This Sunday we depart from the Book of Acts, though we will head back there on Pentecost Sunday in a couple weeks, as well as spend a couple weeks in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Galatians is a tricky book, requiring a lot of context to truly get what Paul is doing and saying, and without proper context, it can lead (and has led!) to a lot of harm. That said, Paul opens up some interesting, important, and profound theological ideas. It should be an interesting couple of weeks! -Pastor Paul
SCRIPTURE: Galations 2:15-21 (NRSVUE)
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners, 16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.