The Good News

 Meditations on Galatians

October 25, 2021

The Good News

This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.

Galatians 1:1

Read: Galatians 1: 1-9

A few years ago, a president of a leading seminary made the news when she stated that the literal resurrection of Jesus was not a crucial element of the Christian faith. Her statement was not at all surprising in our current age when many Christian leaders are seeking to be culturally relevant by accommodating Christian doctrine to cultural beliefs. Our reading of Galatians will provide us with an opportunity to check our bearings and make sure we are aligning our faith with Jesus, and Jesus alone.

Paul was writing to a church that had gotten sidetracked from the foundation in Christ he had first laid for them. To help them recover their bearings, Paul repeatedly used two terms: Good News, or Gospel, and apostle. It will be helpful to get a clear understanding of what Paul meant by these terms.

The Good News is the announcement that God has won victory over sin and death through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. The good news about the Good News is that all people, everywhere, may partake in God’s victory over sin and death through their faith that Jesus is the Risen Son of God. When people accept Jesus as God’s Messiah, they are adopted into God’s own family.

The word apostle means a person who is appointed to proclaim the Good News. At the time of Paul, the title apostle was reserved for those people who had personally been with Jesus when He was on earth. Some people accused Paul of not being an apostle because Paul was not one of Jesus’ followers before Jesus was crucified. Others suggested Paul was only a ‘junior’ apostle, because he was sent by the real apostles like Peter and John. Paul makes the point in chapter one that he is qualified to be an apostle because Jesus himself appointed him to proclaim the Good News.

My Takeaway: Like Paul, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) modeled Christocentric spirituality.

“Write what you will, I shall not relish it unless it tells of Jesus. Talk or argue about what you will, I shall not listen if you exclude the name of Jesus. Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart.”

– Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon XV on the Song of Songs

(Song of Solomon)

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2021 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.