Iron & Altar

"The Gospel preached by me is not of human origin." - Galatians 1:11

Brother, Paul is angry today, and the thing he is angry about looks small. The Galatians have picked up a different gospel. Paul says there is not another. Even if an angel from heaven preaches one, he says, let that one be accursed.

His reason is in verse eleven. The Gospel he preached was not of human origin. He did not invent it, and no committee taught it to him. It came to him as a revelation of Jesus Christ. It was given to him, and he handed it on.

Men edit. We do it with good intentions. We soften what is hard for our wives and children to hear. We trim what costs us something and sharpen what flatters us. After enough years, the faith a father hands on can look a great deal like his own preferences. Paul refuses to do that. What he received is what he gave.

Someone handed you the faith, and someone is waiting to receive it from you. Yesterday you started a card with the person who planted faith in you. Today ask what exactly they handed you. It might have been a prayer, a habit, a verse, or a way of sitting in church. It is the deposit, and you are holding it for the next man. The question for the day is whether you are passing it on whole or in a version you have improved.

The Gospel of the day supplies the test. A man asks Jesus who his neighbor is, and Jesus tells him a story and then says, go and do likewise. What was received is meant to be given away.

A steward hands on what was entrusted to him without editing it.

Add the second gift to your card: one thing you were handed in the faith, a prayer or a practice. Then pass it to one person today. Say the prayer with a child, text the verse to a friend, or show the practice to someone who has never seen it. Give it as you received it, without your commentary.

You entrusted the faith to me by other hands, Lord. Keep me from improving it, and teach me to pass it on whole. Amen.