Spiritual Disciplines

Galatians 4:22-25 – Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

For some odd reason, people often think of the believers in the Old Testament as moral giants and nearly spiritual superheroes. But they are as faulty and flawed as the rest of us. Take, for example, Abraham and how he wound up with two families with two women (Genesis 16). He and his wife Sarah were told by God when he was seventy-five years old and she was sixty-five years old, that despite being barren and childless, God was going to give them a son through whom would come a nation of people who would bring forth Jesus Christ as a blessing to all the nations (Genesis 12, 15).

They waited for ten years, and they assumed God had failed to fulfill His promise. So, Sarah devised a plan to have her husband Abraham sleep with a young and unbelieving Egyptian woman named Hagar. In this event, the pattern of Adam and Eve was repeated as the wife handed her husband something forbidden, and he partook of it which is sin. Sarah’s plan was to help God out, which goes to show when we try and give God a hand, we hurt everyone and help nothing.

Hagar got pregnant and had a boy named Ishmael. Then, an additional fourteen years later God allowed Sarah to become pregnant even though she was around eighty-five, and her husband Abraham was around one hundred years old. Their son was named Isaac. Since the promise of God was to the firstborn son, the battle was on between two mothers with two sons and only one promised blessing from God. Ishmael is the father of the Arab people today. Isaac is the physical father of the Jewish people today. The Arabs to this day, and their religion of Islam, say that their father Ishmael is the true son of Abraham. Conversely, the Jews and Christians say that Isaac is the true son of Abraham. Yes, much of the conflict in the world started when one man slept with two women and the family feud has kept going for thousands of years.

In Galatians, Paul uses this story to make a point. In his allegory, Hagar and Ishmael represent the law. Sarah and Isaac represent grace. Here’s the difference:

Law Grace
You have to do things for God’s love You get to do things from God’s love
Non-relational control through rules Relational influence through love
Proud Humble
Beats you up Builds you up
Love is at the finish line if you earn it Love is at the starting line because Jesus
earned it

Just as Ishmael was born first, and Isaac was born later (fourteen years to be exact), so too the law came first and was overtaken by grace once Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose to fulfill the law for us.

Do you have any unhealthy relationships that are law based? Who could you give grace to that needs it right now?

Galatians 1:1-2 – Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia…

In most any form of communication – from email to text and phone call – it’s most helpful to know who the person communicating to us is. As we study Galatians, it’s clear that the human author is Paul, as he states this plainly at the front of the letter.

Who is Paul? As we get to know Paul through the letter he wrote to the Galatians, it’s important to get some perspective on the magnitude of this man in human history. He wrote 13 or 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament (there is a debate about the unnamed author of Hebrews). Paul wrote more New Testament books than any other author, and Luke contributed the largest amount of content for the New Testament with his historical books of Luke and Acts. But Paul was Luke’s pastor and Luke was Paul’s doctor. They traveled and ministered together. Additionally, the history of Acts 13-28 focuses mainly on Paul which, combined with the books he wrote and influence he had on Luke, means that the majority of the entire New Testament is written by Paul, written about Paul, or written by someone working closely with Paul.

Paul’s incredible intelligence includes studying under the renowned rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) and being fluent in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and possibly Latin. In his letters, Paul used more than one hundred Old Testament quotations in addition to innumerable echoes and summations of biblical themes and terms, perhaps all from memory (he was often traveling by foot, an average of 20 miles per day, and often in jail during his roughly decade of ministry). Bible scholar Paul Barnett calls Paul the “first theologian in the early church, and arguably the greatest in the history of Christianity.”1 Early church father John Chrysostom wrote of Paul, “Put the whole world on one side of the scale and you will see that the soul of Paul outweighs it.”2 The apostle Paul is a towering figure in world history. The Protestant Reformed Martin Luther called him “the wisest man after Christ.”

For Protestant Christians, Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians are perhaps the most significant source of theological clarity. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was so fond of Galatians and taught it so passionately he said, “The Epistle to the Galatians is my Epistle; I have betrothed myself to it; it is my wife.”3 Others have called it, “the battle-cry of the Reformation,” and “the Christian Declaration of Independence”.

The strength of Paul’s writing is that he presents the gospel of Jesus Christ like math – it is unchanging, fixed, and true whether we believe it or not. For most people, they want the message of Christianity to be more like cooking where teachers change the ingredients to suit the tastes of those who consume it.

1.Paul Barnett, Paul: Missionary of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 198.
2.Quoted in Barnett, Paul, 198.
3.Kenneth L. Boles, Galatians & Ephesians, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993).

