Expressing

Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Have you ever had to get a new cell phone and then had difficulty figuring out how to use it? With each new iteration of device, the way they work shifts slightly. Windows 97 isn’t like Windows 11. If you want to find a specific setting, you have to look in a completely different menu. And this is true of all devices.

I am an Android user, not a iOS user. I can’t see spending that much on a phone. I try to use my phone a little as possible, except for making calls, texts, calendar, alarm and the occasional search. Just about everything else goes unused.

The reason this came up for me was this. I was trying to find the setting that would allow me to quickly unlock my phone at home without having to use my password because I am connected to my home wifi. My phone used to do this. I could just swipe and I was in. Now I have to swipe, enter my password and then I am in. I know, First World problem!

I the early church there was a battle between those who came out of Judaism with its practices and those who came from a non-Jewish origin. Some from the Jewish side of things believed everyone needed to adopt to the Jewish practices with which they were familiar. They needed to look Jewish in the way they lived.

But as the implications of the Gospel were worked out in the life of the Church in those early years, the freedom Jesus brought came to fruition. Through the insights given to those early believers by the Holy Spirit, they come to a place where they left almost all those Jewish practices behind. They were not necessary for the life of a follower of Jesus.

For Paul and the early church, the entrance point for the Faith wasn’t a ritual performed on the body or in the body. It wasn’t something imposed from the outside. And it certainly didn’t happen before the participant wasn’t able to choose for themselves. There wasn’t passive entrance into a relationship with Jesus.

ּBut that didn’t mean that you couldn’t tell if someone was a believer. Faith wasn’t a hidden thing. It didn’t only happen on the inside. Faith changed the way a person lives. The inward relationship changes our outward relationships with the LORD, with each other and with the world.

Doctrine doesn’t save. Practices don’t save. Jesus saves. And He saves us and our behaviors change. If there isn’t change in behavior over time, then perhaps the relationship is stagnant and getting ready to die.