Moving Forward in Galatians

Today we are going to take our next baby step forward.  Galatians 2:11-14 will be our short focus set of verses.  Here, we hear about something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable: Conflict.  It seems that, sometime after Paul went to Jerusalem and he and the other apostles "compared notes", that Peter came north to Antioch, the place that Paul kind of set as a home base of operations.  We aren't told why Peter came up there, or any of the circumstances, merely that he came up to Antioch.

What happened at Antioch, though, is significant.  Paul noticed that Peter was being kind of two-faced about things.  Among the Jewish circumsized group, Peter was acting one way, and around the Gentiles, Peter was acting a bit differently.  While Peter may have had his reasons for doing this, the fact that he, who was seen as influential, was doing it also caused others to do the same thing.  They started to make distinctions that were not supposed to be made, and Peter was the main culprit in the situation.

So, what did this relative newcomer into the leadership circles of the Christians do?  He opposed Peter, and not privately, but in front of everyone!  Now, this is really kind of startling for us for a few reasons.  First, most of us simply aren't all the comfortable initiating conflict, even when it is something that really needs to be done.  Especially in church circles, we can fall into the trap of thinking that dealing with each other according to the Gospel means that we let sinful behaviors and attitudes go.  That simply isn't the case.  Now, to be certain, we deal with such situations in love, and with an eye toward restoration, but the thing is, we deal with them.  The conflict is essential and inevitable, as we are all sinful people.  How we handle the situation will speak volumes about how God has been forming us by His Spirit.

The second thing that I want to highlight here is less clear in the text.  It seems that this confrontation led Peter to repent of his sin and change his ways.  He was open to hearing Paul's rebuke and correction.  While he likely continued to struggle with it, he also seems to have been strong enough in his faith that he could be corrected.

How open are we when others show us our sin and our fault, regardless of their standing or station in life?  We probably find that we are less than open to hearing the correction of a brother or sister in Christ, and maybe even will disregard it if they aren't in our circle of friendship.  However, I hardly think that God would say we should discard their words simply because they aren't close to us, or in a similar position to us.  Whether they are the highest or the lowest, we should be open to hearing our sin and their rebuke, and then have a heart to change as God's Spirit works the image of Christ Jesus within us.

Humorous Sheep

Here they are again.  It's a bit of an older one, but fits Reformation that we are celebrating this week.

Coffee with Jesus

I really like this little strip.  Another good one today.

Galatians, moving through chapter 2

Today, as we close out this first little section consisting of Galatians 2:1-10, I want to take a few moments to focus on verse 10 itself.  "Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."

If you read through any of the parts of the Bible where God lays out some of His expectations and guidelines for His people, one thing you will find quite consistently is His desire that His people care for those who are less well off than they are.  As example, to His Old Testament people who happened to be landowners, they were to leave the edges for the poor of the community.  When it came to debts, God's people were to take those individuals in as family and care for them.  Even when we get to places like the celebration of the Passover, we see that the families with enough were to invite their neighbors in if they did not have a lamb of their own.

While the specifics of what God calls for may change from place to place and culture to culture, the heart of what God looks to create within His people remains the same.  God wants His people to have generous hearts toward others.  He wants us not to look down on them for the circumstances that they happen to be in, but to look upon them with compassion and care.  That's the heart of God Himself, a generous God who gives, and gives, and gives, even to the point of giving to the wicked and the evil in addition to the righteous.

It seems that this is the kind of heart that had grown in Paul following his encounter with Jesus.  In fact, one of his voyages that we call his missionary voyages was not so much missionary in nature as it was putting together a mercy gift for those in need.  When you read through places like 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, you may wonder at the gift that Paul is arranging.  It's the gift that he is collecting from the various congregations to give to the poor and hungry who were suffering from a famine in Jerusalem.  Paul's heart for the poor actually led him back to those congregations that he had helped establish to get their offerings for those in need.

Yes, I realize we quickly have our minds jump to money when we think about caring for the poor around us.  Yet, I would encourage you to think in other ways, as well.  What about the single parent who lives down the street?  Sure, a little extra income may be nice, but what about giving them the gift of an evening to themselves by watching over their kids for a night?  Or the neighbor who has physical limitations by helping with yardwork or household chores and repairs?  Sometimes we simply have to think beyond the dollar sign when we think of ways to help those who may not have as we have.

