La Belle Design

  Weaving Roots is a sweet, clean, historical romance set in Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1820s. Heather Wood did a great job describing life at that time, and I love the way she digs into the thoughts of the characters.   She brings up a number of historical details that I didn’t previously know much about such as the issues between the Protestant and Catholic Irish communities at that time, and how spinning thread was such a big part of a woman’s life.  The two main characters were Betha, a weaver, and Colm, a teacher. It was interesting to see how they interacted with Betha being from a working class family and Colm from an educated family. For me, the sweetest aspect of the main characters was the impact their faith had on how they learned and grew. It also helped them challenge each other about how they lived out their faith. Each of the characters was tested multiple times to put the salvation and spiritual welfare of others above their own happiness. It made me evaluate

  Before we get into the fruit of love again, if you glanced at 1 Corinthians 12 just before the chapter on love that I had you examine, you noticed it spoke of gifts of the Spirit . Gifts of the Spirit are different from the fruit of the Spirit and are found listed in three sections in the Bible: Romans 12:6-8 , 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 and 28 , and Ephesians 4:11 . The lists of gifts are not all the same and we are not going to study them here, but I do want to note a few differences in gifts and fruit. The main difference is that not all believers are meant to have all of the gifts. The Romans and 1 Corinthians passages describe this and make it clear that though believers have different gifts, they are from the same Spirit and are all for the common good. On the other hand, all believers should work on growing in all the fruit of the Spirit. I mentioned before that I call it fruit in the singular. I do this because we are all called to bear the same fruit, but that is not true f

  If you are just now beginning this study on the Fruit of the Spirit, I urge you to find Part 1 in my blog link at the bottom of this study. When studying scripture I use what is called the inductive method. I become like a detective searching the scriptures and using tools at my disposal (a dictionary, blue letter Bible app to see original Greek or Hebrew, and even pen paper and coloring pencils to highlight mark key words or write out key points. I also have a Bible with extra space for writing in) to see what God says. I don’t use commentaries or even notes in my Bible (other than cross references or definitions) until I am done with my study of a given section of scripture. This keeps me from being influenced by what others say and makes me work harder to see what God says. If you have questions about this method don’t hesitate to send me your questions. Keep in mind that at times your study will leave you with more questions than answers. Don’t give up. Do what you can and contin

In part 1 of the introduction, one of the things I encouraged you to do was to read Galatians leading up to the list of the fruit of the Spirit (Galtians 5:22-23). If you missed part one you can find it in my blog in the link below. In today's study, I would like to focus on Galatians 4:22-31. At first glance, this may seem confusing and out of place. It may even seem unrelated to the section on fruit of the Spirit, but it is very pertinent. It references Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. To get a better understanding of the situation you can read about Abraham in Genesis chapters 16 and 21. Those two chapters will give you a bit of an idea of things, but even better would be to start in Genesis chapter 12 to get an idea of what led up to the situation. God called Abraham out of his homeland when he was 75 years old and Sarah (Abram and Sarai at the time) was 65. They had no children and yet God promised to bless the world through their offspring. Sarah was considered barr