Old Jerry

The purpose of the law was to tell us what sin is. It was not put into effect to save us from our sins. It would restrain sin by informing us that it was illegal to be doing certain things. Therefore it exposed sin by defining what sin is.

Paul’s argument for salvation by faith is based on the concept of the “curse of the law” because we believe. If we believe we are children of Abraham. God foresaw that we would be justified by faith. The basis that the Gentiles received “the promise of the Spirit” was the promise that God gave Abraham.

Paul’s argument for salvation by faith is based on Abraham because Abraham believed in God the God told him that all nations would be blessed. God also said that the Gentiles would be justified because of by faith and that God had revealed the gospel to Abraham in advance.

Paul’s argument for salvation by faith from the presence of the Spirit is that they had already received the Holy Spirit and have seen many miracles and therefore they do not need to be circumcised. I think that the spiritual environment of the Galatian church must have been pretty great, because that is something that I don’t think that we see in our churches today. I think that we can regain this dynamic environment in our congregations today by learning more about the Holy Spirit. If we keep our eye on what is happening and that most coincidences are usually miracles and believe in the Holy Spirit we would be able to bring back this dynamic environment.

I have been “crucified with Christ” when I was baptized. Even though it is only a symbol it is something that connects me with Christ. I know that he died for my sins and there is nothing that I can do to make up for that except to believe in the one that died for them. Jesus’ life motivates me in doing the things that I do knowing that I am pleasing him. When I accepted Jesus as my savior it did make a “new creation” out of me. I completely changed in the things that I did and said. I know that God loves me no matter what.

The thing that happens to the importance of Christ’s death if circumcision is deemed necessary to salvation is that Christ’s sacrifice was worthless. All we would need to do is being circumcised. I guess women would not be able to be with Christ forever. The sufficiency of the Messiah’s death is so important in Paul’s day is it is today. Jesus is all we need! He gave us the only way to have eternal live in heaven. We cannot earn it period. We can do things that show that we do love Jesus but that will not be enough.

I think that it is so hard to take the gospel to different peoples without wrapping it in our own cultural practices is because a lot of time we don’t see that what we are practicing is a cultural thing and not a biblical teaching. We have been taught certain things that make us what we are and a lot of times it has nothing to do with biblical teachings. The danger of us not seeing the difference is that we miss the opportunity to communicate the gospel to the people that we are trying to convert. The only way that we can avoid such cultural faux pas in our church’s missionary enterprises is to make sure that it is a bible believing and not a culture belief.

I think that Paul confronted Peter publicly rather than privately because he wanted his followers to know that he didn’t agree with what the men from James was saying. He wanted them to defend their opinion publicly so that they would have to explain it to those who did not believe them. I think that Paul probably did talk to Peter about this but had been unsuccessful. Now the Jewish Christians could hear for themselves what this was all about and would be able to make an informed decision. And the same was true for the Gentile Christians. I am sure that Paul check to make sure that he was right before confronting Peter on this.

I think that Peter first embraced the Gentile believers in Antioch because that was what he was sent to do. He was supposed to teach them the way of Jesus. But when there was opposition to his teaching he back off and started eating only with the Jews. I think he was afraid that his reputation was going to be ruined. This tells us that maybe Peter didn’t believe everything that he was teaching. He knew better because he had a firsthand witness of Jesus and Peter knew that what he was saying was correct. This tells us that maybe Barnabas wasn’t as knowable as he should have been about the Gospel. This tells us that the political clout of the visitors from Jerusalem was still pretty strong and that the people didn’t what to go against their teachings. I have acted like a hypocrite to impress others but I got back on Jesus bandwagon when I recovered my senses.

I think that Paul was trying to distance himself from the leaders of the Jerusalem church because he was trying to convince his opponents that he got his word from Jesus Himself. He wanted them to believe that it was Jesus that was putting the things on his heart that he was speaking to them and not just another man. He wrote of their approval of his ministry because he wanted them to know that he wasn’t leading them down the wrong path. Even though he didn’t his word from them, they approved of his message making it possible for him to connect with his listeners.

I think that the significance of Paul’s mention that Titus was not required to be circumcised is that in order for that to happen he would have had to completely convince that Jerusalem leaders of his position. It was proof that the Gentiles did not have to be circumcised in order to become a follower of Jesus and to be born again.

