Galatians 4:12-20

12I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. 13As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. 14Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

17Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. 18It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you. 19My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!



Dig Deeper

During one season, while coaching high school basketball, we were in a bit of a down stretch. We weren’t losing that many games, but we were losing more than we should have. More importantly to me, we just were not playing up to our potential. I had tried nearly every motivational technique that I could think of and it was just not working. It was the first time in my coaching career that I felt like I might not be able to motivate a team. Any coach knows that one of the worst things that can happen is to lose your team, to the point where they stop listening. At halftime of a game, where they were again not playing well, I had nothing left but to get personal. Rather than talking strategy or using any tried and true motivational techniques, I sat down, looked them in the eye and talked to them as close friends. I reminded them that we were a close family. I had been to their houses, they had been to mine. We knew each other’s families and had shared more hours together than we could count. I reminded them that there was a time when they would have given me everything they had without giving it a second thought. What had changed, I asked? They were more than they had become. I’ll cut the story short here to report that they went out and had one of the best halves of basketball I had ever seen.

Up to this point, Paul has appealed to the Galatians theologically and intellectually. He has laid out why his presentation of the gospel has been the true announcement of the kingdom of God, while the Judaizers have presented a false gospel. In this section, none of that is in sight. Paul is perplexed, he really doesn’t know what else to do, so he appeals to them at a heart-to-heart level. Paul is appealing to friendship, to family loyalty, and to the common experience of what God has done in their lives.

Paul begins by pleading with them, this is a personal appeal that only a friend could make. He appeals to them to become like him just as he became like them. What exactly does he mean by that? It is a difficult figure of speech to translate but it most likely means something along the lines of ‘look, I became like a Gentile for you and shared in your life, are you now going to walk away and Judaize’? This is the sort of appeal that only a true and loyal friend can make. To this point in time, they have done no wrong to Paul, why would they start now?

We don’t know exactly what Paul is referring to in verse 13, but the actual term, ‘bodily weakness’, does necessarily imply illness as the NIV has translated it. Whatever it was, Paul’s condition was something that could have caused them to treat him with contempt or scorn, yet they did not. In fact, they treated him so well that Paul says they treated him as though he were an angel delivering the gospel message, or even the Messiah himself. They saw through his physical condition to recognize that something powerful was happening as he announced the message of the Messiah. It was the sort of power that could only come from God himself working through a human being. There is the underlying implication here that if they didn’t care about physical appearances then, why have they listened to these agitators and become so concerned about the flesh of circumcision now.

When I talked to my team, one of the things I mentioned is that they weren’t having fun anymore. In losing focus, things had changed and they had lost their joy. This is exactly what Paul says to the Galatians. They were once so full of joy; they had encouraged each other greatly, but now things have changed. Again, there is an implication here that since they have listened to the teachings of the Judaizers, they lost their source of joy. This is usually what happens when someone becomes bonded to a motivation other than the life in Christ. At one time, they would have done anything for Paul, including tearing out their eyes (this was a pretty common figure of speech in the first century, where we might say something like ‘bend over backwards’). They had shared such a strong common bond, could it be possible, Paul wants to know, that he has become their enemy by simply telling them the truth. This is a strong appeal to their friendship. Surely they wouldn’t turn away from him simply because he has taught them the truth? Paul, of course, makes another implication about the Judaizers, namely that they have not told the truth.

The real problem is that these outside agitators have come in with their zeal, abut it was for no good. Paul doesn’t doubt that they are sincere, but sincere people can be even more dangerous, often times, than insincere people. They have zeal, but as Paul says in Romans 10:2, zeal without knowledge can be quite harmful. Paul wants the Galatians to be truly zealous in the Messiah whether he is with them or not (he doesn’t want them to think the problem is with them listening to other teachers in general, but in listening to teachers that have the wrong kind of zeal), but he does not want them to have the kind of zeal without knowledge. These Judaizers want to shut the Gentiles out and alienate them from Paul. In essence they would be creating two circles of Christians, the inner circle and the outer circle. Paul knows that this just cannot be. There can be no such thing as an outer circle in the true body of Christ. This is an important concept for us today to keep in mind, to make sure that we are not unwittingly creating separate inner and outer circles within our own Christian community (at the same time, we should be careful not to go too far the other way and accuse any close group of Christian friends of having created an inner-circle that is shutting others out).

In verse 19, for the first time in the entire letter, Paul breaks with the term ‘brothers’ to address his readers as his dear children. Anyone who has been a parent watching their older child go through struggles in their life, knows what Paul is feeling as he describes feeling again the pains of childbirth. He will continue to feel this angst until they have reached the maturity of having the complete life of Christ formed in their community. His ultimate goal is no less than that the self-sacrificing love of the Messiah is fully formed and appears in their community.

Paul has talked about the love of Christ being fully formed in them, now he wishes that he could be there to show them that love in person. He wishes that they could be together in person, so that they could see his face, touch him, and remember how much he loves them. Then he would not have to use a scolding tone, because he is sure that if he could simply see them, it would remind them of the good times and would set things straight.



Devotional Thought

Paul’s great desire for the body in Galatia was to have the life of Christ fully formed in their community. Every Christian could easily look at the areas in which its church community needs to grow and have the life of Christ more fully formed in it, but the real question is what can you do personally to help assist in that growth?

Galatians 4:8-11

Paul's Concern for the Galatians

8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.



Dig Deeper

I knew a wonderful young lady, when I was teaching, that was a student of mine for a couple of years. She had a magnetic personality and was extremely bright and creative. Yet, at the age of eighteen she had one child and another one on the way, but that wasn’t her primary problem. The problem that she needed help with was basically escaping her abusive boyfriend. He was controlling, manipulative, and oppressive. She had finally had enough of him and wanted to move out of the situation she was in from living with him. We went through a great deal of trouble to get her out of that situation during a time when he did not know she was leaving and found her housing so that he couldn’t find her. Everything went off beautifully and she was free . . . until about a month later when I learned that her boyfriend was back living with her at her new place. She had found her new freedom scary and lonely and decided that she would rather have the certainty of her old boyfriend even though he was abusive and controlling. She had, in many ways, gone back into slavery and everything we had done for her felt like it had gone to waste.

Perhaps we’ve all known someone who has become a Christian and we’ve seen the incredible and faith-building changes they have made in their life only to watch the sad scene as they, for various and sundry reasons, turn back to their old life of slavery to sin. It is a heart-wrenching scene that is often difficult to watch. This is precisely what Paul is worried about when it comes to the Galatians. They have tasted freedom and now they are toying with slavery once again.

Moses faced the same difficult position while leading the Israelites out of Egypt. They were in slavery in Egypt and Moses had led them out, yet it wasn’t quite that easy. They found that the life of freedom in the wilderness was difficult and frightening, and suddenly the certainty of life in Egypt seemed attractive. They began to openly wonder why they had left Egypt at all and to claim that they were better off there (Ex. 14:11-12; 16:3; 17:3).

