60IN60 Day 12 - Fri Nov 15

It's Day 12 and we're in Galatians 5.

Oops!  I realized I made a mistake on the "60IN60" reading sheet - I left out Galatians 6.  Instead, I went right on to Esther for our reading for tomorrow.  Feel free to read Galatians 6 anyway if you want to.  I'm allowed one mistake a day and apparently that's my mistake for today!

Where God Spoke to Me:
- Verse 16 - Living by the Spirit means that we're working against pursuing the lusts of our sinful nature.

Help:
- Verse 1 - This is not physical slavery, but the spiritual slavery of going back to the bondage of a rule-based religion.
- Verses 2-3 - The need to be circumcised was a big issue for the teachers who were leading the Galatian church astray.  Paul is noting that if you feel like you have to be circumcised to be right, then you can't really just stop there - you need to go on and fulfill the whole Mosaic Law.
- Verse 4 - "fallen away from grace" - This idea of "falling from grace" has to be understood in the context of what's being said here.  The obvious point that Paul is making here is that they are falling from the idea of being saved by grace and falling back down toward the ineffective idea of being saved by trying to keep the Mosaic Law.  Some people say, "You can lose your salvation because the Bible says you can fall from grace."  You have to read it in context, though, and the subject here is not salvation but wrong teaching.
- Verse 9 - Paul is saying that it only takes a few people within a church teaching things that are questionable to get the whole church messed up.
- Verse 12 - Paul is using a little exaggeration here to make his point.  He's saying if these teachers think circumcision is so essential then maybe they should go all the way and emasculate themselves.
- Verses 13-14 - Rather than living under the tyranny of a rule-based religion (by trying to keep the Mosaic Law), we are called to be free.  We each follow the Holy Spirit's guidance.  That freedom, though, is not an open door to freely sinning, but rather to serving God and each other.
- Verse 24 - This is an important idea: when we are saved, our old, sinful nature is crucified with Christ.  We are a new creation, fully capable of living victoriously for Christ.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.