Of course, we want to treat such situations with dignity, as well.  We don't want to barge in where help may not be appreciated.  Yet, I would also suggest that we sometimes just simply need to do a better job of listening.  When that neighbor starts to tell you about something that isn't going right in their life, who is to say that God isn't opening up a door of opportunity to love your neighbor by caring for their need?  I think, if we just listened closely, we would probably hear all different opportunities to live out our faith by responding to our neighbors in their need.

Returning to Galatians!

Well, after a bit more than a week off, with a number of other things going on, we are returning back to our look through Paul's letter to the Galatians.  Today we'll dive into Galatians 2:1-10.

As you read through this section, you see something about Paul that really seems to stand out.  If you look at verses 4 through 6, Paul basically says that the Gospel message that he had been preaching was the true one.  There were others who were trying to say that Paul was saying something different from the rest of the apostles, but Paul was so sure of what he was preaching that even Peter and the other original apostles didn't have anything to add to what Paul was teaching and preaching.  Paul seems rather confident about this. 

This would be kind of like you doing the work that you know to be doing, even in the absence of the presence of your boss.  You are so sure that you are doing what he/she wants you to be doing that no one can really convince you otherwise.  In fact, you are so sure of what you are doing that you don't mind picking up the phone and calling the boss, knowing that he/she will come down on your side.  Just imagine having that much confidence in knowing that you are doing the right thing.

Now, we might be tempted to think that Paul is kind of arrogant to be taking this kind of approach.  It seems to stand out rather boldly.  After all, when we think about Jesus, He often seems to indicate that humility and looking to the good of others is better than standing up for yourself and what you have done.  So, is Paul doing something different here?  Why can Paul do this and still say that he is upholding the Gospel message?

Well, some of that has to do with the fact that he had to essentially "prove his credentials" again to the Galatian Christians.  In fact, when you look at this letter of Paul's and other places, such as Acts 15, you see that Paul and the rest of the apostles were indeed on the same page.  Paul could be confident in that.  In addition, if other people were leading God's people astray in Galatia, we would hope that Paul would point out why what he was saying was the good and right thing to listen to, rather than that of the others.  He almost needs to point out his credentials to show that he is the one teaching the right way of Jesus, rather than those opponents of his.

There is a time and place for humility (actually, pretty much all the time).  However, there is also a time and place to stand confident in what you believe and in what you say.  My church and church body are observing that very thing this week, as we reflect on Martin Luther nailing 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, way back in 1517.  Later on, Luther would truly become known for standing for what he understood from the Bible and for what he was teaching when he would basically say, I'm standing on this unless you can prove it otherwise from the pages of the Bible.  Here I stand, I can do nothing else.

As Christians, we can and should have that same confidence.  We have the life-giving message of what God has done in Jesus for us, and for every neighbor that we encounter.  We can stand with boldness in all of our interactions, sharing the message of Good News with them, since God did send Jesus for them, after all.  We don't need to be timid.  We can be humble, and yet, at the same time, be confident that the message and good news we bring is just what they need to hear.  Confidence and humility, wrapped up together.

Sheep Who Think for October 18, 2015

This week's strip from AgnusDay.org.

Sheep who Think

A little strip from sheep who think about the Gospel message, from what we heard a couple of weeks ago.

Galatians 2, Finally!

Yes, we have been moving through Galatians at far less than light speed, but nonetheless, we find ourselves moving into what we now call chapter 2.  Remember, Paul wouldn't have written his letter with chapters and verses, which were added centuries later as a means of reference. 

Galatians 2:1-10 continues Paul's story.  We left off in chapter 1 with Paul having been converted by Jesus, and then spending three years in Arabia, after which he went to Jerusalem and met Peter and James.  It seems that Paul didn't return to Jerusalem for another decade and a half after that, as he speaks quite clearly that his next visit was 14 years later.  Even then, he went up because something had been revealed to him, and he felt compelled to go and once again touch base to make sure that everyone involved was teaching the same thing.  Paul's interest in this was to make sure that the message he had been sharing was accurate.