Now, Paul is concerned that the Galatians are doing the same thing. They had tasted the freedom that comes from being in Christ, but had found, like any other freedom, that it was wide open and scary. Freedom is not completely easy because it brings with it responsibility and requires that we think through situations and make difficult choices. This seemed more than the Galatians could bear. They have experienced that wide-open world and now seemed determined to follow those who would return them to the safer, regulated world where you know who you are and are told what to do and when to do it. This was a return to slavery in Paul’s mind.

What is perhaps shocking for us is to realize that the slavery to which Paul is referring is not their old pagan gods and goddesses but the law of Old Testament Judaism (sometimes slavery of this type can seem like the most spiritual thing to do). They were being told by the Judaizers that they needed to follow the law, be circumcised, and now we learn that they were also being told to observe the liturgical calendar of orthodox Judaism, including all of its sabbaths, new moons, and sabbatical years. For Paul this is no small thing. The law had been given by God and it was good when used properly (1 Tim. 1:8) but now that the Messiah has come and ushered in God’s Kingdom, the law is no longer needed.

Many people, still today, try to act as though Judaism and Christianity are two branches of the same tree and with just a little dialogue can find the common ground that would bring them together again. But this is not at all Paul’s position. Now that the new covenant had come, Paul sees (as John also makes clear in the book of Revelation) that Judaism is no different than any other pagan religion. Rather than embracing the true family of God based on faith, God’s grace, and the life of the Messiah, they are trying to embrace a system that is still based on ethnic and territorial relationships, and following the law. The law had been given by God but that purpose had been fulfilled. Going back to the law and treating it as an independent entity rather than a temporary measure would be like treating it as a god. It would be idolatry, plain and simple. The whole point of the various Jewish days and observances were that they looked forward to God’s great redemption, the new Exodus. Returning to those things would be like saying that they weren’t sure that God had done that yet. The message of the gospel was that He had through the Messiah, so going back to these things would be to deny the very things the gospel announced. (We should note that Paul is not against Jewish festivals per se, as he makes clear in Romans 14, he is against presenting them as a necessary observance in being the people of God.)

What Paul really wants them to understand is that when they were participants in pagan idolatry, they were in slavery. They had escaped that by what Paul initially says is knowing God, then he quickly catches himself and says that they are actually known by God (1 Cor. 8:2-3). In the Bible, to know someone is a far deeper concept than our understanding of mere intellectual knowledge of someone, which is why Paul is hesitant to say that we can know God. What really matters is God’s knowledge of us. He knows His Son and those to whom the Son has chosen to reveal God (Luke 10:22). By returning to the things of the law, they are saying that they would rather return to slavery than to be known by the personal and true God.

If they do this, Paul’s fear is that his efforts to share the gospel with them have been wasted. The word translated "efforts" here is Paul’s favorite word to describe the toils and trials of the Christian ministry. Paul doesn’t mean to imply that they were a waste of his time, but if they return to slavery that would be a waste of the great effort he has poured into brining them to freedom in Christ.

The Galatians had to learn the same lesson that many of us still need to learn. That true freedom in Christ is wide-open, challenging, and can be frightening. There is a constant temptation to want to return to safer forms of religion where we don’t have to think, but are just told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. True Christian freedom means that we are even more committed to God and His Kingdom, but our motivation comes from having a relationship with God and being known by Him, rather than being motivated by external things.



Devotional Thought

Paul was not against the observance of Jewish festivals or even of having special days, his concern was that the Galatians felt these things were necessary for them to be part of God’s family beyond entering into the life of Christ. Are you ever tempted to feel like you need something beyond your life in Christ? What would be Paul’s response to that?

Galatians 4:1-7

1What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. 4But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.



Dig Deeper

When the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten died, his only heir was a nine-year old boy named Tutankhaten. Akhenaten was a controversial, to say the least, leader in Egypt with many strange ideas, including changing the traditional polytheistic religion of Egypt to a monotheistic worship of the sun disc god, Aten. When Tutankhaten took the throne, he was the rightful heir and ruler of all of Egypt, yet it is clear that he was not in charge. He had many advisors, guardians, and trustees who were really running the show. How do we know this? Among other things, immediately after coming to power, Tutankhaten’s regime changed the capital city from his father’s new capital city back to the traditional site, the religion of Egypt was reverted to the traditional polytheism, and his name was changed to Tutankhamun (in honor of the sun god (Amun) of many gods rather than the supposedly one sun disc god). These are hardly things that a nine-year old boy would be worrying about. No, he wasn’t thinking through situations and making his own choices, he was subject to his advisors. As he got older, however, it becomes clear that he began to take power for himself and was no longer subject to outside sources.

In these verses, Paul makes a similar point to his babysitter point from the previous chapter, but it is a different metaphor that he is using. His point here is that without Christ, all people are subjects and in slavery in one way or the other. This is equally true whether it be referring to Jews or Gentiles. This is something that they had in common. Paul clearly believed that the Jews were at an advantage because they had the law, but they were like immature children that were not yet ready to be full heirs. Both Jews and Gentiles were equally in subjection, just to different things. Now, though they had been traveling different paths, they both have arrived at the same place. The ability to be true sons and daughters of God.

Paul realizes that, yes, the Jews were the children of God under the old covenant, but they were not full-grown mature children. God’s promises to Abraham had not been fully realized in the old covenant. Instead, the old covenant served (in this new metaphor) as a guardian, overseeing the children until they were ready for the full inheritance, which is of course, the Messiah. Although Paul never states it clearly, it is quite possible that he means to imply that the Gentiles were the slaves in this metaphor. If that is his meaning, then Paul is saying that, although the Jews had some clear advantages in being God’s children, they were in very important ways, especially as it relates to the Messiah, no different from a slave.

In describing the process for the Jews, Paul uses language that is rich in Exodus imagery. If we go back to the Exodus story we see that God had promised to redeem His people out of slavery, and after a time, he sent Moses to redeem them and to demonstrate that Israel was indeed God’s firstborn son. This freedom was gained through the death of the Passover lamb and the death of the Egyptian’s firstborn. Then, forty days after Passover, the people came to Mt. Sinai and were given the law as their guide through the wilderness and into the blessings, inheritance, and promised land (an event that was celebrated at Pentecost). What for many Jews, though, was the great defining story of their people, is turned on its head by Paul. These happenings were real and purposeful, but their main purpose was to foreshadow the events of the life of Christ. Once again, God had promised to rescue his people from their bondage, but this slavery was slavery to the world not the Egyptians. Rather than sending Moses, He sent His true son, the Messiah to bring redemption. This freedom was gained through the death of the Lamb, God’s firstborn son. In this new telling, however, the law is just another guardian, watching after Israel and keeping her separate from the other nations until the Messiah had come. Once the Messiah had made the redemption of His people possible and freed them, forty days later, God did not give another law but His own Spirit at Pentecost.

