Daily Devotion for March 16, 2015
Prayers
Scripture
Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Prayer for the Day Ahead (from an old Prayer Book)
Almighty God, my heavenly Father, who declares your glory and shows forth your creation in the heavens and in the earth; Deliver me, I pray, in whatever work my hand may find today, from the service of mammon; and assist me, that I may do the work which you have given me to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as your servant, and to the benefit of my fellow men; for the sake of him who came among us, humbling himself to serve all who came to him and received him, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Strength of my Heart
Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mine to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou wert yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfil Thy purposes through me.
To Focus on God
I am so sorry, Lord, that I let the worries of the day push ahead of you in my mind. Please help me to keep your Holy Spirit in the forefront of my thoughts, throughout the day.
Meditation
[Fulfill your purposes in me.]
Benediction
May the God of peace, who declared victory over death by the resurrection of His only Son, Jesus Christ, make me perfect in every thought and act through His grace, that my life might be pleasing in His sight and that I might share the perfect peace that is only possible through Him, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Psalm 121:5-8 (KJV)
The Lord is thy keeper:
the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in
from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Galatians 3:2-3 (Daily Prayer Bible)
Finishing as You Started [1] (Galatians #24)
2-4 I only want you to tell me one thing: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by keeping the Law, or by faith, from hearing and believing the Gospel? Do you really intend to rely on your flesh, which could not begin your salvation, to perfect it? It would be insanity. Would you simply throw away the benefits of the tribulation you have suffered?
Verbatim Bible
2 this only I desire to learn from you, by aOr from. works of law the spirit you received or by hearing of faith?
3 So ignorant are you having started in spirit bAmbiguous. This could mean the Holy Spirit, or the spiritual nature of the believer. Both are grammatically correct and theologically sound. now in flesh you complete cOr finish. The concept of completion in Greek often carries a connotation of success and/or perfection, as it does here. (The sarcasm should thus be evident.) ?
Notes on the Scripture
n classical education, students studied Rhetoric as a primary subject: the art of speaking and writing to persuade. Paul shows either some education, here, or a natural grasp of a persuasive technique. First, you ask a rhetorical question which the listener must, or will probably, answer “yes”. Then, you ask a second question, whose answer logically follows (or seems to follow) from the first. Third, you asks a powerful emotional question designed to make the listener want to take action based on the second.
So the first question Paul asks — “Did you receive the Spirit by works of law or by faith?” — is one which he has confidence that the listeners Paul’s epistles were written, but were primarily transmitted by having someone read them aloud, as few could read Greek and fewer still read it well. would answer “by faith.” Paul would have known, for a fact, that the churches of Galatia were convicted by faith, because he had personally founded the churches. The original members had received the Spirit by listening to him and believing what he said; and those who had joined after he had left would necessarily have been convinced by listening to the original members, and believing.
The congregants were primarily Gentile and thus found Christ without any exposure to the Law at all. Perhaps they knew a few odd habits of the Jews in their town, but they were not educated in the Law of Moses and certainly did not try to follow it. But even Jewish members would have to realize that their salvation had not come from Judaism, but from faith in Christ. If their Judaism had been sufficient for them, they would not have converted in the first place.
Then Paul, having established the necessity of faith in the forefront of the listeners' minds, asks if they are stupid enough to think they can complete in the flesh what was started in the spirit. We can correctly make an inference here: Paul means that what was started by faith, in the spirit (or Spirit), can only be completed in the spirit. (A discussion of the difference between implication and inference (assumption) is badly needed at this point, but we will have to do it tomorrow. Look forward to it — it is a critical issue in Christianity.)
We discover an ambiguity from the Verbatim Translation. Paul could be saying, what was begun in the spiritual realm must be completed in the spiritual realm, that is, we will be saved by spiritual means and not by activities of the flesh; or he could mean to say, what was begun by receiving the Holy Spirit can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit. Like so many ambiguities, this one is best resolved by understanding both meanings. We find salvation in our spirit, through the Holy Spirit — not in the flesh by virtue of the Holy Spirit (such as by good acts that the Spirit empowers us to do), not in our spirit by our own effort.
To be continued . . .