For a moment, I want to dwell on this point.  Paul went to check that he was preaching accurately.  Yes, he had Jesus reveal Himself to him.  Yes, he likely went and intensively studied the Scriptures and saw Jesus throughout the Old Testament.  Yes, he had been preaching and teaching and converting the Gentiles to the faith.  Yet, even Paul felt that it was a good idea to check in and make sure that the message he preached and taught was accurate and true.

As we consider those who preach and teach the good news today, we really do need to ask how they continue to make sure that their message is in line with what God has said.  It may sound like something that we would take for granted, that our preachers are regularly being in God's Word, testing what they are saying and teaching, and seeking to ensure that it lines up with God's revelation to us.  Yet, I can tell you from experience that there are times when that study simply doesn't easily present itself.  The demands of caring for God's people can, at times, get in the way of that study time.

What would you do if you walked into your preacher's office and found that he had blocked out an hour of time where he wasn't answering phones or taking calls, and instead was engaged in reading his Bible?  Would you expect him to drop that if you had a question that he could answer, but could wait until later?  Would you be upset that he was spending time in something that he should already know?  Yet, if God's Word isn't speaking to him, if he isn't engaged in continuing to grow in God's Word, how is he making sure that he is speaking God's message, and not his own? 

As a preacher, time spent with God and with His Word is never wasted.   Sure, it can become an excuse not to do the other things that pertain to the tasks of serving God and His people, but at the same time, it simply cannot be neglected.  We dive into the Scriptures to ensure that the message God's people hear is from God, and not from us.  Time with our Bible is of vital importance.  I would even suggest that you ask your preacher how he is doing in spending time with his Bible, and if you discover that he doesn't get enough time for it, that you then "go to bat" for him in front of the congregation to see that he receives that time.  Everyone will benefit from it.

Moving right along

Moving along to Galatians 1:18-24, and closing out the first chapter, we find Paul writing about some of the history of what happened after Jesus rather dramatically encountered Paul on the road to Damascus.  So far, Paul has said that Jesus revealed Himself, and that Paul didn't immediately see any of the other apostles.  Instead, he went away into Arabia, where it is very likely that he engaged in a deep study of the Old Testament, and discovered just how prevalent the foretelling of Jesus was throughout those words from God.

The timeline is a bit sketchy, but as we take Paul's words here and the book of Acts, we find Paul spending approximately three years before he really meets any of the eye witnesses of Jesus.  In Acts, we are told that Barnabas is the one who risks himself to bring Paul to the apostles.  Regardless of the circumstances, Paul meets Peter and chats with him (very likely in depth about Jesus) for a little over two weeks.  It's also very likely that Paul told Peter exactly what he had been set apart to do by Jesus Himself, and then set out on what we call one of his missionary voyages.

What is signifcant about all this?  As it concerns the letter to the Galatian Christians, it is that Paul had been preaching the Gospel for about three years before he met any of the other apostles.  Even then, he only met with Peter and James for a short time, which seemed to be enough to verify for them that the message Paul was preaching was in tune with what they were preaching.  For those who had been saying that Paul had been preaching a different gospel message from the rest of the apostles, this would seem to back up Paul's assertion that his was the true gospel message, and the others were the ones with the wrong message, which was to be ignored.  The Galatian Christians could trust Paul because his message was the true gospel, regardless of what others were saying about him.

And then, we have that beautiful verse that rounds out chapter 1.  They glorified God because of me.  That is, ultimately, the hope of all who speak the message.  Not that the messenger gets glorified, but that God gets glorified through the one who speaks His message.  The churches that Paul had created, at which he had preached the message, were turning to God and giving him glory.  Yes, Paul was instrumental in their hearing of the message of the gospel, but Paul wasn't the point.  Jesus was the point, as the one who restored them to God.  It wasn't about Paul's credentials, but about Jesus' credentials.  And in Jesus, they would find one who would bring them to God, thus giving them reason to glorify God because of the message that Paul was speaking.

Galatians, Yet Again!

As we continue to work our way through Paul's letter, I was particularly struck in my reading today by Galatians 1:15-17.  Paul speaks that Jesus had set him apart, even before he (Paul) was born.  Now, on the surface, that might seem somewhat overstated on Paul's part.  After all, we might ask, if he had been set aside to do this work even before he was born, then we could righly ask why God would have him do everything that he had done prior to his conversion, even to the point of overseeing the stoning of Stephen.