It wasn’t just the Gentiles, then, that were in slavery, but the Jews also were in slavery, in a sense. Both were under the basic principles (a phrase that probably refers to the ABC’s that a young child would learn) of the world. Although the Jews had the law that kept them separate from the world, they were still subject to the basic elements of it. The law could not redeem them from the world, it could only keep them temporarily separate from it.

The law was powerless to redeem people from their status in Adam, so when the time had fully come, God sent his Son. When Paul says that he was born under law, he is probably referring to the fact that Jesus was born a Jew and was subject to the law during his lifetime.

He sent His Son to redeem those under the law (Jews but he has also already implied Gentiles as well), so that they might finally come to maturity and have the full rights of sons. Entering into the Messiah was the only way for the Jews to become fully mature sons of God. It was the only way to receive the full rights of sons. For Paul this is a reality, it has already happened and he wants them to know that Jew and Gentiles alike are sons of God. How does he know? Because God sent the Spirit of his Son (this is not that Paul is blurring what we have come to label as the Trinity, but He sees the coming of the Spirit as so interconnected with the Messiah that he can rightly refer to Him as the Spirit of his Son) and the Spirit enables us to know Him as Abba, an affectionate term for fathers (but it would be over-sentimentalizing to translate it as "daddy"). Just as God revealed Himself in a new way during the Exodus and revealed his personal name, YHWH (Exodus 3:14; 6:2-8), Paul declares that God has made Himself known to His children by giving them the right as sons to call him Abba. God has not sent detached agents to make all this possible, but has sent the Spirit and the Messiah as His own self-revelation, His very own personal presence.

Paul finishes this passage with an incredibly powerful technique, demonstrating his skill as spiritual leader. He has been using the plural "you," but now dramatically changes to the singular "you," as if to point his finger at each individual reader and say, "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." That is a statement that is as true for us today as it was to the original recipients of Paul’s letter.



Devotional Thought

Read verse 7 as though addressed directly to you. What encouragement does that verse bring to you? What challenges and convictions does that verse bring?

Galatians 3:23-29

23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

Sons of God

26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.



Dig Deeper

One of the great defining moments of my life when I was about twelve or thirteen was the day that I was finally able to stay at home by myself without a babysitter while my parents went out. For me it was a rite of passage of sorts, signaling that I had become a grown-up (at least in my own mind). When I was younger I needed a babysitter, I needed teachers, I needed supervision of all sorts. Now that I am an adult, however, I no longer need babysitters, teachers (not in the supervisory sense), nor supervisors of any sort (a different thing from leaders, which we all need). In fact, an adult with a babysitter would be a little strange to say the least. Babysitters and the sort are needed when someone is not capable of leading themselves, but once they are the babysitter is no longer necessary.

In verse 24, Paul says that the law was a paidogogos (‘put in charge’ in the NIV). The paidogogos in Paul’s day was a slave, usually an elderly one, who was put in charge of a young child. It was their job to lead the child to and from school and oversee their general education. It was similar to our idea of a nanny or live-in babysitter. Paul is continuing his thought that the law was a temporary addition to the covenant, not the covenant itself. It was given by God in order to keep Israel quarantined until the Messiah had come. It was a stipulation that was necessary while Israel was young and unable to lead themselves and uphold the covenant but now that Messiah was here, those who would enter into Him could become complete and no longer in need of the law.

For Paul it all comes down to faith, but we must keep in mind what that faith is in. Paul refers to faith in the life of Christ, faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Before faith in His life was available, we were, says Paul, held prisoners by the law. The word translated "held prisoners" would better be understood in the sense of a protective custody. In other words, Paul is saying that the law kept Israel pure (at least pure enough) until faith should be revealed, by which he means the Messiah. So, the law was given to Israel as a concession, a nanny until Christ came (the words translated "lead us to Christ" in the NIV can also be translated "until Christ came"). Once the Messiah had come, people could be the people of God through faith which was God’s original plan going back to Abraham.

The Messiah was the sign that a truly mature Israel had finally come to fulfill God’s promises. Those who enter into the Messiah and live by faith share in that maturity and are the true Israel. Thus, the faith of the believer is the sign that regardless of whether they were born Jew or Gentile, they are a full, complete, and mature member of God’s new family. This is precisely what Paul says in verse 26. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Being a son of God no longer comes through being born a Jew or by keeping the law or by any other form of human effort. All those who enter into the life of Jesus Christ and die to their old lives through faith are now full members of God’s covenant family.

Although Paul’s primary point is not how one enters into God’s family but how to recognize who is part of that family, he will briefly mention here a reminder of their entrance into God’s family to demonstrate that if they have all entered in equally, then there is no criteria which can later separate them. Paul would certainly agree that one is saved by faith but not in the way that many American evangelicals would define that today. Notice that for Paul, being part of God’s family means entering into Christ. Yet he does not say that everyone who simply believed or said a grand prayer had entered into that life of faith in Christ. No, the way to enter into God’s family, the true Israel, is through a baptism that recognizes that one is dying to themselves and entering into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 6:3-4) and being forgiven of their law-breaking sin (Acts 2:38). This does not mean that Paul believed that baptism or water literally saved anyone. It is the doorway, however. It is the moment when we enter into faith in Christ and so it is indispensable. Paul does not mention here what happens when people are baptized without realizing or submitting to what it truly involves (as he does in 1 Cor. 10:1-12), but we should be clear that baptism is not a magic amulet, it is the submission of dying to our lives in Adam and entering by faith into the life of Christ that matters for Paul. Baptism is the door, not the destination.

Everyone who has been baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ so that when God looks upon us he sees Christ. In Colossians 3:3 Paul says that those who have been baptized have been hidden with Christ, meaning when we enter into Him we are truly part of the Messiah’s family. As a consequence of that new status there are none of the old distinctions that are relevant when it comes to our status or ability to enter into this family. When it comes to status or entry into God’s family there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. None of those distinctions matter anymore once we have entered into the Messiah’s life and family. Of course, Paul does not mean that once we enter into Christ we lose all human identity. There is no need to start building unisex bathrooms in our churches or changing all of last names to Christ so as to do away with any ethnic identifiers. Those distinctions still have a purpose and a place, but they are completely irrelevant when it comes to our status in Christ. There are no such things as advantages or disadvantages for those who would lay down their life and enter into Christ’s. There is no such thing as two-tier Christianity.

In verse 29, Paul sums all of this up very succinctly and powerfully. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Someone who belongs to Christ and is thus part of Abraham’s family already does not need anything else to enter in. Whether it be the law, circumcision, or anything else, the only thing that has any bearing on being part of God’s family is whether or not we belong to Christ. That was the question for the people of Paul’s day every bit as much as it is for us today.



