Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

It does make something of a difference where someone is when he writes a letter. After all, a postcard from the sunny Mediterranean might sound different than one sent from the shores of the Minch. So we would expect that Paul would be affected by where he was when he wrote this letter – he was in prison, most likely in Rome. A first-century prison was not like our prisons for comfort and food and retraining. Instead a first-century prison was a place of abandonment, and usually it was a short stay before execution. Paul was waiting for a verdict after his trial. Of course, it is also the case that the writer’s perspective on himself will make a difference to difficult surroundings. Paul tells us his perspective. First, he recognised Jesus had put him there – he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and he recognised, second, that he should continue his calling to serve the Gentiles. Providence was under Christ’s control, but Paul did not interpret it as a sign that he should cease serv...

Closing remarks in a letter are usually more personal, more emotional. The composer knows that he or she is coming to the end of the available space and stresses what he or she feels is important. And I think we can see that was the case with Paul here as he comes to the end of his letter. Writing It is not clear if Paul personally wrote the previous verses in this letter or dictated them to another person who wrote them down. What is clear is that the verses we will consider were written by Paul and that his letters were larger than others. The suggestion that is usually made is that the size of the letters point to Paul’s poor eyesight, although it could also be the case that he wanted to stress to his readers that he wanted very much for them to stop their wrong practices and resume believing what he had taught them about Jesus. In any case, his comments about the size of his letters lead into his words about what people boast about. Boasting All of us boast about somet...

If we were asked to describe what a Christian is, no doubt we could supply several descriptions. We could say that a Christian is a believer, or is a disciple, or is a child of God, and all of them are true, although perhaps they stress an individual relationship with God. Paul provides other descriptions in this brief set of verses, and he too could have mentioned other ways. One of the aspects of the examples used by Paul here is that they are all communal. The three examples are that Christians belong to a city, a household and a temple. So what does he say about them? Citizen The apostle mentions two features of this city. First, he says that it is populated by saints. A saint can be described in two ways, depending on where he or she is, and both these ways apply to this city. Some saints are still sinners and other saints are now sinless. How can that be? We get the answer when we consider what a saint is. Initially, a saint is a sinner who has been separated b...

Paul continues to give practical instruction to the Galatians. The fact that he did this should have been encouraging for them, given their spiritual lapse, because his words indicate that they could still make spiritual progress in their faith. The directive In verse 6, Paul mentions the principle that the church is responsible for the maintenance of pastors. Perhaps he had heard that the Galatians had not done this, or maybe he was concerned that they would stop doing so when they removed themselves from the false teachers (which is what Paul wanted them to do). Yet we can also deduce two positives from the presence of faithful instructors. One is that God still wanted to bless his people there, and the other is that the support of such was an example of how the Galatians could sow in a way that pleases God. The danger In verse 7, Paul mentions the danger that the Galatians faced because of the road they had travelled. They were walking on a route of deception, and the m...

As we know, there is a connection between circumcision and baptism. What are the similarities? First, they are expressions of a covenant between God and his people. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham and baptism is the sign of the new covenant inaugurated by Jesus. Covenant, when we speak about God, by definition is an expression of love. It indicated God’s desire to bless those who were and are in this special relationship with him. The covenant with Abraham What is needed for the covenant of God to be fulfilled? The answer to that question is his ability or his power. When we look at the way God speaks about himself when he made a covenant with Abraham, we see that he spoke about his power when he called himself ‘God Almighty’: ‘When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly’’ (Gen. 17:...

The dark past Paul addresses the Gentiles among his readers and reminds them of the dark spiritual state they were in before they believed the gospel. He mentions five features of that lost condition and they have been summarised by William Hendrickson in this way: they were ‘Christless, stateless, friendless, hopeless, and Godless’.  They had been Christless because they had no information about the Messiah; they had been stateless because they did not belong to the people of God; they had been friendless because they and God did not have any agreements between them; they had been hopeless because their future before they heard the gospel was dire; and they were Godless because their religions were all about idols rather than the true God. Obviously, this is a very dark description of sinners, of those who have not yet tasted the salvation of God. This is a reminder to us of the dangerous position unconverted people are in. That is where many of our neighbours, colleagu...

There are three certain consequences of turning away from the gospel of Christ into a performance religion and they were seen in the Galatians after they accepted the idea that one could add various rituals to faith in Christ as the proof they were in a healthy spiritual state. The consequences are (1) indifference to those who have fallen, (2) selfishness, and (3) pride in themselves. We can always test ourselves in this regard by looking at how we are in connection with those three outlooks. Paul has pointed out that the responsibility of the Galatians was to love one another, so the instruction he gives here is connected to the practice of Christian love. 1. Restoring the fallen What marks are there to indicate that we are able to get involved with this important aspect of Christian activity? Paul mentions several in this letter. First, we should be able to see the wrong behaviour, which Paul defines as transgression. Transgression is to go beyond the law and normally is a vi...