Another day in the life of James

I have got to be better about getting on here. I say that like there is a throng of people clamoring for more of me just typing away on a keyboard. I know that for the most part this is just a personal exercise. I am more than fine with that. I need it and I guess that's the part of me that says that I should be on here more. We will see how that goes of course.

I actually took some time out of getting ready this morning to read. I have a break from session this week due to a shifting around of the session calendar and thus I don't have to be in at work until normal hours. So, today I took some of that extra time to read a little about Galatians. Our men's bible study is going to be spending this semester in Galatians and I was just wanting to look at an overview of it. So, I was reading How to Read the Bible book by book and looked at Galatians. Its interesting stuff. Jeff had mentioned on Sunday that this book was key to Martin Luther's questioning of the Catholic church's practices. I can see the direct correlation. In Galatians, Paul is confronting those who say that you have to be circumcised in order to be a Christian. That we as Gentiles, also have to follow the old Mosaic law. Paul's emphasis is that grace and nothing else is what it takes for us to be Christians. If you add anything to it, you take away the power that grace has. I can see the driving force that Luther probably saw in this when confronted by the strict law of the Catholic church, at least at that time.

There was one phrase that just struck me in this summarizing of Galatians. It is pointed out that the law was only able to point out the problems, and if you followed the law you could be "religious". However, you would never be able to embody the spirit of the law without the grace of God through Jesus. Without having the book in front of me, I am in no way saying it as succinctly as they did, but I hope you get the point. I was just rocked by that. And that's where my mind is sitting right now.

Last week was a good study group. We will be meeting again tomorrow and talking about all the fun things that Chan has in chapter 2. If you have read the book, then you probably get the slight sarcasm.