Saturday, November 3, 2012

30 Days of Blogging. Day 3. Club Day.

Saturday is Club Day.

No, not like Thursday was Club Day back in Jr College.

Our church has "Youth Club" on Saturdays.  A lot of Ukrainian Churches do.  It's basically the "youth group" meeting.  I guess you'd call it discipleship oriented in that there's a pretty in-depth bible study every week except for the last Saturday of each month which is usually evangelistic and is intended to be an event our kids can invite their friends to attend (last month we watched Hunger Games).

Normally, Doug teaches the Bible Study.  I taught today (and will teach next week).  We're basically going through the entire Bible using a 6-year curriculum map and this week and next we're on Galatians so I'm teaching a survey of that letter.

A couple of interesting tidbits I learned in preparation: The area of Galatia (particular the northern portion) was populated by the Gauls, or the Celts who invaded the region about 300 bc.  So basically the area was inhabited by Central Europeans (or at least proto-Europeans).  A funny thing I saw in one commentary from a non-Biblical historian of the time called them a people who were "easily swayed" in their opinions (remember, you could call these Galatians proto-frenchmen)...and of course, in Galatians, you see a people who quickly abandon Paul's teaching as soon as the Judaizers sweep in after Paul moved on.

Of course, the important thing isn't the historical background but the message which is Faith trumps Works, Grace trumps Law.  It's pretty much the same message Paul wrote to the Romans but perhaps not as refined but more personal.  When he wrote the Romans, I don't think he had yet spent time with them.  When he wrote the Galatians, he knew them, had spent time with them and had planted their churches.  You get the impression he took it rather personally their "stupidity" (rough translation of the Russian back to English) at abandoning the really good news he left with them.

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