23.2 Freedom Of The Children Of God

(Romans 8:14-17)

Those who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father” God’s Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share his glory.

23.1 Years of Liberty

(Leviticus 25:8-10)

Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send a man to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land. In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or his descendants, and anyone who has been sold as a slave shall return to his family.

22.5 Sincere Prayer

(Psalm 69:30-36)

I will praise God with song;
I will proclaim his greatness by giving him thanks.
This will please the Lord more than offering him cattle,
more than sacrificing a full-grown bull.
When the oppressed see this, they will be glad;
those who worship God will be encouraged.
The Lord listens to those in need
and does not forget his people in prison.

Praise God, O heaven and earth,
seas and all creatures in them.
He will save Jerusalem and rebuild the towns of Judah.
His people will live there and possess the land;
the descendants of his servants will inherit it
and those who love him will live there.

22.4 What Counts Is Not Circumcision But God’s Commandments

(1 Corinthians 7:17-19)

Each one should go on living according to the Lord’s gift to him, and as he was when God called him. This is the rule I teach in all the churches. If a circumcised man has accepted God’s call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God’s call, he should not get circumcised. For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God’s commandments.

22.3 Against Lip Service

(Matthew 15-6b-9)

In this way you disregard God’s command, in order to follow your own teaching. You hypocrites! How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you!

‘These people says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach man-made rules as though they were my laws!’