Welcome! Over the next week we will be reading through the book of Galatians together as a church! We’ll be reading a chapter each week day, beginning on Friday the 15th of May, and concluding on Friday the 22nd. We’re following the reading plan in the CBR Journal, which can also be found HERE.
Each day a member of the Redeemer family will be sharing with us some thoughts in video form, which can be seen above, previous days videos can be found on our Youtube channel. We’ll also be publishing blogs with more thoughts on the passages we’ve read, along with some ideas for those who want to study the passage further. We’re really looking forward to seeing God bear fruit in and through us as a church as we read his word, even during this challenging time.
Today Logan will be sharing with us his thoughts on Galatians 3 in the video above.
In these verses, Paul begins more directly to attack the distortions of the gospel that are “bewitching” the Galatian believers. It appears that the most prominent aspect of the false teachers’ message was that Gentile believers in Christ needed to observe the law of Moses in order to truly belong to the people of God. For Paul, this was unthinkable, since the law was given as a preparation, for the purpose of helping people die to the law (“through the law I died to the law”; Gal. 2:19). Now that Christ has come, the desire to return to something that was meant as a preparation for Christ reveals a deep misunderstanding of the very purpose of the law. In Galatians 3:1–14, Paul seeks to convince the Galatians of this by referring to experience, to the history of Israel (particularly regarding Abraham), and to what the Scriptures themselves say about law and faith.
Becoming members of God’s people and heirs of God’s promises does not come by observing the Jewish law, but by placing one’s faith in Christ! What a great reminder this morning!
When Paul seeks to convince the Galatians of how God’s blessings came to them entirely apart from their effort, he immediately speaks of the Spirit. The influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is one of the chief ways we experience God’s grace. His work in us is not something we earn or achieve; inward change by the power of the Spirit is given to us who are united to Christ by faith. God joins every believer to himself by his Spirit and enables each of them to experience his redeeming power.
I pray that today will be a day of knowing God’s grace over your life, placing your faith in Christ, and experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.
