Thursday 10 October 2024
Galatians 3:1-5. Blessed is the Lord God of Israel; for he has come to his people – Luke 1:69-75. Luke 11:5-13.
The Spirit comes to those who believe the message
For Paul, today’s message to the Galatians was do-or-die time for them. We see Paul the impassioned evangeliser at work. The Spirit moving him here will, in due course, move Augustine, will move Luther, will move John XXIII; will, in fact, move anyone who understands the metaphoric dimension to Jesus’ own comment, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’. In other words, go to the heart of faith, go to the heart of mercy and love; stop hiding behind the mask of legal righteousness on its own. The Galatians had accepted the message that Jesus’ salvation was for all races, peoples and times; but some sticklers for the law had come and confused them, insisting they be circumcised Jews before they could be Christians. A simple challenge to us all: ‘Did you receive the Spirit by the practice of the Law, or by believing the message?’
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