Daily Scripture Reflection – Galatians
Daily Devotional Reflection Questions
Epistle to the GALATIANS
Table of Contents
Daily Devotional Guidelines p. 3
Introduction to Galatians p. 6
Galatians 1 p. 7
Galatians 2 p. 10
Galatians 3 p. 14
Galatians 4 p. 19
Galatians 5 p. 22
Galatians 6 p. 25
November –December 2009 DT Schedule
Mon / Tue / Wed / Thu / Fri / Sat / SunDec 14-20 / Gal 1 / Gal 2 / Gal 3 / Gal 4 / Joshua 13-24
Dec 21-27 / Gal 5 / Gal 6 / John 1 / John 2 / Judges 1-10
Daily Devotional Guidelines
Why is daily devotion vital to spiritual growth?
As consumption of physical nourishment is essential for physical survival, we need spiritual nourishment for spiritual vitality. We are exhorted to crave pure spiritual milk like newborn babies so that by it we may grow up in our salvation (1 Peter 2:2). In sum, unless we learn to feed ourselves with God’s Word, we cannot grow up spiritually.
When is the best time to do daily devotion?
§ Find a time when you will have the least amount of interruption. Morning is usually the best time to start your day with God.
§ Prioritize 30 minutes to an hour of your day as a time to be alone with God’s Word.
§ The key is to keep this time with God on a daily basis.
§ Having a small group of people with whom you commit to do daily devotion together is an effective way to develop consistent devotion time.
What do I need?
§ Bible (translation of your choice)
§ Journal
How do I go about doing daily devotion?
1. JOURNAL:
What is journaling?
Journaling is the art of reflecting on one’s inner life based on a particular incident, a feeling, a recurring issue, or a prompting and connecting this to one’s relationship with God.
How does journaling help my spiritual life?
The process of spiritual growth engages all the faculties of your soul (your 5 physical senses, emotions, mind, will, and spirit). We need to pause daily to reflect on how we have responded to a certain situation, how we interacted with others, or how we feel inside and identify the reasons behind the feeling. Then we need to process these incidents in light of God’s Word. The key is to connect our daily life with its joys, surprises, disappointments, incidents, regrets, and sins with God’s promises and the reality of our personal relationship with God.
How do I journal?
Spend about 10 minutes per day starting with the word “YESTERDAY.” Follow this with a paragraph or two about what happened yesterday or how you felt.
o Journal based on feelings and processing those feelings in light of the Gospel. i.e. “Yesterday, I felt ______(sad, angry, guilty, anxious, disappointed, frustrated, irritated, etc).” Explore the reasons behind the feeling and write about what would be the appropriate way to process that feeling in light of God’s Word. Write also about how God may be using what you are going through to draw you closer to Him.
o Journal based on a recent issue. Reflect on a significant interaction or event this past week that you don’t feel settled about:
· What did you learn about yourself?
· What were you corrected about? What did you discover about yourself through this correction?
· Why did you do what you did? Reflect on how else could you have responded to that situation?
2. READ:
o Read the assigned text several times without stopping.
o In the second or third reading, pause on key words, phrases, or verses that speak to your heart, address an area of your life, or highlight God’s characteristic, principle, or promise.
o Utilize commentaries to gain knowledge of the background of the text and explanation of words, phrases, or verses.
3. REFLECT:
o Utilize the reflection questions provided to get deeper into the text and examine areas of your life you may not otherwise confront. Choose a subset of questions each day to primarily focus on for yourself, then if there is added time, move on to other subsets.
4. REMEMBER:
o Choose a verse or multiple verses from the text and commit to memory.
o Develop a system that works best for you. For example, you can start with one or two verses a week and write it out on a flashcard and carry it with you to memorize and review.
5. PRAYER:
o Spend some time in prayer after each day’s devotion time.
· Adoration – praise God for who He is and acknowledge His claim over your life.
· Thanksgiving – thank Him for specific things.
· Confession – confess and repent of sins needing Christ's forgiveness & cleansing.
· Supplication – commitment to do what God is asking you to do and pray for others in need.
Introductory Commentary to Galatians
“Judaizers were Jewish Christians who believed, among other things, that a number of the ceremonial practices of the Old Testament were still binding on the New Testament church, especially circumcision.
“Paul responded by clearly establishing his apostolic authority and thereby substantiating the gospel he preached. By introducing additional requirements for justification (e.g., works of the law) his adversaries had perverted the gospel of grace and, unless prevented, would bring Paul’s converts into the clutches of legalism. It is by grace through faith alone that man is justified, and it is by faith alone that he is to live out his new life in the freedom of the spirit.
