Growing in Grace

As Paul nears the end of his letter to the Galatians, he begins to wrap up his thoughts expressed previously, with a big "therefore" to start chapter 5. The exhortation is centered on standing firm in the freedom which came to them through belief in Christ alone, while avoiding the temptation of doing something to make themselves acceptable to God. They began their journey in the Spirit until some...

Bible chapters and verses can cause us to trip, skip and miss the crux of the context. Paul isn't hopscotching around on a variety of topics as he writes to the Galatians, but keeps making his points that piggyback off of one another as the letter flows. And it all revolves around a law of works that was once given to Israel and how it contrasts with life found in grace through faith for all peopl...

There is one true promise keeper - God. None of us were even nominated or received honorable mention. No "A" for effort. It is an unchanging and eternal promise for those who believe, which began in the days of Abraham and carried through to the Seed - Jesus Christ. Once the Seed had come, the Jewish people were no longer considered as being under the "guardian" ... known as the law of commandment...

Continuing in Galatians Chapter 3, Paul was providing these believing Gentiles with a hard-hitting explanation of why they do not want to pursue works of the law — which they were never under — in order to perfect themselves. They began in the Spirit and were being coerced into thinking they needed Jesus plus works in order to be justified. This was a common mindset among believing Jews in the ear...

Paul appears frustrated as he addresses "you foolish Galatians" in the beginning of Chapter 3. Why? They had started out receiving the Spirit of God by faith but were being lured by a more popular persuasion from men who came from James - and had started to convince these Gentiles to adhere to the old Jewish law in combination with faith in Christ. This led to Paul carefully laying out an explanat...

We're wrapping up our series about some things found in the letter from James to believers in Jesus from the twelve tribes of Israel ... and the contrasts found with Paul's writings. One example we'll look at is in James 4, where an old covenant mindset is communicated as James tells believers to draw near to God, to cleanse their hands and purify their hearts. Paul communicated that believers are...

Throughout the pages of the New Testament, we see numerous examples of Jewish people coming to believe in Jesus, but understandably also believed the law of Moses was still in place for them. The Apostle Paul came along a short while later with a gospel message he claimed was taught directly to him by divine revelation ... to declare the former law had been put aside and nailed to the cross. But h...

Continuing with Program 3 of our series on being a "doer of the word" and what this was meant to be about. The "law of liberty" is seen twice in the New Testament, both times used by James in the first two chapters of his letter written to the twelve tribes of Israel which had been scattered to different regions. In context, he encourages his audience to follow all of that law and to speak "and do...

James made a statement in his letter to the twelve Jewish tribes ... believed by most historians to be the earliest writing in the pages known as The New Testament. "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). This passage, along with what follows has a consistent but curious theme of externals, doing and works - and all under the topic of righteousness, salvati...

The popular phrase from the Old Testament known as "The Ten Commandments" is more rightfully interpreted as "The Ten Words." Is it a big deal? Perhaps not, but we wanted to point out a few things about this to lay some groundwork before getting into something that James wrote to his believing Jewish brothers and sisters from the twelve tribes. James made a statement to them about being a doer of "...