Team,
Aloha and good morning! It certainly has been another interesting week of life on Earth. I hope you are ready for another delve into the Bible this week for some timeless truth in our ever-changing world.
We began Galatians this week, which continues our study of Paul's letters to the churches. The Galatians originally received the message from Paul and become devout followers, however in his absence they allowed their focus to wane and eventually reverted back to their old ways and allowed the message to be contorted. Needless to say, Paul was less than pleased about this as he yearned for them to live the life of freedom he had laid out for them. As our bold and straight the point friend Paul often does, he aggressively calls them out in the hopes they will wake up and change their ways:
“I can’t believe your fickleness—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message!”
The first few times I read through this passage I thought he was over-aggressive in his language. I mean calling people traitors because they didn't stay perfectly true? But Paul is not typically someone who is off base so I gave it some more time and focus. Paul provided our gallant friends with some real truth and they have just let it pass like any other fad. But what he gave them wasn’t just something that was good for a season, he gave them something good forever! (Think Tom Brady...)
Naturally this led me to examine my own life and faith. I consider the daily seemingly small concessions I make that slowly lead away from the kind of life God ultimately desires for me. For me, this passage was a reminder to stay true and not allow myself to be satisfied by living the ‘right’ way 70% of the time but to strive for more.
As I alluded to last week I am planning to start a blog. Intent is to be online (in both senses of the word) by next weekend but we will see how it develops. My hope is to reach more people with simple weekly truths sprinkled with my own quirks. We’ll see what happens! Stay encouraged and see you soon.
-the contrary disciple