The gospel encompasses God’s total rescue and restoration through Jesus–yes, from sin; and yes, to a new consecrated community. READ MORE
Judaizers
“You Who Are Spiritual”
The Book of Galatians finds the Apostle Paul boldly calling out the evils of legalism. Those who would promote such poison are “stupid” (see Galatians 3:1), and will “bear the penalty” (Gal. 5:10) for their perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul also makes it plain that avoiding legalism does not give us a READ MORE
Divine Intervention or Man’s Invention
The Apostle Paul can almost see it happening. There, in the soft glow of lanterns and torches, pious men teach in sanctimonious tones to men and women scattered on blankets and rugs, a room full of people eager to ensure that they are okay with God. “What does the law of God tell us?” those READ MORE
Anatomy of a Legalistic Hack
The Apostle Paul is brutal in his assessment of those who believe themselves to be the self-appointed masters of everyone’s spirituality. Remember, my definition of a religious legalist is one who measures everyone’s spiritual success not by the work of Jesus Christ but by his or her own spiritual efforts and expectations. For people like READ MORE
Justification By Faith
“How then can man be in the right before God?” asked Job’s neighbor Bildad the Shuhite (Job 25:4). This question is as powerful today as when Bildad asked it some 4,000 years ago. In so many ways it is mankind’s attempts to answer this question that makes religion so difficult and divisive. One might easily make READ MORE
No Other Gospel
About ten years following Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, a man named Paul made his way into the mighty mountains of present-day Turkey, arriving in an important city known as Pisidian Antioch in the Roman province called Galatia. By the time Paul got there he was very sick (see Galatians 4:13), his bodily ailment unknown READ MORE