Happy Reformation Day when "my flesh seems to be on a warpath"

Martin Luther by Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel 1884

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY!

As you celebrate today, enjoy these encouraging words from Martin Luther in his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, written around 1538.

When meditating on Galatians 2:20,
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Luther contemplated the depth of his sin and the beauty of the gospel,

Paul declares that Christ began and not we. He loved me, and gave Himself for me. He found in me no right mind and no good will. But the good Lord had mercy upon me. Out of pure kindness He loved me, loved me so that He gave Himself for me, that I should be free from the Law, from sin, devil, and death.
The wickedness, error, darkness, ignorance in my mind and my will were so great, that it was quite impossible for me to be saved by any other means than by the inestimable price of Christ’s death.1

Then, in response to Galatians 5:16,
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Luther rejoiced in the hope that we have because of the Holy Spirit living in us,

When sin rages in our body and we through the Spirit wrestle against it, then we have cause for hope. The lust of the flesh is not altogether extinct in us. It rises up again and again and wrestles with the Spirit. No man is to despair of salvation just because he is aware of the lust of the flesh. Let him be aware of it so long as he does not yield to it. The passion of lust, wrath, and other vices may shake him, but they are not to get him down. Sin may assail him, but he is not to welcome it. Yes, the better Christian a man is, the more he will experience the heat of the conflict. It happens at times that anger, hatred, impatience, carnal desire, fear, sorrow, or some other lust of the flesh so overwhelms a man that he cannot shake them off, though he try ever so hard. What should he do? Should he despair? God forbid. Let him say to himself: “My flesh seems to be on a warpath against the Spirit again. Go to it, flesh, and rage all you want to. But you are not going to have your way. I follow the leading of the Spirit.” When the flesh begins to cut up the only remedy is to take the sword of the Spirit, the word of salvation, and fight against the flesh.2

1. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/galatians.v.html
2. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/galatians.viii.html

God's grace in Ephesians for the Jita people

We finished the final check of the book of Ephesians in the Jita language!!!

I'm still amazed that a guy from the Midwest can sit in an office in Tanzania with a Jita speaker, skyping with a Consultant in the UK, discussing the meaning of Greek words using English and Swahili in order to create a clear and accurate translation in Jita. Amazing! And it's all because of God's grace.

Thankfully, now the Jita people can learn about God's amazing grace from the book of Ephesians.

Abhayefeeso 2:8  

Okubha muchunguuywe kwa obhwitiriranya bhwaye, ku‑njira ya okwikirisya Yeesu. Obhuchungusi obhwo bhutasookere kw‑imwe, tari ni echiyaanwa cha Nyamuwanga kw‑imwe.

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

We faced some big challenges in this book. For example, in English Bibles, Ephesians 2:14-16 is one long, elaborate, complex sentence containing 13 interrelated clauses.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 

We spent a LONG time making sure that Paul's intended meaning was accurately captured in the translation and then we spent a LONG time making sure that the translation flowed clearly and naturally.

Then we had a very difficult time in Ephesians 4:19 and 5:3 differentiating between sensuality, sexual immorality, and impurity. How do we describe these things adequately enough in Swahili so that we can find the appropriate words in Jita?

I think I'm most excited about Ephesians 5:18-21, where Paul exhorts the believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit and then describes what real Christian community looks like when we all walk by the Spirit and are led by the Spirit and filled with the Spirit.

mwijusibhwe Mwoyo Mweru

be filled with the Holy Spirit

Thank you for your prayers and partnership with us in bringing this great news to the Jita people.