Author: Danny Panter

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 4:12-20 (day six)

 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.  -Jesus, John 15:15

Jesus was describing Kingdom friendship. What bound them as friends was an eternal perspective, giving them a shared purpose. This is the same kind of friendship that shaped the relationship between Paul and many of the church leaders in Galatia. Kingdom friendship is what allowed him to step in when things were hard and call them back to the simplicity of the Gospel.

In a world that majors in superficiality and personal pursuits, Kingdom friendship calls us to something (and someone!) bigger than ourselves. More than ever, we need to forge this kind of friendship!

What is one way you can build Kingdom friendship today?

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 4:1-11 (day six)

How do you live like an heir? An heir has a secure identity and inheritance; neither is in question. An heir, then, lives with a kind of fearless faithfulness. Or described another way, an heir lives completely free.

Remember the prodigal son’s brother? He questioned how his dad could so freely honor his brother after all he had done while he felt like he had access to nothing. His dad replied, “But you are my son, you have access to everything that is mine.” The older brother was not living as an heir but as a slave, constantly trying to prove his worth through obedience. He wasn’t fearlessly free.

Paul is reminding the Galatians who they are, just like the dad did in the parable of the prodigal son, “Remember, you are heirs (sons and daughters). Don’t go back to living like a slave.”

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:15-29 (day six)

²¹ Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Galatians 3:21

Jesus and the law are not at odds. It doesn’t feel rejected or left behind. It doesn’t seek the spotlight, but it steps off the stage for the star of this passion play. The law is the question that Jesus answers. The law is in agreement with Jesus. The law declares, “Choose him!”

Of course, the conflict isn’t between God’s law and God’s promise; he is never at odds with himself. The conflict is between us and God, of which the law is our tutor and Jesus our resolution.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:1-14 (day six) 

Abraham was declared righteous because he believed God’s promise long before the law came onto the scene. Nor was there ever a moment when Abraham graduated from believing God to working things out on his own (the law). No, he began his journey believing God and all along the way believed God.

Maybe that gets to the heart of sin: unbelief. Sin is not first an immoral behavior or thought, it is unbelief in the promises of God and putting your trust elsewhere.  According to Paul, looking to the law for life condemns us not because the law is bad, but because it requires disbelieving (turning away from) God and embracing self-reliance.

Jesus died for our unbelief so that we would believe God.

Paul was right; Peter knew better. He knew no one was justified by working the law; his faith was firmly fixed on Jesus. BUT legalism is sneaky. It can happen to the best of us, just like it did to Peter. Under pressure (it doesn’t always take much), we can separate ourselves from those who don’t fit into our normal crowd out of fear of what the crowd might think. 

Jesus always had that problem; he was always being judged because he was hanging out with the wrong people, those who didn’t fit the profile. What made Jesus pretty cool was that he turned the world upside down by simply not avoiding people, especially those who didn’t fit the profile.

I hope we will always be ready to expose our sneaky legalism (our tendency to measure our righteousness by comparing ourselves to others) and embrace a willingness to turn the world upside down, just like Jesus.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:1-10 (day six)

The Gospel is a revolutionary message with surprising results. No one could have imagined the depth of its redemptive power. No one imagined that Jesus could redeem a passionate persecutor of the earliest Christians, and yet he did. Or that non-Jewish pagans would embrace its truth.

Not everyone responded to this news with joy but with suspicion and jealousy. They questioned the man, his Gospel message, and these pagans’ “new freedom.”

Here’s the rub, they began to think the only true way to become children of God is to become like us. So they began to whisper and accuse, who is Paul not to demand that they become like a Jew!

But the Gospel revolted, busting through that twisting of the truth, demonstrating with surprising results that Jesus is enough!

Christian, let’s pray for the revolution; let’s be joyful revolutionaries of the redemptive power of the Gospel in San Antonio!

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 1:11-24 (day six)

…it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. Galatians 1:16

Paul realized in Jesus, that it was never God’s ambition that Gentiles become children of Israel but that they become children of God, resulting in a global multi-ethnic family united in Jesus.

Jesus does not undo or abandon the law but fulfills it (by his life, death, and resurrection) for all those who believe, and that is good news! Furthermore, through Jesus the promises God made to Israel are now available to the whole world, which was his intent all along.

Aren’t you thankful?

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 1:1-10 (day six) 

This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. Galatians 1:1

What I appreciate most about Galatians is its intimate portrait of Paul the Apostle. No other epistle includes the same details of his life as Galatians. While his introduction is not necessarily unique from his other letters, it does set us up to learn more about Paul’s life.

Paul makes clear from the beginning that he was appointed by Jesus himself and given special authority to be his spokesperson.

Sometimes, it helps me to give Paul’s history real thought, that he was a real person in history, with real encounters, struggles, and ambitions. In these few verses, we re-learn two valuable and personal things about him.   First, he really cared about the truth; he had given his life to the Truth. Second, he really cared about people. What becomes clear is that the two are not at odds. In fact, the reason Paul really cares about people is because he really cares about the Truth.

I’m looking forward to getting to know Paul better over the course of the 13 weeks, aren’t you?