A False Gospel Always Promotes Abuse

January 17, 2020December 30, 2019 ~ Jeff Crippen ~ 1 Comment

Gal 1:6-7 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– (7) not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Gal 3:1-3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. (2) Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? (3) Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

As I preached a sermon series through the epistle to the Galatians, each week I became more impressed with its relevance to the roots causes of abuse. Not only domestic abuse, but the abuse of power in general. Consider, for example, these statements Paul makes about the motives of the false teachers who infiltrated these churches:

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The Law Wrongly Used Only Promotes Sin

August 9, 2019August 2, 2019 ~ Jeff Crippen ~ Leave a comment

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (1 Corinthians 15:56)

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:5-6)

Recently we have seen even more reports of “model Christians” fallen in sin. Here you have highly publicized “perfect” Christian individuals or families or church leaders. They have it all right, supposedly. They write books and go on television while we all ooh and aah and wish our botched up lives or families could even approach the heights of holiness these people apparently have achieved.

And then they fall. Turns out the image we thought was real was flawed all along. And the non-Christian world blasphemes the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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