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Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Truth to Learn Faith is strengthened through acts of love, not through acts of obedience to a set of religious rules.<\/p>\n Behind the Words The Greek word translated \u201cavails<\/span>\u201d is ischu\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which is taken from the noun ischus<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cstrength.\u201d It refers to something \u201chaving strength, ability or power, either physically or morally.\u201d In this particular case, it refers to strength with regard to improving one\u2019s position in the faith of Christ.<\/p>\n \u201cWorking<\/span>\u201d is translated from energe\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which means \u201cto be at work, to be effective, or to be operative.\u201d This is expressed here as a participle and is in the middle voice, which in Greek implies action that the subject (faith) is doing to itself. This is a significant fact because it means that faith is working or performing on itself (i.e. becoming stronger) through love. Some translators erroneously read this as a passive verb and translate this as \u201cfaith which is wrought by love\u201d making it appear that faith is produced by acts of love. This is NOT what Paul says. He says that faith strengthens itself by acts of love.<\/p>\n Meaning Explained It is easy to get into a discussion of this verse and quickly skip over the first four words. That, however, leads to an incomplete understanding of what Paul is teaching here. \u201cFor in Christ Jesus\u201d is a reference to those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In other words Paul is saying, \u201cWith respect to the Christian faith and walk \u2026\u201d He could have simply said, \u201cIn Christianity \u2026\u201d except this was not an accepted term in his day as it is today.<\/p>\n The sentence structure in this verse is a little awkward in English because \u201cavails\u201d applies to the compound subject \u201cneither circumcision nor uncircumcision,\u201d and it is also an implied verb for the subject \u201cfaith.\u201d Hence, this verse could have been translated as, \u201cFor in Christ Jesus neither circumcision has any strength nor uncircumcision has any strength, but faith strengthening itself through love.\u201d<\/p>\n What Paul is saying, and has been saying throughout this entire letter, is that obedience to the Law of Moses or any church based set of rules and commandments has no bearing on whether or not we are saved. We do not have to be baptized in order to be saved, although we are encouraged to do so as a public testimony of our salvation. We do not have to be an official member of any church or denomination in order to be saved, though we are commanded to assemble regularly with other Christians.<\/p>\n Notice the door that Paul opened up for women. In the Jewish faith a woman cannot attain the same level of fellowship with God because she cannot be circumcised. In Christ, however, women are on the same level as men.<\/p>\n Application If you are a born-again Christian, then your faith will be strengthened by your acts of love, not your adherence to rules. Those deeds which you do out of your love for God and your love for your fellow man are the things which will strengthen your faith. And, when God allows trials to enter your life and you endure them because you love God, your faith will be strengthened.<\/p>\n In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2008 <\/span>Will <\/span>Krause. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone (618) 614-3070 and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Truth to Learn Faith is strengthened through acts of love, not through acts of obedience to a set of religious rules. Behind the Words The Greek word translated \u201cavails\u201d is ischu\u014d, which is taken from the noun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galatians-5"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-15","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"signature\"](\"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/signature.gif\")
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