This week I am doing some work in chapter two of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In verse 10 the apostle makes a comment about the Jerusalem church’s commendation that he remember the poor. Commentators offer varied observations and interpretations of this verse, but after reading a fair amount of them and reflecting here are the two major takeaways for me…
The request for remembrance of the poor is not a peripheral note nor is it simply to be understood as a request for money; rather, it seems to serve two points. 1) It implicitly demonstrates the close relationship of the message of the gospel with the activity of caring for those in physical needs as well as 2) providing an explicit demonstration of the culturally transcend family the message of the gospel creates, a family that bears one another’s burdens ethnicity notwithstanding.
