Weekly Bible Studies
John 1:12,18 – He Gave Us the Right to be called Children of God
Adoption into God’s Family (John 1:12) He Gives us the Right to Become Children of God (John 1:12) “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12), John has said that His own people rejected Him. But there was a counterpart. Read More …
John 1:4-18 – The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us
He is Life and Light He has Life in His Essence John says, “In Him was life” (John 1:4). The life John has in view mainly is new life, spiritual life, saving life, the gift of eternal life, the opposite of spiritual death now and final condemnation later. That’s mainly what John means. Mainly he Read More …
John 1:1-3 – The Glorious Word of God
Author The Gospel of John was written by John, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus while He was on earth. An Eyewitness He was an eyewitness of Jesus, who witnessed the events recorded here, first hand. How do we know this? Five times in this Gospel we find one of Jesus’ disciples referenced as: Read More …
Gal 6:1-18 – What Matters Most
Paul has talked about Christians bearing the fruit of the Spirit. He said “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25) after he has listed nine characteristics of the cluster of spiritual fruit. This is not an exhaustive list, but it summarizes what a Christian who is led by Read More …
Gal 5:13-26: Spiritual Fruit
Over the last five and a half chapters, Paul has systematically established that the Christian gospel is about the fact that salvation is a completely free gift. This gives every Christian freedom. Freedom from the penalty of sin. Freedom from a guilty conscience. So Paul went on to say “it was for freedom that Christ Read More …
Gal 4:21 – 5:12: Freedom In Christ
Paul is completing his argument about the freedom we have in the gospel in the remaining part of Galatians chapter 4. This section is difficult for two reasons. Firstly, it assumes a lot of Old Testament knowledge. It references Abraham Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Ishmael, Mount Sinai and Jerusalem. The other reason this passage is hard Read More …
Galatians 4:1-20: Sons and Heirs
In our last study, we saw how Paul surveyed 2000 years of Old Testament history from Abraham to Moses and finally to Christ. He showed how God had given Abraham a promise that through His descendant all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He then gave the law through Moses which, far from Read More …
Galatians 3:15-29 – Heirs According to the Promise
The Apostle Paul is continuing his explanation of the truth of the gospel; namely that salvation is a free gift of God received through faith in Christ crucified, without any human merit. The Judaizers were insisting that Gentiles needed to obey the ceremonial laws such as circumcision in order to be truly saved. So they Read More …
Galatians 3:1-14 – The Centrality of the Cross
A question came up last week, whether the maxim “Once Saved Always Saved” is correct. In other words, if a person is saved, is it possible for them to lose their salvation? We will address this question when we look at Gal 3:3-4. Let me just say this for now. This question has a theoretical Read More …
Gal 2:11-20: We Are Justified Only By Faith
The Situation (Gal 2:11-13) Part of the life of the early church was that they participated in a communal meal called an “Agape Feast”, or “Love Feast”. Here the whole congregation came together to share a meal prepared from them pooling whatever resources they had. For some slaves, this may have been the only nice Read More …