So there are two things at work right here.  First, Paul was indeed set apart by God for the work that he would do, and that same thing can be said for every one of us.  To think of it in a slightly different way, God had set me apart from before I was born to be typing these very words, even though they are words that I myself am typing.  I am doing so because God has been at work in my life, even before I was born, to bring me to the point that I would type these things, and for what I will do later on today, and this week, and next week as well.  Being set apart is a gracious and wondrous gift from our God, who sees the worth in our lives, and in fact, in every little work and action and word that we do and say.

You, also, are set apart by God, and have been even before you were born.  That gives eternal meaning to every action that you take part in, and every word that you speak.  It starts there within your family and then ripples out to touch everyone whose life you touch.  You have been set apart by God to do those things, even if it as simple as giving a needy coworker a cup of cold water, or feeding your children as they throw their food around the kitchen yet again, or as you engage people with the saving word of the Gospel. 

Now, that can easily lead us to have an overinflated sense of the work we do, and indeed, of who we are.  Yes, it is a great and awesome thing to have God appointed tasks thoughout the day, but the next words of Paul in this letter remind us that we aren't do to this as though we are "God's gift to everyone whose lives we touch" (even though we are, we don't want to come across as that in an arrogant kind of way).  Paul writes, "who called me by his grace."  As we read that, we are reminded that, yes, we are God's gift to everyone that we encounter, but in a way that honors God and draws attention to Him, and not to us.  Yes, people will notice us as we deliver God's good works prepared for us to do ahead of time, but we don't do them so that we get noticed.  We do them so that God the Father gets noticed in us and through us. 

Paul's whole life would be dedicated to pointing people to their place of salvation, the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  Paul was instrumental in that message going forth, as God's chosen instrument to do so.  Yet, Paul only did that by God's grace, a message that we remember to keep us in the humble spirit of our Savior, Jesus.

Galatians, Continued

Moving right along, today we come across the next paragraph or so of this letter to the Christians in Galatia.  But before jumping in there, a brief note.  Galatia was not a city, it was a region.  So, way back in verse 2, when Paul wrote that this letter was going to the churches (plural), he was writing it to several different churches meeting in several different cities.  Galatia was the region, and so this letter was intended to be read in multiple congregations, who seemed to have all been facing some similar challenges.

Moving along, though.  Galatians 1:11-17.  Now, Paul wants the Galatian Christians to know the source of the good news that he had brought to them.  In many respects, Paul's story of coming to know Jesus, and of coming to know what Jesus meant for him and for the Galatians, was a vital part of the message of the good news that Paul had preached.  Paul's story of his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road quite literally changed his life.  Before that time, Paul had been the rising star of Judaism.  Very likely, when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, Paul was a fairly young man.  He had studied under Gamaliel, a respected teacher who had actually counseled the Jewish leaders to bascially leave the Christians alone.  If what they taught was from God, then it couldn't be stopped, and if it weren't then it would die away quickly.  However, it doesn't seem as though his star pupil shared that same approach.

As I reflect on this letter, and on Paul's story of coming to faith, I have noticed over the years that I have come to a significant conclusion regarding how Jesus chose His apostles.  You may recall that, as Jesus began His ministry on earth, He started by calling disciples to follow Him.  Later, He would designate 12 to be His apostles in addition to His disciples.  One of those, Judas, would fall away and betray Him, and early in the Acts of the Apostles, we see the desire to replace Judas.  When you read Acts 1:12-26, you see how they go about doing this.  For the longest, I assumed that Matthias was the chosen 12th apostle.

However, that one thing stuck with me in my mind.  Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you."  When you get to Acts 9, it becomes very clear that Jesus chose Paul to be His apostle.  He did so in a manner very differently than how Matthias came to be numbered with the apostles.  It often makes me wonder if the other apostles didn't jump the gun a bit.  And in many ways, Paul seems to fit the criteria of one who would replace Judas even more than Matthias.  Judas betrayed his Master, so it would make a certain amount of sense that Jesus would then replace His lost apostle with someone from the other side. 

