RonParrs.com: Notes from My Desk...

Galatians: Going Beyond Legalism

Paul's Epistle to the Galatian church is hard hitting!

I'll just let you be teased with that comment now and you'll see why I say that in quick time.

Over the years, this book has become one of my favorites. In my opinion, Galatians comes only second to Romans when laying out a solid foundation for our Faith in Christ and for Christianity itself.

You'll hear it said that Christianity is not about a religion, but it is about a relationship.

This is going to be an interesting study... Going through the book of Galatians is not a simple verse by verse study. As you read it through, you'll find that Paul goes back and forth and criss-crosses many tenets of the Faith as he speaks to the Galatian churches of the first century.

I'm going to leave my remarks there and encourage you to get into the study.

Please read this epistle all the way through. It shouldn't take much more than about 30 minutes total. Just read it - don't think about it. Don't "study" it. Just read it through - a couple of times. A few things will become very plain. You'll see...

Week 1 - Introduction. The who, what, when, why, where of the study. Background and cultural context is necessary in understanding and then applying any book of the Bible, but may be more so with Galatians - at least in the New Testament books. Discussion notes.

Week 2 - One Gospel. There is only ONE Gospel. That's it. This is the key to unlocking not only the Book of Galatians, but also understanding the bedrock of Christianity.

 

Discipleship: When is enough enough? - The Resurgence

There comes a time in every teacher-student relationship when it is time for the student to head out on their own as it were.

In almost every aspect of life, we all have to grow up. The parent can no longer hover around their child wringing their hands and fretting how that child will get along without them. There are various and continuous stages of "release": after nine months of gestation, the baby is born and the umbilical cord cut; the child's first day at school; the dreaded day when your child drives off in your car alone for the first time; high school graduation; marriage.

All of these are tremendous steps and hopefully we as parents/teachers have been properly preparing our children to be released so that they can succeed - or possibly fail, but recover - on their own. That's maturity and the maturation process. The same can be said of people who come to Christ. They are babes and have to be nurtured, but for how long? How do we as spiritual parents know when it's time to cut that umbilical and yet retain the relationship? After all, that relationship has changed and matured as well so that hopefully it is a more "filial" relationship; true brothers and sisters in Christ.

This article from "The Resurgence" helps give us clues and guideposts:

"How can leaders tell if they are making mature disciples? Paul gives us three places to look: the heart, the head, and the hands of disciples...."

Continue here via theresurgence.com