Wednesday 110624
Don’t let me or my writings influence or scare you in any way, instead, allow me to be used as a vessel to open the Word, just a little bit, and hopefully, together we are going to read and study His Word, and let God teach us what He wants us to hear.
So, as we work through our study, we MUST remember the two ground rules:
1st we’re only going to read and follow the words that we can find in the Holy Bible that are meant for us today.
2nd we’re only going to take away from this study, what we put into it. We need to open our Bible and read it every day. We need to teach ourselves what is the truth and arm ourselves against all the lies that we are confronted with every day.
Here are the verses we will be using in tonight’s study:
Galatians 1:1-24; 2 Timothy 4:2-4; 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
So, let’s begin …
The entire chapter of Galatians 1 should be taught and followed today.
vs1 ‘…This letter is from me, Paul. I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. It is not any group of people or any one person that has given that authority to me. It is Jesus Christ himself who has chosen me to serve him. And God our Father, who raised Jesus to become alive again after his death, has also sent me…’
vs2 ‘…All the believers who are here say ‘hello’ to you. We all send this letter to you. I am writing to you, the people of the churches that are in Galatia…’ Easy English Bible (EASY)
The main reason for Paul writing the letter to the churches in Galatia was that the new members were succumbing to and listening to Judaizing false teachers trying to undermine the central New Testament doctrine of justification by faith. These false teachers were specifically teaching that Gentiles must first become Jewish proselytes and submit to all Mosaic Law before they could become Christians. Paul wrote his letter to counter the teachings by the false teachers, to defend justification by faith alone, and warn the churches in Galatia of dire consequences of abandoning that essential doctrine.
vs3 ‘…I pray that God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to help you. I pray that they will give you peace in your minds…’
vs4 ‘…Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice because of all the wrong things that we have done. He did that to save us from all the bad things of this world in which we live now. This is what God, our Father, wanted him to do…’
vs5 ‘…God is great and we should praise him for ever. Amen. This is true…’
As I was reading this verse, all I heard was ‘GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME … ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD.’
vs6 ‘…I am very surprised that you are turning away so soon from God. He is the one who chose you to come to him. He did that because Christ is very kind to you. But now you want to accept a different message which some people call good news…’
vs7 ‘…But really, there is no other message from God which is good news. Some people are confusing you. They are trying to change the good news about Christ and make it something different…’
Once again, to me, this act of trying to change the good news about Christ is still going on today in our churches.
Almost every Sunday, pastors, priests and most other teachers speak on anything and everything except teaching the Gospel which was given to us by the apostle Paul.
vs8 ‘…Nobody should ever teach a message that is different from the good news that we taught you. Neither we ourselves, nor even an angel from heaven, should ever teach a different message. If anyone does that, I pray that God would curse him…’
vs9 ‘…We have already said this, but now I will say it again. Do not accept any message that is different from the message that we taught you. If anyone teaches a different message, I pray that God will curse him very strongly…’
vs10 ‘…When I say these things, I am not trying to please people. No, it is God that I want to please. If I only wanted to make people happy, then I would not be a servant of Christ…’
vs11 ‘…The good news that I tell people did not come from any person on earth. I want you to know that, my friends…’
vs12 ‘…Nobody on earth gave it to me. Nobody taught it to me. No, it was Jesus Christ himself who showed it to me clearly…’
vs13 ‘…You know about the things that I did before, when I obeyed the Jewish rules. I caused very much trouble against God’s church. I tried to destroy those people completely…’
vs14 ‘…I obeyed the Jewish rules better than many other Jews who were my friends. I tried very much to obey the ideas that our Jewish ancestors taught…’
vs15 ‘…But God had chosen me to serve him even before I was born. He chose me to be his servant because he is very kind…’
vs16 ‘…He decided to show his Son clearly to me, so that I could tell the Gentiles about him. When God chose me to do that, I did not talk about it with any person…’
vs17 ‘…Nor did I go to Jerusalem to see Christ’s apostles there. Those men were already his apostles before I was. But I did not go to talk to them. Instead, I went immediately to the region of Arabia. Later, I went back to the city of Damascus…’
vs18 ‘…Then, three years later, I did go to Jerusalem. I stayed there with Christ’s apostle Peter for 15 days, so that he could teach me…’
vs19 ‘…I did not see any other apostles, except James, who is the Lord’s brother…’
vs20 ‘…God knows that what I am writing to you is completely true…’
vs21 ‘…Later, I went to different places in Syria and Cilicia…’
vs22 ‘…The Christians in the churches in Judea had never met me…’
vs23 ‘…They had only heard people say this about me: This man caused bad trouble against us Christians before. He tried to destroy God’s message about Jesus. But now he himself is telling people the good news about Jesus, so that they believe…’
vs24 ‘…When the believers in Judea heard that, they praised God because of me…’ Easy English Bible (EASY)
This is Galatians 1. The letter was addressed to the churches in Galatia, and probably written around 54 – 55 A.D. from Ephesus. After Paul’s arrival there for a stay of several years on his third missionary journey (Acts 19).
