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

It seems clear to me that Paul wrote this letter in response to some who were teaching that followers of Christ needed to fully obey the Laws of Moses, almost certainly with an emphasis on circumcision and the Festivals laid out by Moses.  Paul makes the point that what he teaches could not have been made up by men because he began teaching it without being taught it by any other person.  He claims to have learned what he taught by Divine revelation.  There are those who claim this shows that Paul taught something different from what was taught by those who had walked with Jesus on this earth.    However, Paul points out here that those who had come to faith in Christ before him did not ask him to add, or remove, anything from what he taught.

Having established his “bonafides”, Paul makes his case.  He actually makes a very good case for something which people struggle with to this day.  He goes through and demolishes the idea that in order to be saved we must follow some set of rules, even the rules laid out in the Law of Moses.  He makes a solid case that those who are trying to convince us to follow some set of rules are doing so in order to get us to follow their set of rules in order to gain power over us.  Then, having established our freedom from a set of rules, Paul warns us of the importance of not succumbing to slavery to sinful desires.   He tells us that the desires of the flesh, sexual immorality, debauchery, selfish ambition, etc. will bind us once more.  Rather we should seek to behave according to the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, self-control, etc..  Let us live by the Spirit, which is eternal, not by the flesh, which is decaying.

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