Text: Gal. 1: 1-10; Memory verse: Gal. 1:8
Maintaining sound doctrine in the church.
The Galatians church had believed the true gospel when Paul preached Christ, his death and resurrection as the basis for salvation and freedom from sin. Through the influence of Judea, they were led into error. The epistle shows the prompt: 1.Response of Paul to the challenge of false doctrine. 2. Show him the determination to maintain sound teaching in the church. 3. Show that all members and leaders should be diligent to enforce sound doctrine. 4. To ensure scriptural practices in the church. 5. Preaching the truth constantly. 6. Exposure to erroneous teaching. 7. Rebuke of false teachers. This epistle is therefore reminding us that Christian life can only be sustained by a continuous supply of grace and peace from God. We can neither be all that God wants us to be, nor do all he wants us to do except by his grace. 1cor. 15:10. After being saved from sin through the initial saving grace of God, we need sustaining Grace to keep us in the faith.
Attributes Christians should manifest when correcting those who erring in the faith.
Be courageous
Have your emotions under check
Don’t be overbearing whenever we are dealing with erring Christian
Yet, be sincere and don’t flatter our greatest weapon against error in an unwavering affirmation of the truth. This is necessary because false teachers will try to contradict the truth, belittle us before people to scale down the impact of the gospel.
False Groups in time of Paul. Gal. 1: 6-9; 5: 7-12; 2:11-16; Acts 15:15; 2 cor. 11:4, James 2: 14- 26
Judaizers who said true gospel does not necessarily required genuine repentance and simple faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the condition of salvation.
Nicolaitanes – they believed and taught that the gospel frees, Christian from obedience to any law, whether moral, civil or ceremonial. The said Christian can live anyhow because he is under grace and not under the law.
Ebonite’s – they were strictly pharisaic and insisted on ceremonial washings and observance of Sabbath as evidence of true spirituality.
Elkesaites – they respected the virgin birth of Jesus and rewarded him as a higher or ideal Adam.
Others are agnostics and gnestics.
Some ancient and modern perversions of the gospel.
There are those who teach justification by faith and law keeping. They insist salvation does not involve believers in Jesus alone but that ceremonial laws and sacraments’ must be kept.
The Gospel of works without faith. They are called peddles. They base salvation on water baptism, receiving Holy Communion’s etc. forgetting the fact that without faith it is impossible to please God and ordinances are only meaningful after a person has her genuinely saved through faith in Christ. Heb. 11:6: John 8:24: Mark. 16:6, cor. 2:12-13
The gospel of good works only. They insist that a person should be saved once he does good works like giving alms, live morally, do religion duties, preaching often, fast and obey golden rule. Acts.10:1-6; 11:14; Eph.2:8, 9; timt. 3:4-7.
0 comments: