14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. 16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! 18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. 19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. Galatians 2:14-21 (New Living Translation) Greetings from first-century Galatia~ “I was there when Brother Paul first came through our town, Lystra, and told us that the Messiah had been revealed to him. It was a wonderful day. . . to think that I should be alive to know of the Messiah! In the days of my youth, I do not remember hearing that the Messiah would have to suffer as Jesus of Nazareth had, but Paul explained that it was in His suffering, and in His self-sacrificing death on the cross, that we were given life. Why Jesus himself had said as much to the people, “I have come that you may have life—life more abundant and full.” (John 10.10) Brother Paul was a Jew, but he broke bread with us Gentiles as he told us all about Jesus Christ. It was not long, however, until some Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem, (some call them Judaizers). Ours wasn’t the only church they stirred up and confused! They told us that in order to follow after Jesus, we must first become Jews, get circumcised, and keep the Jewish law—they wanted to keep us as a branch of Judaism, denying that Christ had released us from the Law. And now, Brother Paul has come back to teach us more. . . he apologized that so many of the Jews still thought of us as sinners, and second-class citizens. He was impassioned that what was being peddled was not the truth! He recognized that some Jews were choosing ‘grace’ and abandoning the Jewish laws they had observed from birth, while the same Jews were requiring Gentiles to keep those ceremonial laws! It was absolute hypocrisy, he said. Clearly, the Jews had had the law for 1500 years, and it had not served to make them righteous—Paul himself could attest to that from his own life as a ‘righteous’ Jew. It was all so confusing, because after all, my highest and most sincere desire was to be a Christ-follower, so at first, I was carried away by what the Judaizers had taught. Now with Paul in town, it all made so much sense again. Paul looked us in the eye as he said, “Don’t you see? ‘No one will ever be made right with God by obeying the Law, but only through faith in Christ Jesus… It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me?’ I have a new center for my life, and it isn’t me or my efforts of doing good—it is Jesus Christ. Now, I live through the power of God---this, this is Grace! The same power with which Yahweh raised His Son, Jesus, from the dead, is mine, is yours. . . “ Ah, what a teacher, Brother Paul. . . . Well, finally, Paul helped us see that if keeping the Law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die—no need for a Messiah. Brother Paul could talk about life under the law, and also life through the grace of the Lord Jesus—yes, better than anyone, he could testify about the difference. Praise be to the Almighty for sending Jesus, and praise be to God for sending Brother Paul to reveal Him to us. Farewell from Lystra in the province of Galatia~ Christine