“Galatians stands as an eloquent and vigorous apologetic for the essential New Testament truth that man is justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone—by nothing less and nothing more—and that he is sanctified not by legalistic works but by the obedience that comes from faith in God’s work for him, in him and through him by the grace and power of Christ and the Holy Spirit.”[1]
Galatians 1 – Commentary
vv.6-7 “Paul is rebuking the Galatians for defection … from God’s grace. The ‘grace of Christ’ is closely linked with Christ’s death (2:20-21). ‘Grace,’ therefore, is not to be understood merely as God’s kindly disposition; rather, grace is embodied in God’s powerful and costly action for the salvation of the world through Christ’s self-giving on the cross.”[2]
“The Galatians have turned ‘to another gospel’ (cf. 2 Cor 11:14) […] they (Jewish Christians) were preaching a version of the gospel that invited Gentiles to be circumcised as a sign of their membership in the people of God.”[3]
vv.11-12 “Presumably, they (Jewish Christians) have told the Galatians something like this: ‘Paul was originally taught the gospel by the apostles in Jerusalem. But now he has deviated from the Jerusalem-authorized version of the gospel by preaching a watered-down gospel of merely human devising, a gospel that disregards the divinely given commandments of the Law.’ Paul indignantly declares that this is a complete misrepresentation of the true situation. The Law-free gospel for the Gentiles was given to him—against all his natural human training and inclination—by God.”[4]
vv.15-20 “[Paul] certainly did not think of his own message as ‘Paulinism.’ On the contrary, his ministry makes sense if and only if it really is true that his message was given him by the God who created the universe and chose to rescue fallen humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the singular, apocalyptic message that Paul was entrusted with at the time of his call, a message so clear and compelling that it required no corroboration from those who had been apostles before him.”[5]
vv.22-24 “Paul was transformed from persecutor to apostle, leaving the churches in Judea marveling and giving glory to God. Paul does not tell this story as a testimony of ‘what Jesus did for me,’ as though the important thing were how Paul’s sins were forgiven or his needs met. Rather, this passage is a testimony about how the apokalypsis [Greek for “revelation”] of Jesus Christ turned Paul’s world upside down and made him into an instrument of God’s reconciling grace, reaching out to those who had previously been ‘strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world’ (Eph 2:12 NRSV). […] We should dwell on God’s act of seizing us and empowering us for tasks we never could have imagined.”[6]
Galatians 1 – Devotional Questions
Galatians 1:6-10
· Paul was “astonished” that the Galatians departed from the gospel of grace to embrace a “different gospel” brought by “some people” who were trying to “pervert the gospel.” What steps can I take to remain strongly anchored to the true gospel in the face of other voices that seek to confuse and pervert the gospel?
· Notice that the Judaizers—the people who were confusing the Galatians—considered themselves Christian. What are some ways that people within the church today “pervert the gospel of Christ” causing people to be “throw[n] into confusion?”
· In what ways am I tempted to pervert the gospel to suit my desires?
· Why would Apostle Paul feel so strongly against those who “pervert the gospel of Christ?”
Galatians 1:1-4, 10
· Reflect on Apostle Paul’s sense of identity and calling. What is the relationship between wanting the approval of men and being a “servant of Christ?”
· How can I seek more the approval of God, and not be mindful of the approval of man?
Galatians 1:13-20
· Reflect on the words “intensely,” “advancing,” and “extremely zealous.” Contrast Apostle Paul to people of our generation. What causes many people of our generation to be apathetic and passive? What can I do to fight this within myself?
· For Paul, it was very evident that he was not riding on the coattails of the other apostles’ faith and convictions. To what extent are my convictions regarding the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ my own? How can I strengthen my personal convictions?
Additional Questions:
Galatians 1:11
“In distinguishing the gospel from ‘something that man made up,’ Apostle Paul is suggesting that the message of the Judaizers (i.e., those who were preaching ‘a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all,’ v. 6-7) were ‘man-made’ and not the intent of God’s heart. Judaizers were Jewish Christians who believed, among other things, that a number of the ceremonial practices of the Old Testament were still binding on the New Testament church, especially circumcision. As Apostle Paul would explain in later chapters, the Judaizers misunderstood even the Old Testament, and missed God’s heart in turning a relationship with him into adherence to ceremonial rules.”[7]
· Why would anyone “make up” such an approach to God, in that it would seem to involve adding, rather than taking away, certain burdens to their religious life?
· What are some examples of similar man-made approaches to God among Christians today? What are some ways in which I could fall into a similar mindset?
Galatians 1:22
· It is remarkable that Paul, a man zealous and accomplished in Judaism and a persecutor of the Gospel, had turned into a preacher of the faith he once tried to destroy. The result was that people “praised God because of me.” In what ways does my personal testimony of conversion reveal a reversal, or turn-around of some sort, even if much less dramatic?
· In the words of one commentator, Paul’s transformation is an example of God’s “act of seizing us and empowering us for tasks we never could have imagined.”[8] For what task do you think God has seized you and empowered you?
Galatians 2 – Commentary
v.2 “Those who seemed influential probably includes James, Peter, and John (see v. 9). in vain. Paul is not seriously imagining that he has actually been preaching a false gospel, but he would regard his work as in vain if it were to result in a divided church—a Gentile half and a Jewish half.”[9]
vv.3-5 “There is agreement: Titus—and so by implication all Gentiles—does not need to be circumcised. Or at least Paul, James, Peter, and John agree on this. There is, however, a group of false brothers who continue to disagree. Paul regards the imposition of circumcision on Gentile Christians as a slavery producing betrayal of the freedom Christ has given. (On circumcision, see Acts 15:1–35; Rom. 2:25–29; 4:9–16; Gal. 5:2–12; 6:12–15.) The presence of these ‘false brothers’ within the church in Galatia shows that churches will sometimes have unbelievers in their midst who seek to harm the church.”[10]
“Paul's response to the false brothers was of huge importance, because if he had yielded, Gentiles such as the Galatians would not have been brought the true gospel.”[11]
vv.7-9 “If the church is God's temple (e.g., Eph. 2:21), some had apparently made Peter, James, and John the pillars. Significantly, these ‘pillars’ had given the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and Paul, signifying that they approved the message of the gospel as preached by Paul as well as his ministry to the Gentiles. Thus they validated Paul's apostleship by putting him on an equal footing with these other apostles in Jerusalem. This is significant, because it shows that neither Paul nor the Jerusalem apostles had to change their gospel message, but they were fully in agreement, and this ‘right hand of fellowship’ gave clear expression to that agreement.”[12]