I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Galatians 1-6.

    In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he focuses on salvation through faith not by works. The focus of his point is that we cannot be saved by following rituals, not even the rituals of the Law of Moses. We have been freed from following the Law by the Holy Spirit and faith.

I am going to take a slight aside here because I came across a story which suggested that there is a strain of Christian theology which teaches that women are inferior to men and will continue to be so in Heaven. That is an idea which Paul puts firmly to rest in this passage. In the same verses where he does that, Paul also puts to rest the notion that people of one ethnic background are superior, or inferior, to those of another ethnic background. Finally, Paul also rejects the idea that those from one social class is superior, or inferior, to those from another social class. In Galatians 3:28 Paul tells us that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I am not better than you, you are not better than me. And neither one of us is better than that other person over there (no matter who that is).

OK, back to my main theme. We have been freed from the obligation to follow the Law of Moses by Christ’s death and resurrection, which is a good thing because we would fail to follow on one point or another even if we were obligated to do so. We are not capable of being good enough to earn a spot in Heaven.

    However, if we have truly embraced the saving faith which the Spirit will give to us, we will not use our freedom to indulge our fleshly desires. Instead we will strive to serve others in love. Our fleshly desires are contrary to the Spirit. So, Paul points out that our freedom from the Law of Moses comes from being led by the Spirit, but if we are led by the Spirit we will act according to the Spirit, not according to fleshly desires. If we act according to fleshly desires we will find ourselves falling under the dominance of the Law once more. If we look at society around us we see how this works out. Harvey Weinstein used the freedom afforded him by the “sexual revolution” to indulge his desires rather than to serve others in love. He is now discovering that he is under the dominance of a Law which will demand he suffer the consequences of his actions, consequences of which he thought he was free. So, let us not make a similar error.