This could be estimated to be about twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Can you believe that things had changed that much? There were those that tried reconfiguring the word to align with their own religious beliefs …
… just as the word is being reconfigured today to align with certain religious churches and their denominations. Trying to regulate the word to fit their lifestyles rather than our lifestyles being changed to fit into what the Word tells us how we are to follow it.
2 Timothy 4
vs2 ‘…Tell God’s message to people. Always be ready to speak God’s message clearly to people, whether they want to listen to you or not. Warn people when they are doing something wrong. Tell them to stop doing wrong things, and explain to them what they ought to do. But be very patient while you teach them what is true…’
vs3 ‘…Do this, because a time will come when people will not listen to God’s true message. Instead, they will want to hear all kinds of new messages that will make them happy. So they will find many teachers for themselves who will tell them what they want to hear…’
vs4 ‘…People will refuse to listen to God’s true message. Instead, they will want to listen to silly stories that are false…’ Easy English Bible (EASY)
I feel, this is every Sunday when individuals speak on the pastor, or the priest at church; how good his / her message was, how great the music was or how nice the interior of the church was.
These are minute things, but these are the ‘TICKLING OF EARS’ spoken about by Paul.
2 Timothy 4
vs3 ‘…For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires…’
vs4 ‘…and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths…’ NASB
vs3 found in other versions …
‘…itching ears…’ ESV (English Standard Version)
‘…an itch to hear what they want to hear…’ CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
‘…an itch to hear something new…’ HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
‘…an insatiable curiosity to hear new things…’ NET Bible (New English Translation)
‘…For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears…’ KJV (King James Version)
‘…For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers…’ NKJV (New King James Version)
This is just one more reason I tell people, PICK THE BIBLE UP FOR YOURSELF AND READ FOR YOURSELF WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN!!!
Why take a chance with your promise of Everlasting Life and rely on what another man tells you?
Read the Word for yourself so you know what we have been told.
Read the Word for yourself so you can notice if there are any lies told to you when you hear an incorrect message.
Read the Word for yourself so that you will be ready for that day when Jesus calls us up into the clouds to meet with Him and to remain in His presence forever.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
‘…After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever…’ NIV (New International Version)
‘…Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever…’ NLT (New Living Translation)
‘…Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord…’ ESV (English Standard Version)
‘…Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord…’ KJV (King James Version)
‘…Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord…’ NKJV (New King James Version)
Read the Bible. Read a version that you are comfortable with. As I do in my papers, I use several different versions so I can compare and make sure I am not being told a lie.
Do you want to get crazy (one of these weeks I’m going to do a paper using it), use the original Hebrew version or the original Greek version. Translate the words yourself and just compare the words with what has already been written in an English translation.
A comment was made by my mom this past week about if we each read the Bible ourselves, we’ll each get a different version of what has been written.
I think that is the point. The Bible has been written for each one of us. There isn’t a specific version that has been called out by God as being the ONLY correct version. Man has done that, but God has never said anything like it before. I’m going to trust God instead of what some ‘man’ thinks is right … I can look back on history and I can see what the pharisees did to God’s Word. A pharisee was just a man. I’ll stick with listening to what God wants me to do.
I love you all. Continue reading about Jesus’ love for each one of us.
Jesus, I pray that those ears and eyes, either listening or seeing this message today would be opened to the very fullest and allow Your love to come inside their lives and comfort them. Teach us Jesus. Protect us. We love You. Amen. I am, In HIM. ><)))o>