Devotional Thought

The questions that we who are in Christ must always ask ourselves are, are we really mature. Do we really live by faith in the life of Christ or are you always secretly desiring the babysitter of some sort of law or rules that take away the responsibility of thinking and discerning through difficult situations?

Galatians 3:15-22

The Law and the Promise

15Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. 17What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.

21Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.



Dig Deeper

Over five years ago, my wife and I learned that we were going to have our second son. We were quite elated and went about the business of preparing all the things that need to be readied when your family is about to add another child. We went in for a routine ultrasound check a few months later only to find that there was a problem. Certain features of my wife's health were not functioning properly. The original plan of carrying the baby for nine months and then giving birth was not going to work due to these health problems. So, she had to lay in bed at an incline with her feet physically higher than her head without ever getting out of bed for nearly four months. These were temporary, but necessary conditions that were provided in order for her to achieve what was the originally expected outcome, a healthy baby boy. Once she got through that time and gave birth to our son, she was able to get up out of the bed and no longer needed the other restrictions on her health that were previously necessary. The health restrictions were good when they were needed, and were vital in order to achieve the birth of our son, but once he was here, it would have been unnecessary and restrictive for her to continue with them.

This is much the same point as Paul will make in the coming passage. The law, according to Paul, was not part of the original promise made to Abraham, and certainly was not part of God's ideal plan for man. It was man's sin, not God's original plan, that necessitated the law. The law was needed as a sort of quarantine for Israel in order to keep them separated from the world just enough to bring about the birth of the Messiah. It was the Messiah who was the great promise made to Abraham, not the law. Once the Messiah had come and the promise fulfilled, however, the law was no longer necessary. It had served its purpose, which was necessary and helpful, but now it was time for it to go.

Paul begins this section by pointing out that once a covenant has been established it cannot be changed. This is something that all Jews, especially the Judaizers would agree to. Once that has been agreed upon, Paul is going to show how the promises of the covenant were given to Abraham and were not tied directly to the law. We often tend to forget that the law was given over four centuries after the covenant was made with Abraham (Paul says 430 years, which was the time given in the O.T. for the length of the stay in Egypt, and was a sort of symbolic number for the time between the covenant and the law). If a covenant cannot be changed, then what Paul wants to get at is God's original intent with his covenant. To do this, he makes the point that the ultimate fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham was a single descendant which was, of course, the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

We would do well in understanding this passage to realize that when Paul speaks of 'seed', he is referring, in essence, to the concept of 'family'. In Ephesians 1, Paul says that it was God's plan from the beginning (He predestined) to have a single family of people that have entered into the life of Christ. His point here is similar. The promise to Abraham was made to him and his seed (singular), meaning the Messiah. As shown in Ephesians 1 and many other places in Paul's writings (1 Cor. 12 for instance), the Messiah represents God's people. Thus, when Paul refers to the singular seed, he means the single family that has entered into the Messiah, the family that God has always intended. This was God's will, to have one family not two families of Jews and Gentiles. His point is that God always wanted one family, in the Messiah, and that if the law was permanent and Israel had been left in quarantine, then it would have forever created two families.

That's the problem with confusing the law with the covenant. The law was a necessary but temporary aspect added later to the covenant but was not part of the original covenant itself. Paul is clear in verse 22 that the entire human race has been infected with sin and is under God's judgment. God called Abraham so that through his family, the cure for sin might be found. The problem is that Abraham's descendants were sinful themselves, so the people through whom the solution would come were part of the problem. They could never be the cure in and of themselves. They were the doctors, but because they had the disease themselves, they needed to be put into quarantine until the medicine they were carrying could be produced. In that scenario, the law was the quarantine, meant as a temporary measure to keep them separated for a time from the full brunt of sinful nations until the cure, the Messiah could come forth.

The law was temporary until the single family of God's people that he had always intended and promised would come through the Messiah. This is the purpose of the law, says Paul. It was given by angels (according to popular Jewish belief in his day) and Moses, a mediator. Moses, though, could not be the mediator through whom God established his single family; God is one and He desires a single family, not many families.

This brings up the obvious question which Paul himself asks, Is the law, therefore opposed to the promises of God? No, but it was temporary. The law served its purpose and it was good, but the law could not grant righteousness. The problem was never with the law, it was with the condition of Abraham's family, just as the health restrictions for my wife were because her health was poor. The bed restrictions came as a result of her condition, which came first and caused the restrictions. The sinfulness of Abraham's family came before the law and was a pre-condition of the law. The promise given to Abraham that all nations of the world would be blessed through he and his descendants could only be fulfilled in Jesus Christ and nothing else. All those who would have faith in the life of Christ and enter into it become heirs of that promise. This is something that the law simply cannot accomplish.



Devotional Thought

Paul was obviously deeply committed to the concept of God's one family. Are you as deeply committed to that concept? Is strengthening and increasing God's family your driving force? If it's not, then what do you need to change in your thinking so that it is?

Galatians 3:10-14

10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.



Dig Deeper

As I was driving back from Wisconsin to the college I attended in Oklahoma, I had the directions sitting next to me in the front seat but somehow I managed to get turned around anyway. I didn’t consider the directions to be oppressive or bossy, just straightforward in telling me how to get to where I was going. Yet, somehow I had gotten lost in the middle of nowhere in the state of Kansas. Suddenly the directions became more of a problem than they were a help. The more I tried to follow them, the more lost I seemed to get. What I didn’t realize was that about twenty miles before that I had turned the exactly wrong direction onto Highway 69. That meant, as I tried to follow the directions, they just got me more lost because I was already off course. The only thing that would solve the situation was for me to realize that I was in desperate need of new directions. The directions I had would simply not get me to Oklahoma from where I was at and the direction in which I was heading.

Abraham was chosen to be the recipient of God’s covenant and grace, and, in Genesis 12, was told that all nations in the earth would be blessed through his descendents. This was Israel’s vocation. They were supposed to be God’s people, showing the world who God was and what his kingdom was all about. They had failed to do that, though. Rather than being a light to the world and attracting the nations to them and, ultimately, to God, they had shined the light on themselves and condemned the pagan world for not being people of the light. This was the purpose of the law. The law was given to the Old Testament people as a physical covenant, teaching them to be the people of God. They were directions in that sense. The problem that Paul describes is that what was supposed to be directions leading them towards God’s blessings wound up being part of the problem. The problem wasn’t with the law but with the Israelites. They had disobeyed God and gotten lost. This meant that they were going in the exact opposite direction. Rather than heading towards God’s blessings, they had spent most of the old covenant period hurtling headlong into God’s curses for breaking the covenant (more on curses in a moment). Rather than drawing the nations to them, God’s people found themselves cursed and in exile at the hands of those same pagan nations. What Paul wants the Galatians and the Judaizers to realize is that because God’s people had gotten lost, the directions that they had in the law would no longer work. They needed new directions from where they were at to get them to where they were supposed to be.