Galatians 1:1-2 – Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia…

In most any form of communication – from email to text and phone call – it’s most helpful to know who the person communicating to us is. As we study Galatians, it’s clear that the human author is Paul, as he states this plainly at the front of the letter.

Who is Paul? As we get to know Paul through the letter he wrote to the Galatians, it’s important to get some perspective on the magnitude of this man in human history. He wrote 13 or 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament (there is a debate about the unnamed author of Hebrews). Paul wrote more New Testament books than any other author, and Luke contributed the largest amount of content for the New Testament with his historical books of Luke and Acts. But Paul was Luke’s pastor and Luke was Paul’s doctor. They traveled and ministered together. Additionally, the history of Acts 13-28 focuses mainly on Paul which, combined with the books he wrote and influence he had on Luke, means that the majority of the entire New Testament is written by Paul, written about Paul, or written by someone working closely with Paul.

Paul’s incredible intelligence includes studying under the renowned rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) and being fluent in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and possibly Latin. In his letters, Paul used more than one hundred Old Testament quotations in addition to innumerable echoes and summations of biblical themes and terms, perhaps all from memory (he was often traveling by foot, an average of 20 miles per day, and often in jail during his roughly decade of ministry). Bible scholar Paul Barnett calls Paul the “first theologian in the early church, and arguably the greatest in the history of Christianity.”1 Early church father John Chrysostom wrote of Paul, “Put the whole world on one side of the scale and you will see that the soul of Paul outweighs it.”2 The apostle Paul is a towering figure in world history. The Protestant Reformed Martin Luther called him “the wisest man after Christ.”

For Protestant Christians, Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians are perhaps the most significant source of theological clarity. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was so fond of Galatians and taught it so passionately he said, “The Epistle to the Galatians is my Epistle; I have betrothed myself to it; it is my wife.”3 Others have called it, “the battle-cry of the Reformation,” and “the Christian Declaration of Independence”.

The strength of Paul’s writing is that he presents the gospel of Jesus Christ like math – it is unchanging, fixed, and true whether we believe it or not. For most people, they want the message of Christianity to be more like cooking where teachers change the ingredients to suit the tastes of those who consume it.

1.Paul Barnett, Paul: Missionary of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 198.
2.Quoted in Barnett, Paul, 198.
3.Kenneth L. Boles, Galatians & Ephesians, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993).

Galatians 1:1-2 – Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia…

In most any form of communication – from email to text and phone call – it’s most helpful to know who the person communicating to us is. As we study Galatians, it’s clear that the human author is Paul, as he states this plainly at the front of the letter.

Who is Paul? As we get to know Paul through the letter he wrote to the Galatians, it’s important to get some perspective on the magnitude of this man in human history. He wrote 13 or 14 of the 27 books of the New Testament (there is a debate about the unnamed author of Hebrews). Paul wrote more New Testament books than any other author, and Luke contributed the largest amount of content for the New Testament with his historical books of Luke and Acts. But Paul was Luke’s pastor and Luke was Paul’s doctor. They traveled and ministered together. Additionally, the history of Acts 13-28 focuses mainly on Paul which, combined with the books he wrote and influence he had on Luke, means that the majority of the entire New Testament is written by Paul, written about Paul, or written by someone working closely with Paul.

Paul’s incredible intelligence includes studying under the renowned rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) and being fluent in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and possibly Latin. In his letters, Paul used more than one hundred Old Testament quotations in addition to innumerable echoes and summations of biblical themes and terms, perhaps all from memory (he was often traveling by foot, an average of 20 miles per day, and often in jail during his roughly decade of ministry). Bible scholar Paul Barnett calls Paul the “first theologian in the early church, and arguably the greatest in the history of Christianity.”1 Early church father John Chrysostom wrote of Paul, “Put the whole world on one side of the scale and you will see that the soul of Paul outweighs it.”2 The apostle Paul is a towering figure in world history. The Protestant Reformed Martin Luther called him “the wisest man after Christ.”

For Protestant Christians, Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians are perhaps the most significant source of theological clarity. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was so fond of Galatians and taught it so passionately he said, “The Epistle to the Galatians is my Epistle; I have betrothed myself to it; it is my wife.”3 Others have called it, “the battle-cry of the Reformation,” and “the Christian Declaration of Independence”.

The strength of Paul’s writing is that he presents the gospel of Jesus Christ like math – it is unchanging, fixed, and true whether we believe it or not. For most people, they want the message of Christianity to be more like cooking where teachers change the ingredients to suit the tastes of those who consume it.

1.Paul Barnett, Paul: Missionary of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 198.
2.Quoted in Barnett, Paul, 198.
3.Kenneth L. Boles, Galatians & Ephesians, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993).