In the last Joshua post I began a series called Blessings and Curses. I said at the time not to look for daily posts, but I had no idea it would take me ten days to get to the next one. I do hope to do better.
Our study jumps from Joshua 8 where Joshua had obediently divided the people into two groups to proclaim the blessings and curses of God. This has a lot to do with us in spite of the fact that we might not think so. Go back and read the first article in the series to catch up with today’s lesson.
In Galatians 3:2 Paul asks the question, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?” The answer to the question should be obvious – by the hearing of faith.
In verse 3 he asks another question. “Having begun in the Spirit are you now made perfect by the flesh?” The answer should obviously be “no”. So we begin by faith and we are perfected through faith. In order to illustrate this point, Paul brings up Abraham in verse 6. He tells us that Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness for him. Stay with me now because I know some of you are not used to thinking through the details of Paul’s argument.
In verse 7 he tells us then that those who are of faith (like Abraham was) are the sons of Abraham. God had promised Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him and verse 9 tells us the conclusion to this section: Those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. This then sets up the basis for the argument Paul is going to use in the rest of the chapter and it is an extremely crucial argument if you want to understand your relationship to the blessings and curses of God.
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