Treasures from Galatia: GEMS for You from the Epistle to the Galatians
By John Zehring
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About this ebook
Treasures from Galatia takes Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians and mines from it twelve gems that apply to your daily life today as they did to the Galatians. It is not quite the same as a bible study, nor is it a sketch about Paul or the church he founded. Rather, it is a devotional springboard for you to enrich your faith, deepen your relationships with others, discover new heights to your faith and leap further into your closer walk with God. Your life will be enriched by these gems.
John Zehring
John Zehring has served United Church of Christ congregations as Senior Pastor in Massachusetts (Andover), Rhode Island (Kingston), and Maine (Augusta) and as an Interim Pastor in Massachusetts (Arlington, Harvard). Prior to parish ministry, he served in higher education, primarily in development and institutional advancement. He worked as a dean of students, director of career planning and placement, adjunct professor of public speaking and as a vice president at a seminary and at a college. He is the author of more than sixty books and is a regular writer for The Christian Citizen, an American Baptist social justice publication. He has taught Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Educational Psychology and Church Administration. John was the founding editor of the publication Seminary Development News, a publication for seminary presidents, vice presidents and trustees (published by the Association of Theological Schools, funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment). He graduated from Eastern University and holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Rider University, and the Earlham School of Religion. He is listed in Marquis' WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and is a recipient of their Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. John and his wife Donna live in two places, in central Massachusetts and by the sea in Maine.
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Treasures from Galatia - John Zehring
Treasures from Galatia:
GEMS for You from the Epistle to the Galatians
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
John Zehring
Copyright 2017 John Zehring
Introduction
Reading Paul’s letter to the Galatians is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. When you listen to someone talking on the phone, you might guess at what the other person is saying but you cannot know and often your guess would be incorrect. Paul is talking about some things that sound strange to our ears and it almost seems like he is bawling out the Galatians for something they did wrong, for not being faithful, for deserting the gospel and for disappointing Paul. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted,
he wrote (4:11).
He appears to sound conceited: "I beg you, become as I am" (4:12). That is what he also told the Corinthians: Be imitators of me
(1 Corinthians 11:11). Who do you think you are, hotshot? Some kind of saint? Well, of course, the Apostle Paul became Saint Paul. But reading his two-century-old dictation through our twenty-first century lenses cause us to be inclined to think that there is a lot of Paul not to like. He does not sound like the kind of person you would care to invite over for dinner. But let us give Paul the benefit of the doubt. We are, after all, seeing Paul through a twenty-one-hundred year filter of knowing only one side of the conversation and a cultural evolution that no longer condones slavery, no longer requires women not to speak in church and no longer perceives people who are LBGTQ as sinners. To condone any of that behavior – all of which Paul advocated – could only be considered as not God-like behaviors.
So much of the content of Galatians has to do with the Hebrew Law and circumcision. Start reading the epistle and you might set it down after a few minutes and think Not much here for me.
Actually, there isn’t. Paul was addressing pressing and confusing issues for people just a decade or two after Jesus was crucified.
Consider: Galatians is one of Paul’s first letters to churches. This is the Christian Church on day one. There were no gospels in print, no New Testament, no historic creeds to shape orthodoxy, no test of time, no denominational structure to guide, no history and no background. People in the first churches were flying blind. Most were raised Jewish, like Jesus, Peter, Andrew and Paul. They were raised that faithfulness was defined as obedience to the Torah. Want to please God? Then keep the law. Now Jews were becoming followers of The Way, as Christianity was called before it had a name. Now what about the Law? Which is more important, to obey the Law or to follow Jesus’ way? Christianity was spreading and people who were not Jewish, known as Gentiles, were also becoming followers of The Way. In this Jewish culture, language, and land of traditions, should they also be subject to Jewish traditions as well as Jesus’ teachings? Should they be circumcised? Are circumcised men better than those who are not circumcised? There was no place to go to look up answers. It fell to Paul to interpret and that is what he has apparently done with the churches in Galatia and is now calling them on in his epistle.
Listening to Paul’s side of the phone conversation, it sounds like he is also dealing with promoters of a different take on Jesus’ teachings: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel… there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ
(1:6,7).
Remember, there are not yet any standards, printed gospels, statements of faith or creeds. It is not like they are deserting the New Testament. That does not yet exist. What Paul refers to is their understanding of the gospel according to the preaching of the disciples and Paul. It would be so easy for others to take this understanding, build on it, vary from it and give it their own spin. This is a time when anything goes and faithful worshippers could be misled. A contemporary young pastor proclaimed the Gospel of Jiminy Cricket. With a twinkle in his eye and a gleam in his smile, he sang in the middle of a sermon When you wish upon a star.
The congregation whipped out their hankies, dried their eyes, remembered the classic opening to the Walt Disney show and proclaimed Isn’t he wonderful? He is so gifted!
And