DAY 617 - Do You Have Courage to Confront Those Agitators? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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Confirmation from John Stott in 2009: 
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My MicroMacro Discipleship, A missing DNA in Discipleship Development: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-micromacro-discipleship.html
Subject Shifting Devotion Method(Inspired by John Stott in 1991: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

                               Today's Reading: Galatians 5:7-12

** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:

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Please click this link to read Galatians 5:7-12

English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians 5&version=ESV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=加 拉 太 書 5&version=CUV

Bible Study

      Paul gives very strong language here in this passage to confront those agitators. In verse 12, Paul even says that those who insist on Christians must be circumcised, should not just to cut off bits of the body but be castrated.  

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      Castration of course meant preventing the man from having children.  What Paul wants above all is that the people who are troubling the Galatians will lose their power will no longer be able to dominate them or propagate their ideas among them.
     If this language, and indeed the whole paragraph, seems to us quite violent and strident, that may perhaps be an indication that church people and theologians can easily become so affable, so friendly, so 'nice' to everybody that we fail to confront head-on false teachings that can do lasting damage to churches and individual Christians. 
    

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Galatians and Thessalonians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.67.

      Do you know what Paul and Bishop N.T. Wright talks about? What has this passage to do with you personally?     

      

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

Spiritual Journal

    The title I heard from Jesus today is: Do You Have Courage to Confront Those Agitators?

    What I got from Jesus today is a sad situation for most churches. We always have agitators and you can't avoid this to happen.

    Since the Early Church time, there are agitators confusing Christians, accusing pastors and destroying churches. Is there a possibility that you have already become one of them but you do not know? Or, you think that you are helping God to put things into the right place? If you are not one of the agitators, how can you help your church to confront those agitators? 

Daddy,

Help us not to become one of the agitators and to have the courage to confront those agitators so that our church can taste the sweetness of unity in you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 

Daily Devotion on Fire 2(2 years plan -One year New Testament, one year Old Testament): 

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Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

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Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- For Renewal or First Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 

http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)

http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/