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.

Jesus and Pet Peeves

For those who aren't acquainted with Radio Free Babylon, or their comic strip, Coffee With Jesus, this particular one also hits on one of my pet peeves. 

Let's Talk Galatians!

As we venture through this letter, let me say this up front.  This is not intended to be a really deep, in-depth study of the letter.  Rather, this is more of a look at the letter, seeing what it says, and then seeing how these words still fit and apply to our lives as God's people in Jesus today.  It will be rare that we pull in Greek words, though if it is something that appears helpful, we will do so.  I may make some notes about the background of the letter from time to time, as they have some application to our understanding of what Paul is saying there. 

If there are elements of this that you would like to dive deeper into, please make use of the comments section to do so.  I will try to respond knowledgably.

As we jump in, I have set up my blog so that, when I enter in a Bible reference, you should be able to read it by scrolling your mouse over the reference.  So, for instance, today we will look at Galatians 1:1-5.  By scrolling over the reference, you hopefully see the whole reading pop up.  That way, if you don't happen to be near your Bible, you can see it here.  I will be making use of the ESV edition, which you can also find at www.esvonline.org.

As Paul opens this letter, he reminds the readers that he has been sent.  The literal meaning of the word apostle is "sent one".  He reminds them that he has been sent by Jesus Himself, who called him on the road to Damascus.  Given some of the matters about which Paul writes, this reminder is important to put before the Galatian Christians.

Also, I would like to point out one other thing briefly.  Paul isn't writing this to one single church, but to several churches.  There were likely several churches in various towns in Galatia, and all of them stood in need of hearing what Paul would write.

Finally, as we look at the end of our section for today, we see Paul announcing God's grace and peace to his fellow Christians.  As Paul so often does, he points back to God's work in Jesus on behalf of others.  Jesus came to deliver them from the evil they would see so often in their world, and Jesus did what He did according to the will of God the Father.

As we think about this for a moment, I think it is worth highlighting that you and I are different from Paul.  Paul was personally sent by Jesus.  Jesus Himself appeared to Paul and sent him on a very specific mission.  In many ways, that seems to be the requirement to be called an apostle.  You are sent by one who sends you in his name, with his authority, to speak in his name.  So, while we may still be going forth with Jesus' name upon us in our baptism and on our lips, we are not sent in the same fashion that Paul was.

However, that same message that Paul carried is still one that we have within us.  We have been taught and instructed, and as people who have been thus instructed, we are sent out into our daily lives as God's salt and light in the world.  It may not be required that we speak of Jesus frequently and boldly as Paul did, but when others see our lives, our hope would be that they see evidence of the name of Jesus upon us.  In fact, we do have to ask ourselves that, if they aren't seeing the name and presence of Jesus upon us, is there something missing as we live out our lives of faith?

As we say that, we also need to remember that we live in a certain reality and state of being.  God's grace and peace has been spoken to us and delivered to us.  We live with those as part of our lives of faith.  It isn't a one time action, but rather, a state of being that we were brought into, and in which we live, through no action of our own.  In the same way, we have the deliverance that Jesus promised, even as we await the day when that deliverance becomes the full reality in which we live.  We have the forgiveness of our sins, even as we still struggle with our sin and the temptations to sin that the world throws our way.  Our state of being is that of belonging to God in Jesus, and the only thing that can change that is not believing this to be the case.

As a bit of an aside, these are also those kind of "unproveable" things that can be seen only with the eyes of faith.  We cannot see "peace" or "forgiveness", but rather, put our trust in the one who declares such a thing to us.  While we have been raised and conditioned to have something proven to us (even to the point where someone might say "prove it" if we say we have forgiven them), the reality is that there simply are matters of our faith that cannot be proven.  We simply rely upon the integrity and character of the one who says such a thing to us, and when it comes to something as important as God's peace and forgiveness, it is good to know that we can put our trust in Him, who keeps His Word to us.