Paul says that those who rely on observing the law are under a curse. When Paul refers to a curse, he does not mean that God is dropping the hammer on people for disobeying. Blessings were the original intent of the covenant; they were the destination, so to speak. Curses were simply the dangers of going the wrong way. There is an intersection in my current hometown where if I go in one direction, I will head towards my house. If, however, I go in the wrong direction and speed through the warning signs, I will end up careening off of a bridge that is no longer there. The curses were what happened when they went in the wrong direction and ignored the warning signs. The curses were, in fact, the signs trying to warn God’s people before they hurtled off of the cliff. The curse that Paul refers to (in Deuteronomy 27 & 28) isn’t primarily something that will happen for eternity; It primarily refers to something that will happen in history. It would eventually end with Israel in exile, the exact opposite direction from what God had in mind for His people. Paul’s point is that the law cannot get God’s people to where they are going because of their sin. New directions are needed and anyone who insists on using the old directions is in serious trouble because the only way the law can work is for one to follow the law perfectly without ever breaking it.

God had begun to reveal this truth of a need for something beyond the law to His people through the prophets. Paul quotes from Habakkuk 2:4 (written while Israel was being overrun by pagan nations), which says that the path to the life of the age to come for God’s righteous people will be by faith (Hos. 6:6 also hints at this). Israel had gotten lost and the law was never going to get them back to where they should be. Habakkuk says that God’s people will eventually live by faith, but he doesn’t say faith in what. What Habakkuk doesn’t say, Paul is about to.

The faith that God was talking about all along was faith in the life of the Messiah. What was a surprise though, was that the Messiah would fulfill the promise by taking on the curse Himself. The curse of Deuteronomy was fully borne by the Messiah, Israel’s representative. Paul quotes from Deuteronomy again, saying "cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." What Paul does not mean by quoting that verse (and what the passage in its original context does not mean) is that someone is cursed by God simply because they hang on a cross. It means that death by hanging from a tree (or being impaled on a wooden stake) was the outward sign in Israel of being cursed by God. A criminal was punished for breaking the law by hanging them from a tree, so it was the law-breaking that caused the curse to come upon them. Hanging from a cross, then, was a fitting end for one who was taking the curse of the world upon them. Christ was not cursed simply because he died on a cross. He died on a cross because he had taken the curse upon himself. Although death on a Roman ‘tree’ was different in many ways than the death on a wooden stake referred to in Deuteronomy, for Paul the point was the same. Christ’s death on a tree was the deeper fulfillment that the passage in Deuteronomy foreshadowed.

Jesus did all of this so that any humans who would have faith in His life could get back going in the right direction. The new directions had nothing to do with following the law, they had everything to do with participating in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was only through faith in Christ that they could be considered part of Abraham’s family. For Paul, the promise made to Abraham only makes sense in it’s true fulfillment as a result of the life and work of Jesus Christ. By entering into Christ, Gentiles can now become part of Abraham’s family but that’s not all. God’s plan wasn’t to simply cast the people of Israel to the side. Those who were Jews by birth needed a renewed covenant every bit as much as the Gentiles did. God had finally poured out His Spirit and given a new covenant just as He had promised (Ezek. 34:25 , Jeremiah 31:31, etc).



Devotional Thought

The roadblock to faith in the life of Christ for the Jews was the law. What path blockers are there in the world today that keep people from relying alone on the life of Christ? Is there anything that you are tempted to rely on rather than faith alone in the life of Jesus Christ?

Galatians 3:1-9

Faith or Observance of the Law

1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.



Dig Deeper

Abraham Lincoln’s first term in office was an obviously difficult one. Due to his middle of the road stance he had made many enemies and had very few supporters. The Civil War had not been the easy victory that the North had expected and now as Lincoln’s first term was coming to an end, he had to decide whether or not to run for a second term. After deciding that he would, no one believed that he could possibly win. Even though, by that time, the war had started to turn in the North’s favor and it was becoming clear that Lincoln had done a masterful job of leading the country through difficult times, too many people appeared ready for a change, and Lincoln faced some fierce and impressive opposition in his Presidential opponents. When asked why people should vote for him and not choose a new President, Lincoln gave a timeless answer which resonated with people so much that it contributed, in large part, to his surprise victory. His response was that it wasn’t wise to "switch horses in mid-stream." Switching horses in mid-stream can be a dangerous affair in which the rider could easily fall off and get swept off by the current.

Paul certainly wasn’t running for re-election of any kind, yet he was worried that the Galatians were about to switch horses in midstream. They had heard the incredibly freeing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and had been invited to enter into the life of the Messiah and be a part of His new family, the new people of God. Right in the middle of that crossing, however, the Judaizers had cut in and offered them another horse. It wasn’t the horse that had gotten them to the middle of the stream, and this is part of Paul’s point, it wasn’t even as if they were being asked to take a slightly different route. The Judaizers were trying to lure them into switching horses altogether and follow what Paul believed was an entirely different gospel.

Paul starts out by placing the onus of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Galatians. They are the ones that are acting foolishly by their own choice. Although Paul is certainly aware of the dark spiritual forces swirling about (Eph. 6:12), there will be no excuses here. They should have known better and, so, have acted witlessly. Yet, the blame is not all theirs. Paul also has some blame to go around to the teachers who have come in and bewitched them. These teachers must have been quite fascinating with their indepth expositions on Old Testament Scriptures and the law, and in fact, the word translated ‘bewitched’ is the root word for our English word ‘fascinated’. How could they do this, though, when Paul had clearly portrayed (a word that might mean he vividly described, but might also mean that he literally sketched it out for them) Jesus Christ crucified. With that phrase Paul doesn’t simply mean the death of Jesus on the cross, although that’s certainly part of it. He is referring to the whole message of the gospel of being crucified with Christ and being resurrected to his new life. This was the horse that they began to ride to cross the stream. It was the life of Christ in which they put their faith. Why would they even think of trusting in something else?

This is exactly the point Paul makes in verse 2. The Spirit Paul refers to is God’s Spirit, who was powerfully active whenever the gospel was announced. The Spirit enables God’s power in the lives of believers, transforming them into the image of the Messiah. For Paul, it was the Spirit that worked in people’s hearts allowing them to come to faith. It is the Spirit that brought them to faith and preserved in the life of Christ so why would they think of trusting in the flesh. Everything they have and are in Christ came through the Spirit. Have they really been so fooled as to think that they can now finish the race by their own flesh (translated ‘human effort’ in the NIV).? Usually when Paul uses the word ‘flesh’ he primarily means the whole sphere of human self-existence in rebellion against God, but he likely also uses that word to allude to the actual role that flesh plays in circumcision (it is worth noting, and will continue to be important in this letter, that Paul has teamed up spirit and faith on one side and flesh and law on the other). Paul is dumbfounded that they would have gone through so much suffering and persecution for the sake of entering into the life of the Messiah only to abandon all of that for the teachings of these Judaizers. Again, we must remind ourselves that in Paul’s mind, these teachers weren’t just teaching a disputable matter, they were teaching a whole other gospel. One for which Paul is stunned that the Galatians would actually fall.