Additionally, the apostles seemed to decide that the person to replace Matthias had to have been with them almost from the beginning.  Yet, there is one very clear thing.  Matthias was determined by the casting of lots.  He was not chosen by Jesus specifically and directly.  When it comes to Paul, though, we have a very clear calling to be an apostle from Jesus.  That would seem to be a rather large trump card when it comes to who served as an apostle.

One final thing stands out to me, too.  What do we hear of Matthias after he is chosen as an apostle?  Nothing.  Yet, once Jesus chooses Paul to be His apostle, what do we hear of him?  The rest of Acts is practically about Paul.  Paul's letters fill the New Testament in terms of number, if not content.  When it comes to effective ministry work, it would seem that Paul greatly outdistances Matthias.  And in a way, that shouldn't be a surprise.  After all, Paul was chosen directly by Jesus to be His apostle. 

Galatians, Continued

I want to continue a couple of thoughts from Galatians 1:6-10, before we move on ahead.  Last week, I wrote a bit about how Paul would have actually been an ideal choice for Jesus' work of spreading the good news, as well as the ideal one to combat the thought of requiring circumcision to become a Christian.  After all, he knew the Old Testament Scriptures forward and backward, and after Jesus revealed Himself to Paul, he then spent some time, it seems, relearning the focus of the Scriptures.

But for a few minutes today, let's focus on what Paul writes is the outcome of anyone who preaches something other than the good news of God in Jesus.  Twice in these verses, he emphasizes that those who preach a contrary Gospel should be cursed (or accursed, depending on your edition of the Bible).  If someone teaches something other than what God has done in Jesus to restore people back to Himself, Paul calls for them to be cursed.

Now, a curse is a powerful thing.  Basically, this calls for a person or persons to be eternally separated from God.  When we think of curses, we could go all the way back to Genesis 3, where, after the man and the woman disobeyed God, God didn't curse them, but instead cursed Satan and cursed the ground.  To curse the man or the woman would have been to put them permanently beyond the hope of redemption.  Satan was already there, so God was declaring something that had already been decreed.  In cursing the ground or the earth, God was cursing something that could be renewed. 

If someone teaches something other than that which comes from God, they stand in the place of receiving God's curse.  That means eternal condemnation.  While that is nothing that we would ever wish on anyone, we also recognize two things here.  First, cursing and eternal damnation are a reality.  Anytime you say something along the lines of "Damn it", you are cursing that thing.  And God would have us take our words seriously.  This isn't a light thing, and truthfully, something that I would love to see removed from our vocabulary completely.  After all, only God can truly condemn, but for us to wish that eternal separation on someone or something, well, that just doesn't seem fitting, especially for one of God's people.

Second thing, there is a great price to pay for those who teach if they teach wrongly.  Whether it be from ignorance, or from willful misunderstanding, the penalty for teaching wrongly is steep.  That is why, in the New Testament, we are also told that not many should strive to be teachers, because they are held to a higher standard, in that what they teach and how it gets lived out in the hearers is also on their heads.  While there is great joy in teaching the things of God, great care also needs to be taken on the part of the one teaching.

Galatians, Continued

Keeping on with our Galatians study, we now dive into the next few verses.  There's a lot in these verses, so we may take our time working through it.  That means we may spend two or three extra days on these verses, but that's okay.  Sometimes the riches of God's Word means that we have to spend some extra time in order to dig deeply into it.  True, we will never exhaust everything we can learn, but we also want to keep on moving through to get the full content of this letter.

So, Galatians 1:11-17.  Now, Paul starts to get into what his complaint is against the Galatian Christians.  It seems that they have been saying that Paul didn't preach the full Gospel message to them.  They also seem to have called into question whether or not Paul was teaching what others had taught him.  It seemed to be a question of Paul's credentials, which he seeks to emphasize here.  No one gave him the Gospel message.  It came to him from Jesus Himself.  Paul even emphasizes here how drastic it is that Jesus would have chosen him to be His apostle.  Paul had tried to wipe out those who put their faith in Jesus.  Not only that, he was a shooting star in the ranks of his former way of life.  Paul was the most unlikely of people to be a person sent by Jesus.

