Paul McKenzie

Memory Verse, Saturday, March 14, Galatians 1:6

"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you in to the grace of Christ unto another gospel:"

Now we are getting into the purpose of the letter, and Paul is wasting no time. If you read most letters, after the greeting he compliments them on their steadfastness in Christ and encourages them to continue in the faith. Here there is none of it. It's almost like those shows where the boss calls someone into his office and closes the shades. A verbal storm is about to commence.

We see here that it is "the grace in Christ" that is being questioned. Later there will be many other heresies invented.

I've seen and even have visited churches that—though they are called "churches", stamp the name of Christ on their doors and use passages from the Bible—when their "preachers" preach it sounds like something completely different from what the Bible really teaches.

Some are so obviously contrary to the full context of the verses they twist that even a cursory reader of the Gospel can discern and reject. Others are much more subtle, and it takes a thorough knowledge of Scripture to see the "poison mixed into the drink", so to speak.

In those days, the gospel was still new and fresh, and Paul and the Apostles were giving the church what was brought to remembrance to them by the very words of Jesus, as He promised them in the Upper Room Discourse of John 13-16. And as newborn babes, these people for the first time were hearing the unfiltered truth of the Gospel from them.

They were at a disadvantage in that all they had were the Old Testament writings, maybe coupled with various writings that may have already been extant by the Apostles. But from what I see, there may have been few, but these fledgling churches were dependent upon the Apostles to bring them the Gospel.

Paul left those churches with them understanding the truth. But it looks like it wasn't long before they were naively trusting itinerant heretics who either augmented or removed the true Gospel into one of their own devising. This may be why God used authors such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to copy down what was early called the "Memoirs of the Apostles" as time progressed.

This gave us exactly what Christ breathed upon them. We can't quite understand how Christ miraculously "brought to remembrance" all the things He said to them, but He did, and we have all of it written down for us.

And as you see, even in the time of the Apostles people began to "pick and choose" what they wanted to believe, from these Judaizers to the Docetists, to the Nicolaitans, to the Gnostics. We even have some of the heretical writings left for us to see their errors, even stamping the name of an apostle on some of them to give it pretended validity. Even valid church Fathers who were discipled initially by the Apostles wrote things contrary to the original Biblical teaching, and when Constantine took over the church centuries later, they really fell off the deep end, mixing Roman ritual and pomp with the simplicity of the Gospel.

This is why it is so important to know, and know well the writings left to us, breathed out by God to His disciples. And if anything is contrary, we can catch it, not only by their words, but the Holy Spirit within us Who, with the words of God can help us detect error from the simple truth.

Today if you hear His voice, harden not your heart.

*KJV used*

Memory Helps

"I marvel (2wds)
that ye are SO SOON removed (6)
from him that CALLED you (5)
INTO the GRACE of CHRIST (5)
UNTO another GOSPEL:" (3)

(Initial word pairing: So Soon, Called Christ, Into Unto, Grace Gospel)

Galatians 1:6: Im tyeassr fhtcy itgoC uag

Long verses like this I will practice by reciting from the first letters of each word. I'll make word pictures, find similarities, then perhaps write out the verse on one side with my "key" reminders, and then maybe put the verse number and the initial letters of each word separated by my split phrasing and practice until I can recite without the helps. You may be surprised how quickly you can recite the verse with only the first letters. Give it a try!

For a humorous example of a word picture here, I use the word "Marvel" with "another gospel". Since I grew up on "Marvel" comics, I see them take the Gospels out of their New Testaments and replace them with a Marvel comic book to help spark my memory. I'm weird like that. You can read more of that weirdness in detail on my website, but here I spare you, lol!

Linking verse numbers:

I use my friend "Joe" (J, ch or sh=6, since phonetically they are the same sound, just different air pressures from your mouth) as my memory character for verses 6. Wearing a big bow "Tie" (for chapter 1, T=1) I marvel to see Joe "removing" the Gospels from his New Testament and replacing them with the comic book as written above. That may be enough for me to spark my memory and recite the passage. If not, I'll simply add to the word picture.

I can imagine to have a pail of "good grease" into which he throws the gospel because I use a pail labeled "good grease" for my word picture of "grace", and maybe a phone ringing in that pail as well for "called you", and a cross to represent the grace of "Christ". And don't forget the big bow Tie, which could be added to the grease pail as well by "Joe". That way I link this verse to 1:6.