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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 to Dedicate Myself to Christ This Day

Almighty God, as I cross the threshold of this day, I commit myself Your care. Mold me in your image. In everything I say and do, let my mind be on the eternal goodness of heaven rather than the vanities of earth, meaningless pride, or the anger and envy that tear apart my precious soul.

I dedicate myself to your holiness, Oh sweet and innocent Christ, and pray that you may be with me, to check my tongue before it can speak evil and to stop my hand when it seeks to sin. I come to you as a child. I will look to you for guidance and wisdom. Let me know the joyful feeling of having done something that pleased you; let me never feel the pain of knowing I have disappointed you. And let me live without fear, without confusion, always steady in the certainty of your forgiveness and ultimate victory, I pray,

For Mercy

Son of God, true God, who descended from the bosom of the Father, and took flesh of the Virgin Mary for our salvation, who was crucified and buried, and rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You; remember me like the thief on the cross, when You come into Your kingdom. Have mercy upon Your Creatures and upon me, a great sinner.

~ Nersess the Gracious, an Armenian Orthodox Saint of the 12th century

Preaching Christ

“The preaching of Christ is the whip that flogs the devil. The preaching of Christ is the thunderbolt, the sound of which makes all hell shake.”

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Dedication

Finally, let me go forth in thanks for the victory I have been given through our Lord Jesus Christ. May I be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, and always remembering that in the Lord our labor is not in vain.

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.

The Foundation of Virtue

Galatians 2:6-10 (DP Bible)

he upshot of our conference was that my Gospel was well-received, exactly as I presented it. They realized that, in the same way Peter had been entrusted with the Gospel for the Jews, I had been entrusted with the Gospel for the Gentiles. Or in other words, that the same force moved us to our respective missions. Despite their prominence, they really had nothing more to teach me. Their only counsel was to remember the poor – welcome advice, as I am eager to help those in need.

DP Parallel Bible (3-Column) - Galatians 2

Notes on the Scripture

Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (Galatians #13)

We have been following Paul’s account of his history, focused on the source of the gospel he preached. Many people in the churches of Galatia (central Turkey) had begun to follow false teachers, who preached some manner of erroneous pseudo-gospel. As his first line of argument in correcting them, Paul showed them that his teachings were from God, while the false ones were created by men. Paul’s gospel was a revelation from Christ directly to Paul; it, therefore, cannot be false, and teachings that contradict it are accursed.

The first part of his argument shows that he could not have learned his gospel from men, because he did not spend much time with any of the original apostles — surely not enough to learn their gospel — until 14 years after his conversion, long after he had begun to teach. Now he describes his eventual trip there, to show that the gospel he had learned from Christ was acceptable to those who had followed Christ in His lifetime, particularly those who were members of the 12 apostles — Peter and John — but also James, Christ’s (half) brother (or cousin).

How could Paul have possibly gotten a gospel, fully in harmony with that of Peter, John, and James, without ever speaking to them? There was no New Testament, no written Gospel; and Paul was in the deserts of Arabia for three years, before he went to Damascus and Antioch to begin his ministry. Like Moses, like Elijah, and like John the Baptist, Paul went out into the wilderness so that he could be taught by God.

Paul treads on the edge of a contradiction in these verses. He first states that the prominence or respect accorded to the Jerusalem apostles was irrelevant to him, because “God does not show the face of man to me.” (This comes through better in the Verbatim Bible (v.6), although it is difficult to read.) Paul is saying that these leaders were not superior to him in their knowledge of Christ and did not add anything to his knowledge. Nevertheless, he is not above using their fame, when they accept his gospel and give him their hands, to buff up his own credentials as a true apostle of Christ.

Paul does assert that he was essentially Peter’s equal (and that Peter agreed); the great difference between them was that Paul was charged by the Holy Spirit with bringing Christ to the Gentiles, but Peter to the Jews. Of course, they overlapped; Peter had long before converted his first Gentile, Cornelius: God intervened to instruct Peter that he must abandon his prejudice and accept Gentile converts, and Peter complied. (Acts 10, 11:1-18) But it actually seems to be Philip who first fully accepted Gentile conversion, baptizing Gentiles from Samaria and then Ethiopia without comment on their ethnicity. (Acts 8.)

So this passage treats Paul’s status in relation to those of Jerusalem in an odd, double way. Giving the right hand was typically the recognition given by a ruler to a subject, by a leader to a follower, etc. But Paul depicts this, credibly, more as a welcome into a fellowship of equals; he was to be the equivalent of the three pillars of the church of Jerusalem, but concentrating in a different geographical area to a different class of people.

As an interesting note on language, there is no Greek word for “Gentile.” The Bible uses the Greek word meaning “nations” to refer to non-Jews. (Gentiles are also designated by the word “foreskinned,” but this is usually translated “uncircumcised” rather than “Gentile”.) Knowing this helps us tie together messianic prophecy and post-ascension Christianity: We see in Paul’s work the practical fulfillment of many promises made by the prophets, particularly Isaiah, over 500 years earlier: “I will also make You a light of the nations, So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Is. 49:6.)

Daily Inspiration

“No Fear In Love”

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