To make his point, Paul will now turn to the Old Testament Scriptures. His argument is extremely rabbinical in its form and content and may exhibit some of the training that Paul had received before his conversion as a Christian (a term first used in Antioch which means basically, ‘the Messiah people’). The most likely answer, however, is that the Judaizers had made a great deal of use of Scripture (and most likely did so in a very imp;ressive Rabbinic style) so Paul will enter into their territory using language that would have made sense to them and a style that would have been familiar.

Paul’s central point of the letter begins right here. If you are in Christ, then you are already a child of Abraham in every way that matters. These other teachers have claimed that the Gentiles must be circumcised and trust in the law in order to truly be a member of Abraham’s family, but Paul doesn’t believe that at all. The biblical concept of faith is the belief that God’s promises will come true (see Romans 4:21). Thus, when God gave Abraham his first promise and Abraham believed it and lived according to it, he was in covenant with God. That doesn’t mean that he earned that status by having faith; the promise had already been made. The faith he exhibited was the sign or badge that he was in covenant with God.

In Genesis 12, Abraham is promised that all nations of the earth would be blessed through him, while in chapter 15, Paul says that his faith is the clear sign of his covenant status and membership. This is Paul’s whole point. When Abraham believed God’s promise, he was already in covenant with God. When people believe the message of the gospel and have faith by entering into the life of Christ, they are already shown to be Abraham’s children. Nothing else is needed. Faith in the life of Christ is not something to be abandoned in midstream. It is the only horse that will get us to the other side.



Devotioinal Thought

Are you ever tempted to believe that there has to be more to your Christianity than just entering into and having faith in the life of Christ? Do you ever feel that you must do things to earn God’s approval? Faith will lead to good works but it is faith in the life of Christ alone that gives us our new covenant status. Don’t forget that this week. We are in Christ, so we act like it, rather than acting like it to be in Christ.

Galatians 2:15-21

15"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

17"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"



Dig Deeper

There is a memorable scene in the Disney movie "The Lion King," in which the main character Simba is confronted and told that, in effect, he is wasting his life. He has not been living up to the fact that he is the king. He is told that he is more than what he has become because he has forgotten who he really is. The task for Simba, then, is to remember who he is so that he will once again act the way that he should be acting.

According to Paul, the task for Christians is similar but actually the exact opposite. All human beings are born with the proclivity to sin going all the way back to our common ancestor Adam. That is why in Romans 5 Paul says, in essence, that we are all born in Adam. The great call for those who would become Christian is to realize that there is no hope in remaining in Adam and trying to preserve that life. We are dead spiritually in Adam and will die physically as well as remain spiritually dead if we remain in Adam. We are called to lay down our life, die to self and enter into the life of the Messiah (Rom. 6:3-4). This is why Jesus told his followers that He was the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). This is the reason that the task for the Christian is precisely the opposite as it was for the young lion. We don’t need to remember who we are, we need to forget who we were. We need to retrain ourselves to our new life in Christ and walk according to the animating power of the Spirit rather than walk according to the animating power of the flesh (see Romans 8). All Christians need to lose their old identity and reconstruct a new one, the life of Christ in them.

That’s precisely why Paul was so adamant about what was going on in Antioch and why he wants to make this point very clear to the Galatians. What is going on isn’t a mere minor doctrinal difference or varying opinions on Scriptural interpretation. The issue of whether Gentiles must become Jews first to be considered full members of the body of Christ is part of the central issue of the new family created in the Messiah. This is a matter of Christian identity and who people are in Christ. The real question is who are the true people of God? Is it all those who have died to themselves and entered, through the waters of baptism, into the life of the Messiah (Rom. 6:3-4) or is it only Jewish Christians (and those Gentiles who have converted to Judaism by being circumcised and following the law) with Gentile Christians remaining a sort of second-tier level of Christian? Were all people who had entered into the life of Christ be accepted as the Messiah’s people or were they not?

Paul’s answers focuses on the point that God’s true Israel was one person, the Messiah. This is what Jesus meant in John 15:1 when He said, "I am the true vine." Based on Old Testament passages like Isaiah 5, the vine had become a powerful symbol of God’s Israel. Jesus was the true Israel and the true king. In the Jewish mind, the king represented the people so that what was true of him was true of his people (David fighting Goliath and representing all Israel is an example of this). Thus, if Jesus is God’s son, then those who enter into His life and become His people are as well.

Paul beings this section by addressing his fellow Jews reminding them that, as Christians, they know that salvation does not come through strict observance of the law. It should be noted that Paul never forbids anyone from following the law. If it makes them feel more comfortable or their conscience yet demands that they follow it, that is fine. What they cannot do is to begin to believe that it is necessary to their status in Christ to follow the law, nor should they ever demand that anyone else do so. The only way to be justified (which is Paul’s shorthand word for covenant membership) is to have faith that the only way to the life of the age to come, both now and after the resurrection when the age to come is fully consummated, is to enter into the life of the Messiah. Jews may have liked the law, and Paul does not have a problem with that at one level, but they must remember that they will never be justified by following the law, no one will be justified by observing the law.

Paul asks the question that if while seeking to be in Christ, what happens if it becomes obvious that someone is a sinner? Is this a category mistake proving that the person is not in Christ after all? Is he trying to imply that Peter and the others are in sin and not in Christ at all? This is not at all what Paul is trying to say. Those in Christ are not sinless, nor does the evidence of some sin in their life demonstrate that they are automatically trying to rebuild the life in Adam that they destroyed by entering into Christ. Learning to live up to the new identity given us in Christ through God’s grace is a process that takes time.

If one were to understand that the whole of the law pointed to the need for Christ, then they would understand that through the law we die to the law and the old way of life so that we might live for God. All those in Christ have been crucified with Christ and no longer live. If we no longer live then who are we? That’s the whole point. Our life no longer belongs to us, it belongs to Christ. We are the Messiah’s people with his life now at work in us. When Paul says we live by faith then, he’s not referring to some sort of mental assent to the fact that Jesus died, was resurrected, and is the Son of God. He means that we die to ourselves and, by faith, live the life of the Messiah. That is the badge that the true people of God have. We don’t try to find anything else to justify us, nor do we seek to live our own lives. We realize that for us to live is to be the life of Christ and to die to ourselves is to gain the true life of Christ (Phil. 1:21).