Some of the factors in Paul’s background that made him an ideal apostle to the Gentiles were that he had persecuted the first Christians. The he had an encounter with Jesus and made him the perfect person to witness to the Gentiles. God used his being different from others by making it so that he could relate those that he was speaking to and relate to them how much Jesus had changed him.

The source of Paul’s gospel is the Old Testament and Jesus Christ Himself. It is a true revelation because it is based on what the Old Testament. I think that Paul’s teachings are the foundational source of the Christian teaching. The danger of taking the teaching of contemporary leaders as our doctrinal basis without checking it with Scripture is that is the way that some cults are formed. They feel that what they have learned nobody else on earth has ever learned it and they form their doctrinal around that and don’t check out what the scriptures are saying.

The danger in the Judaizers’ message being “a different gospel” is that it has some requirements that would make the people thinks that they were earning their own salvation instead of God giving it to them by His Son. A lot of times a twisted gospel affects Christians in our day is that they will start following a person rather than God. That is what happens in cults.

The purpose that Jesus gave himself was for our sins and to rescue us from the evils of this world according to the will of God the Father. Jesus rescues us today by using the people in the ministry to evangelize those who do not believe in Jesus. We are all in the ministry and we are to go and make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Then He gives us a leader to keep reminding us what Jesus has done for us and to help support us in our ministries.

Gideon influenced Israel during his life time by being a positive person and by following God no matter what. I think that the positive continuing effect of his leadership as a judge is that if we do as God asks us to, then all things are possible.

A snare is something that entraps something. The way that Gideon’s ephod ensnared his family and the people of Israel is that it must have been beautiful and they all started to worship it instead of God. There are a lot of things that can be a sin and we don’t see it as such. Anything that draws us away from worshiping the one and only God is a sin. The essence of the sin that the Israelites committed was that they started to worship the ephod instead of God. The essence of Gideon’s sin is that he created the thing that the Israelites started to worship.

Spiritual unfaithfulness is looked at as prostitution or adultery because we have been committed to Jesus Christ our savior. If we go out looking for another savior like money or gold then we are prostituting ourselves.

Gideon asked for a gold earring from each of the men as his reward. Gideon was not wrong to take a reward because that was the custom in that day that the victor take the plunder from the dead bodies. The sin happened when the people began to worship the thing that Gideon made from the plunder.

Gideon refused to be king over Israel because God is supposed to be their king. And since God is suppose to be king it would be treasonous for Gideon to want that position. I think that the reason that the Israelites didn’t see bestowing Gideon as the king as being treasonous because they didn’t have their faith in God. They had their faith in Gideon.

Gideon said that the slay Zebah and Zalmunna because they had killed his brothers. I don’t know if he was unjust or not but he was filling an obligation. The reason that Romans 12:19 prohibits Christians from taking vengeance is because we are suppose to leave room for God’s wrath.

I think that the reason that Succoth and Peniel refused aid to Gideon’s army was because they were afraid that maybe Gideon would not defeat his enemy and they didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the dispute. Gideon punished these cities later to teach them a lesson. They needed to put their trust in God and not rely on their own judgment. I might send a warning sign to the other cities that they need to corporate with him. Their sin was that they didn’t help Gideon when he needed it the most. There are probably many a time when a Christian was guilty of the sin of Succoth and Peniel. I think that anytime they we don’t do what God is asking us to do because we don’t have the insight that we think we need, we are doing the same thing that Succoth and Peniel did.

Gideon must vanquish the Midianite force of 15,000 men in Karkor because he has got to secure the area in order to make it save to live in. If he had left these 15,000 men alive they might have become brave enough to start robbing the local residents. That is the danger that we all face when we deal with problems only half-way. They will probably come back in bite you.

Gideon has asked the Ephraimites to help mop up after the battle. But the Ephraimites were angry because Gideon had not asked them to the big battle. Gideon’s answer was the best. He bragged about how much the Ephraimites had done and had said almost nothing that they had done. He placed them on a pedestal and was praising them for their job.

I suppose that Gideon divided his army into three companies so that there would better control on what was happening. I think that the strategy with the trumpets, the empty jars, and torches was to cause confusion and to make it look like that were a bigger army then they actually were. It was a great strategy because it worked.