10-14 - Galatians 5 1-8

scriptures paraphrased to post 

   🕊️a reading & study 🕊️

1 - It’s for freedom and liberty that Christ has set us free! Stand firm therefore! And don’t submit to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you, that if you accept circumcision (as a requirement to be in a relationship/communion and union with God who is Life) Christ will not profit you. (We cannot both earn and receive a GIFT.) 3 I testify again to every one who accepts circumcision that they are obligated to keep the whole law. {False teachers were insisting the “New Way” had to include the “Old Way” - the Old, and New, “covenants/agreements - first one needed a mediator/lawyer/a speaking for, because two sides were agreeing; new way didn’t need one because it’s basically one sided”. Yet! We DO have to “ENTER his Rest”! Heb.4. And respond, let the heart cry “Father! My father!”}

     4 You are cut off from Christ, if you want to be justified by the law. And fallen from grace. 5 For through the Spirit - by faith - we are eagerly waiting for the hope [elpis - expectation!] of righteousness. {Bestowed. And perfection! “We shall be like Him” 1Jn.3:2 but each one unique. Which God in Malachi 3:17 calls jewels.} 6 For - in Christ Jesus - neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. {Doesn’t work, was always meant as a guardian and tutor - keeping things together, not dissolute/cursed - until the maturity of Christ in us and we in him. Not outer effort to transformation, but true inner transformation authored and carried out by God aLmighty.} But only by faith, which foundation is love. {The law is Love, always has been. One ruLe! Love God, and we wiLL genuinely love, have affection for and care about our fellow person/all humanity with its BEAUTIFUL branches. ..The sad commentary of history is shared by all branches. Any other view is political blame game for despicable purposes.}

     7 You were running well. Who hasss hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from he who calls you. [The letter to the Galatians is all about the New Covenant/Contract/Treaty/Promise of God, which Paul called the New and Living Way - Heb.10:20, “opened for us by Jesus”.]

                ~ * ~

🗝️ [  ] - word/language insights, 

usually from biblehub dot com - peering through translator partial unbelief; cross references, etc.

      {  } - thots

Tomorrow - Galatians 5:9-15

Start the day with a Psalm (jan 1-20, feb-20’s, mar-30’s, apr-40’s, etc. dec-120-150)

2 Peter 2 1-7

 a paraphrased ‘enter the story’

 🍃🕊️  reading & study  🕊️🍃

05/22 ~ From New Testament Letters

   (In the Order Believed Written)

(The previous verse - 1:21 For no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spoke from God, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit{/Presence of God}. 1 - But also false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive teachings, even denying the one who bought them, bringing upon theirselves swift ruin. 2 And many will follow their example, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their avarice [pleonexia - avarice, lust, aggression, desire for advantage] they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago isn’t idle, and their ruin doesn’t slumber. 4 For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them to chains of deepest darkness, locked into judgment being kept. 5 If he wasn’t lenient with the ancient world, but preserved Noah - a preacher of righteousness {how Jesus went via the Spirit to preach to those headed to destruction while the ark was being built.. which took a hundred years. Saved Noah} with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. {Imperfect is an abyss of potential, pre-flood was hands off. Now they await “resurrection” into GWT judgment ‘day’, the aionion kolasis/correction.} 6 And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reduced to ashes of destruction, are an example of what is coming upon the ungodly world. {Is.24:20/Rev.10:4} 7 And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the wanton conduct of the wicked.. (to be continued.. following the schedule.)

                          ~ * ~

🗝️ [  ] - word/language insights, usually from biblehub dot com - peering through translator partial unbelief; cross references, etc.

      {  } - thots

Tomorrows verses - 2 Peter 2:8-17

My own studies, had to paraphrase to post..

Start the day with a Psalm (jan 1-20, feb-20’s, mar-30’s, apr-40’s, etc. dec-120-150)

The Gnostics

Clement of Rome was the bishop of the Christian church at Rome from A.D. 90 to 99. Paul mentions a Clement in his epistle to the Philippians, in Philippians 4:3 - "These women have worked together with me and with Clement and with the others in spreading the good news. Their names are now written in the book of life."
- Clement, in approximately 95 A.D., wrote in a letter - “The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ has done so from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ.”
- The earliest church accepted only the gospel accounts or testimonies, of only those who were, as Luke wrote in Acts (1:21,22) "a witness of His resurrection” and were present "all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us.. ..from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us".
- In the Book of Revelation's letters to the seven churches from Jesus, in the letter to the church at Ephesus, and the one to the church at Pergamum, says, "But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate" and "Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate" (Rev 2:6 and 15).
- Several of the early church fathers, including Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret mentioned this group. Irenaeus identifies the Nicolaitans as a Gnostic sect and that "they lead lives of unrestrained indulgence."
- In the New Testament, both Paul and Peter warned about "false prophets and teachers" which had come into the churches and were taching false things, some even going so far as to say "Christ had not come in the flesh".
- The thing about Gnosticism, or "gnosis"/knowledge" was they were sects ranging from extreme asceticism to "unrestrained indulgence". The reason for such difference and range is based upon the gnostic idea that matter is evil. Therefor some branches were very strict in their eating, etc, as all matter and physical actions were evil. But other sects were anything but ascetic, being very immoral in their actions and lifestyle, considering that all life and actions were evil, so it made no difference how they behaved! Fornication was no worse than eating a meal. They asserted that God was light and only light, and mankind had fallen into matter which was evil. It was impossible to them, that Christ had come to the earth and lived in the flesh, seeing as all flesh was evil! And this was the sign, 1 John 4:2 "By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit" (or teaching) "that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God."