Paul ends the chapter with more reminders that trying to add the Jewish law to the life in Christ is to actually set aside the grace of God. If the life of the age to come and resurrection could be gained through the law then there was absolutely no need for Christ. If there was no need for Christ then he died for nothing. Paul’s obvious, but unspoken point, is that the life of Christ is the only way, so, of course, he did not die for nothing. Their task and ours is to live as though that is the case.



Devotional Thought

The central call of the Christian faith is to die to our lives, to no longer have faith in ourselves or anything else in the present age, and to enter into the life of Christ; to have faith in that and that alone. When was the last time you contemplated what that means for you on daily basis? If it’s been a while, take some time to do that today.

Galatians 2:11-14

Paul Opposes Peter

11When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

14When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?



Dig Deeper

It was one of the coldest and snowiest days of my life (at least that’s what my six-year-old memory tells me). I distinctly remember standing inside looking out our front picture window at, what was to me, an incredible sight. We were in the tail-end of a blizzard and the snow was still blowing and swirling, and I knew it was bitterly cold. Yet, out in the midst of it all, digging out of a knee-high snow was my dad with his shovel, with the snow swirling and blowing all around him. He was wearing his fatigue jacket, that I believe he had kept from his days at the Air Force Academy, and a ski mask. I recall staring out the window, watching him and believing that my dad was the strongest man in the universe. He was even better than Superman. That memory has always, and will always stick in my mind, but as I have grown up, I have learned that my dad isn’t superhuman. He’s a regular guy with regular faults and weaknesses. For some people, this type of realization is crushing; it devalues the person in their eyes. It should not be that way, however. The more I realized how regular my dad was, the more I realized how extraordinary he was. Here’s a guy who sacrificed for us constantly (whether it be waking up at 4:00 AM for thirty years to go to work or many of the other ways), who trained us well, who constantly taught us valuable lessons about life, and who most of all loved us selflessly. He didn’t do all that because he was Superman and it came naturally. He did those things because he was determined to rise above his normal human fallen nature for our benefit.

When we read passages like our reading today, we can tend to really lose our respect for men like Peter. How could he blow it so spectacularly? How could an apostle, Jesus’ right hand man, continue to make obvious mistakes like this? Rather than having our faith shaken or being disturbed by such an account, though, we should realize all the more that Peter is a man worthy of respect. He was a fallen sinner, like anyone else. Being an apostle didn’t make him superhuman. Quite the opposite. He had more challenges and more temptations to face. Yet, rather than his occasional failures forever diminishing our opinion of Peter and the others, it should make us glorify God all the more for the incredible things that he did through Peter. Peter was a man who, in Christ, was determined to rise above his normal human fallen nature for the benefit of others. His faults don’t define him, his location in Christ does.

We should start by noting that we have no idea when or why Peter came to Antioch or for how long, but we can safely assume that it was at least long enough for him to develop a habit of eating with Gentile Christians and then to reject that when the men from Jerusalem came. Antioch had become, however, a center of the Christian community during the fierce persecutions in Jerusalem, so it’s not a major surprise that we would find Peter there for a period of time.

To truly understand the depth of this situation, we have to understand that table-fellowship in the ancient world was one of the most powerful symbols they had. Whether you accepted or denied table-fellowship with certain groups of people said everything about whether you accepted them as equal to you or not. This is probably not the message that Peter intended to send, but he was sending it nonetheless. The common meal may have taken place for the entire church or it may have been solely for those who were supported by the church to be in the ministry. When Peter refused to have table-fellowship with them at a regular meal, he also would have done so at the Lord’s Supper. Thus, this passage is directly related to previous passage dealing with circumcision. The conservative Jews who came from James (this does not imply that James sent them, as in fact James seems to deny in Acts 15:24) felt that the Gentiles were not fully Christian because they had not become Jews and had not been circumcised. Peter’s hypocrisy would have sent the message to the Judaizers that they were right: The Gentiles were second-class Christians at best that did indeed need to follow the whole law.

What galls Paul the most is not that Peter did this due to considerations of conscience or even trying to be all things to all men, he did it because he was afraid of the ‘circumcisers’. Even worse than that, the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, to the point that even Barnabas was led astray. Even nearly two thousand years later we can feel the particular sting of the words "even Barnabas," the man who had stood by Paul’s side so many times. Paul had to act quickly and decisively or the great message of the unity of the gospel in Christ would be for naught. There would be two communions in Antioch and eventually two different Christian communities, one Jew and one Gentile. Perhaps some thought that this was just a small sacrifice for peace with the men from Jerusalem and they could go back to normal once they left. But this was not a sacrifice that Paul was willing to make. There are certainly times and places for Christians to limit their freedoms for the sake of the conscience of other Christians, but this was not one of those times. This was an issue that was central to the whole message of the gospel. Was being in Christ enough, or were there more requirements than that. This is not something that could be played around with.

Up to this point, the discussions concerning this topic had been privately but Paul knows that this is serious and must be dealt with publicly. He shows incredible conviction and courage in standing up to the man who was, in the minds of many, the preeminent apostle. He was, after all, Jesus’ right hand man. Yet Paul did not fear man, he feared God and knew that when the true gospel was being compromised, he had to stand up and speak out. Regardless of his motives, Peter’s actions were playing directly into the hands of those who would divide the body of Christ. Paul needed to shock Peter into a realization of that. No doubt, Peter would not say that the Gentile Christians were not as good as Jewish Christians, but he had failed to see that this is what his actions were saying. The man who had done so many wonderful things, but had also taken his eyes off of Jesus while walking on water, and had denied Christ on the night of his crucifixion, was taking his eye off Christ one more time and needed to be corrected. He needed to be shocked out of the play-acting Peter and back to the real Peter who knew in his soul that in Christ, God had created a new family of Jews and Gentiles. Peter had spent a lifetime looking at the Gentiles as barely human but all that had changed in Christ. When hard-line Jewish Christians came, Peter blinked for a moment and held up a mask of Jewish respectability, to the point that the other Jewish Christians followed suit. Paul will go on to theologically develop this point further in the verses to come, but his primary point is clear. Once you have entered into Christ, that’s all there is to it. There are no divisions and certainly no masks are required in the body of Christ.



Devotional Thought

When others make mistakes do you focus on the disappointment or do you choose to look at the glory of God in the other areas of their life? In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul says that the power of the gospel is that we begin to recognize the glory of God in the faces of other Christians. Do you make an effort to see the power of God in other Christians despite their moments of weaknesses; do you allow yourself to focus on the power of God in their life?

Galatians 2:6-10

6As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message. 7On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. 8For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. 10All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.



