quick to forget the Gospel and go back to regulations and standard they could never possibly live up to.  We talked about this yesterday:  this was basically the issue that Paul called Peter out on.  Peter "forgot" the Gospel life out of fear of man - perhaps that is the same reason the Galatians did, or maybe they were just deceived.  Either way, they forgot what it means to be made alive by the Gospel and set free of the burden of the law.  As I said, it may seem strange, but only until we look to our own lives.

This is in essence very similar to what we talked about in Romans 7: we seem to seek out law in our lives unless we very purposely live out the Gospel.  We set personal standards or follow the standards of our friends or what our culture deems makes a "good" person.  For the most part, those who seek God struggle very much with wanting to be "good" by the standards of other people.  Paul calls us back from that:  the only way we can ever be good is by receiving the righteousness of Jesus.  Let us not forget.  Let us not seek out any standard other than that by which to be judged "good".  It may make us feel great and successful, but ultimately we'll only be just fools as the Galatians were.  Remember the Gospel.  Live the Gospel.  Live in the love of God.

[1] Scot McKnight, Galatians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 136.
Josiah
10/1/2012 04:42:34 pm

To be honest, if I did witness Jesus raising to the heavens, I would forget that pretty quickly, like how I usually forget the things that matter to me. Sometimes, I'll try seeking a law for my life, which as anyone can guess, makes no sense afterward.

Andrei
10/1/2012 05:48:36 pm

I'm reminded of the Bible verse that talks about choosing the world or Jesus and not being able to have both. I think I struggle daily with this.

greg
10/2/2012 08:06:41 am

Similar but a little different I think. "The world' speaks of ideals and values that are against the things of God. We certainly struggle with that as well, but struggling with Law is in a sense the opposite of that. We turn from the world to God, but then commence to struggle with the Law in place of the world. Both of them destroy our freedom, but in different ways and at different times.


Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.