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The greeting! - Galatians 1:1-5 By Pastor Lee Hemen May 29, 2016 Depending upon the reason for the message we may use the salutation of "Dear", "Sir or Madam", "To Whom It May Concern", "Folks", or the name of the person or persons we are addressing. Sadly, many greetings have gone out of vogue do to instant messaging or texting and email. And it is important to note that many young people do not understand the importance of a formal or business style of greeting when putting together correspondence for a job or college application. This is because our world has become way too lax in how it addresses others or the politeness, articulation, and education of what these kinds of greetings infer. Galatians, though one of Paul’s shorter letters is highly respected as one of his greatest and most influential. Since both Romans and Galatians teach the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide), it has been seen as a shorter version of Ro...

Talking about the Gospel - Galatians 1:6-9, 11-12, 15-16; 2:1-6 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 21, 2013 AM One test of being a good student is to understand the instructions for an exam. Once in seminary, our class gathered for a final exam in a Greek language course. We received the test paper with its instructions. Unfortunately, several students misread the directions and translated the wrong Scripture passage. As an act of grace, the professor did not give the students failing grades or automatically lower their grades. Instead, he evaluated their work on the passage they mistakenly translated. He pointed out, however, that they did poorer than they probably would have done on the assigned passage. Their lack of a clear understanding of the instructions cost them. Without being aware of what they are doing, folks often reveal they do not clearly understand the gospel. They make such comments as, “I hope God will let me into heaven.” Or “I hope I'm good enough to get into...