Now, to some degree, this may sound almost as though Paul is uncertain about his right to preach the Gospel.  It almost sounds like he is insecure about how the Galatian Christians see him.  However, I would actually venture a slightly different view of it.  Because these others who are coming among the Galatians are saying something along the lines of circumcision being required to receive the good news of Jesus, it would seem that Paul could assert that he knew the Old Testament Scriptures far better than any of them.  In other words, if that were really something that God was calling for, who would have been better to know this than Paul?  No one surpassed him in zeal.  Very few others could compare to what he knew of God's revelation of Himself in the Scriptures.

And yet, Paul also points out how humbling it is to receive this great gift.  Upon being called by Jesus to be an apostle, Paul was made to realize that God had set him apart for this task long before Paul ever would have anticipated it.  Perhaps he realized that he had been set apart in a way similar to Jeremiah, who was told that he was known even before he had been born.  As the realization sank in, that God had called Paul to this even before he was born, it seems that Paul truly realized what a great gift it was that he had received from God.  And how better to respond than to share that same gift with others!

That seems to be a hinge point for Paul throughout this letter.  God had prepared Paul for this by his intensive study of the Scriptures, and then, at just the right time (a phrase we will later hear in this letter), Jesus encountered Paul and put that knowledge to work in sharing God's redemption with many. If anyone would know whether circumcision was required or not, who better to say it than someone fully versed in what the Scriptures say?

We'll spend a little more time on this section, but this seems a good amount of thinking for today!

Galatians, Continued

Okay, I'm not known for my dynamic titles for these posts.  You'll probably see Galatians, Continued, all the way through the Bible study.  I hope you can bear with me despite the lack of clever titles.

Anyway, on to Galatians.  Today we will look at Galatians 1:6-10.  After greeting God's people in Jesus found throughout Galatia, Paul jumps right in with his astonishment.  Apparently, the Galatian Christians are coming to believe something other than the message that Paul had been sent (as an apostle) to bring to them.  We will find out later in this letter some of what they are coming to believe, but for the moment, at this point in the letter, Paul is basically expressing his astonishment that they would wander so far from what he had shared with them.

Basically, Paul expresses one thing of significance here.  There is only one Gospel.  The literal meaning of that word is "good news".  There is only one good news, that of what God had accomplished in Jesus.  Anything else that got tied to that message meant that there was a different good news being taught.  Paul's good news, that God had redeemed the Galatians through Jesus, was the one Gospel message, and the only Gospel message.  No additions needed, and no subtractions possible, or else it isn't good news.

Along those same lines, it doesn't matter who the person is who shares the good news, or who the person is who shares something that is a different kind of good news.  Okay, what do I mean by that?  As humans, we can be susceptible to thinking that, the more educated or "higher up" a person is in importance, the more believable they are.  While it can be shown that this simply isn't true, it's something that we can fall into.  We think the word of the pastor is more believable than the word of another fellow Christian, without asking if the pastor has the necessary background to make such a determination.  It's not only in this area of life, but throughout.

That's what makes what Paul says even more astonishing.  Even if one of God's own messengers from the heavenly throne room were to bring a message other than Christ Jesus, he is to be seen as accursed, as put away from God.  Credentials and the like simply don't matter when it comes to the sharing of the good news.  Now, yes, we do want pastors who have studied the Word so that they can speak with some level of expertise on the good news.  But it isn't a guarantee that, just because the pastor says it, that's how it is.  That's part of the reason why our particular tradition requires a longer schooling process for training pastors, and calls for much study and reflection on the word as part of the life of the pastor.

Here's the rub, though.  It can be tempting to speak about the things that people want to hear, rather than strictly focusing on what God reveals and says through His Word.  I hear, from time to time, people say that there are topics or events of which they would like to hear from the pulpit.  While Paul isn't directly addressing that situation, he does make it clear toward the end of our little section that the preaching of the good news is for the approval of God, and not necessarily for the approval of what the hearers want to hear.  Now, to be sure, there is a time and place to spend on how the life and culture around us impacts our Christian faith, and we will respond to that.  However, the message that gets declared is the message of good news in Jesus, and not merely what people want to hear.  To put it in a slightly different way, if the preacher only preaches what the people want to hear, he will miss so many opportunities to point the people back to the one thing that really matters: the good news of God in Jesus.  That really is what matters.  The Good News is the most important thing that can be proclaimed, even if it may seem boring, or if the hearers have heard it hundreds of times before.  They still need to hear it again and again and again.