Lesson 515

(Lesson 515)(01-13-13) Galatians 4:8-19, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you."

This lesson tells of how some of the Jews in the early Church were attempting to bring back the restrictions and rituals of the law. Paul scolded them for, after having been freed from the bondage of the law, again reverting to it.

Many of the false isms of today, referring to themselves as Christian, are guilty of the exact same practices. Knowing that there is nothing to the gospel of Jesus Christ beyond that which He commanded in His own words, and further commanded through those things related by His appointed teachers, these isms demand that pompous rituals and meaningless restrictions be demanded of new converts to the Church.

Paul asks, "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"

Judging by all I've been able to glean from the pages of the New Testament, the relationship between a Christian, God, and the Church Jesus founded, is a personal one and requires NO explicit ritualistic effort beyond that of having faith in the amazing grace of God through Jesus Christ.~