As we begin this year’s pondering project, here are a few tips that may be helpful. We will be tackling one chapter from Paul’s epistles each week. This will seem like a lot because there will be so much to ponder. Read each chapter several times at the beginning of the week. Use the Pondering Questions toward the middle of the week if they are helpful. Journal your thoughts at the end of the week for your own benefit but feel free to post them here for the benefit of others. Also feel free to post your own questions that emerge from the text. Here are the questions I came up with for Galatians 1. Keep in mind that these are designed both to make you think about the passage and to facilitate conversations with others. You might even find a friend to ponder these chapters with – I suspect you will have some stimulating, non superficial conversations
v1 – What qualifies someone to be an apostle?
Does God still send people to specific people or places? Have you ever had a sense of “sentness”?
v2 – Where is present day Galatia?
v6 – Describe how you were “called”?
What is the gospel?
v7 – How was the gospel being perverted among the Galatians? How is it being perverted today?
v10 – In what ways do you try to win man’s approval? God’s approval?
On a scale of 1-10, to what degree are you a people pleaser? How does being a people pleaser disable you from serving Christ? What can you do to fight this sin of people pleasing?
v12 – Do revelation experiences still happen today? If so, in what way? Have you experienced one? If so, describe.
v13 – Describe your life prior to your conversion?
v15 – What does Paul mean by “set apart from birth”? Does God choose us for salvation or do we choose to believe and be saved?
v17 – What is the value and significance of what Paul did here?
v18 – What do you suppose these conversations between Peter and Paul were like? Are you having “gospel conversations” with people away from the boundaries of the church?