Dig Deeper

Throughout the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had a nearly impossible task. He had to somehow try to walk the middle ground between being seen as a war-mongering abolitionist by some while at the same time being seen as a compromising anti-abolitionist by others. Walking down the middle of those two sides was politically dangerous and was a job that could not have been pulled off by most men. It put Lincoln in the difficult position, though, of never being able to satisfy anyone. What he had to demonstrate was that he would fight the war if forced to but he didn’t want a war; that he desired to free the slaves but wouldn’t do so at the expense of the Union or in such a reactionary fashion that it could easily be declared illegal and overturned. All throughout the war, Lincoln worked hard to find the middle ground between the two political sides and keep the country unified.

Paul, of course, would have known nothing of the specific issues that faced Abraham Lincoln, but he would have been extremely familiar with the concept of having to try to walk a dangerous middle path and forge unity between groups on two different sides of an issue. Paul has been put in an extremely precarious position. He has been accused of being under the thumb of the true apostles in Jerusalem, having received his gospel from them before twisting it due to his own unstable and unreliable personality. So, he was put in the position of having to defend himself against that. If he doesn’t, then his opponents will be able to swoop into the Gentile churches around the world and steal away the freedom they have in Christ by convincing them that they must uphold the entire law of Moses in order to be a Christian. Yet, while he defends himself against these type of attacks, he must be very careful not to appear too independent. He certainly doesn’t want emphasize to his independence and, in the process, offend the apostles like James, Peter, and John. Even more importantly, he doesn’t want to push the case for Gentile freedom in Christ too far so it comes at the expense of unity with the Jewish Christians. The unity of the family of God is, in the end, the most important thing for Paul, just as unity of the country was the vital issue for Lincoln. Thus, Paul must carefully walk down the middle of road without slipping off the precipice on either side.

Paul begins this passage of his dangerous tightrope journey by referring to those who seemed to be important. In verse 2 he called them "those who seemed to be leaders," and in verse nine will refer to them as "those reputed to be pillars," while revealing that he is specifically talking about James, Peter, and John. Paul certainly believes in leadership in the Church, but he more believes that God is the ultimate authority and one to be reverenced. So, Paul is careful to stress that the only one whose approval he is ultimately concerned with is God’s while at the same time not appearing to be offensive to the three eminent apostles. Yet, it does appear that Paul is more acrimonious towards the three apostles than is probably the case. Why, though, has he used terms like these that seem a bit sarcastic or derogatory? It could simply be that Paul is stressing that He values God’s authority far more than man, but it seems more likely that Paul is as he often does (in his letters to the Corinthians, for example) turning around something that was used by the Judaizers and sarcastically making a point. They, very likely, had constantly referred to the apostles in Jerusalem as the truly important, the real leaders, the true pillars of the Church, while Paul was just a pretender. Understood in this way, Paul has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek as he makes clear that his critics are viewing these godly men and authority in the Church from a human point of view rather than a godly one. His issue, then, is not with the apostles but with the inappropriate way that his critics have exalted them.

Paul is clear throughout the first two chapters, that three important things came out of his meetings with the apostles. The first is that they didn’t add anything to the gospel he was preaching. It was in no way deficient; he didn’t need to add a command to get circumcised. The second is that they gladly agreed to a division of labor. Paul would go the Gentile world and they would carry the gospel to the Jewish world (it must have been a bit ironic for Peter who was the one who opened the mission to the Gentiles as a result of the vision he received in Acts 10; see also Acts 15:7). The third thing is that they extended the right hand of fellowship. In that culture the left hand was the unclean hand, but clasping right hands signified friendship and trust. This must have been quite a blow to the Judaizers. If Paul and Barnabas were accepted as friends, and Paul’s gospel was accepted, then this meant that Paul’s apostleship was being accepted and, in fact, the whole Gentile Christian world was being accepted into the family of believers. The apostles recognized that it may not have been the way they would have envisioned, but God seldom works in ways that we expect. God had undeniably given Paul His grace to carry out his mission and all they could do was recognize it. Paul’s opponents had, no doubt, hoped that the apostles in Jerusalem would reject Paul and his mission, but the reality was it was never theirs to reject or accept, for what God had commissioned they could only embrace. The apostles realized God’s grace evident in Paul’s ministry (the same grace evident in their own ministries) and realized to reject his mission would be to illegitimize their own.

Paul says that the apostles did have one request of him. That he would continue to remember the poor, the very thing he had been doing all along. Although this may include the poor in general, it is likely that they were referring more specifically to the poor in the Jerusalem church. The request from the apostles does not imply that they thought Paul might not do that, quite the contrary. It is a confirmation of what he had been doing. They were basically saying "keep up the good work." This, of course, would have been encouraging to Paul because he was eager to continue his great project of collecting money for the Christians in Jerusalem among the Gentile churches. For Paul this was not only a very effective opportunity to teach the Gentile Christians how to truly give, love, and serve their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but, in Paul’s mind, it was an important symbol that demonstrated to everyone involved the incredible fact that Jews and Gentiles really had become God’s one people when they entered into the life of Jesus Christ.



Devotional Thought

Paul and Peter worked in very different ways to carry out God’s plan yet they clearly recognized God’s grace and the fact that He was at work in the ministry of one another. Are you humble enough to recognize God’s grace in those around you who may work differently or be used by God in a different way than you do? What do you do when confronted by such a situation? Does your pride kick in or do you remain determined to recognize God's grace in the lives and work of others?

Galatians 2:1-5

Paul Accepted by the Apostles

1Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. 3Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

Dig Deeper

Gangs are often a big thing for youth in the inner city. It isn’t just a way to spend time. It becomes their life. The gang determines your friends, your enemies, how you spend your time, where you live, and many other aspects of your life. For those who are involved in gangs, identifying with the gang that you belong to is a huge thing. The badges that identify each individual to their gang are huge. It is not something to be messed with, avoided if you are in a gang, or copied if you are not. It gets to the point where the identifying badges are nearly as important as being in the gang. Those familiar with gangs know that the most common of these identifying badges are tattoos, the colors of the clothes, and symbols on the clothing that are worn. These identifying badges mean a great deal as they separate "us" from "them" and keep the group together and cohesive in a very symbolic but important way.

In a very similar vein, this is how circumcision operated for the Jews. It was the identifying badge of the covenant between God and His people. It was the badge that constantly reminded them that they were God’s people and other people were not. Thus, whether or not one was circumcised was no small thing. It was far bigger than the ceremony surrounding it or the piece of skin that it entailed. It was virtually synonymous with being God’s people. To not be circumcised was akin to a wholesale rejection of God. Imagine the shock and horror, then, for Jewish Christians, especially extremely conservative and zealous Jewish Christians who heard that Paul was teaching the Gentile Christians that they did not need to be circumcised. How could they be the people of God? This was no small thing to have large groups of people running around claiming to be the people of God if they were not respecting the identifying badge that went with it. Without circumcision, in the eyes of the Jewish Christians, there was no way that they could or should be considered as part of God’s family. How could they be considered as such by such disrespectful behavior? Something had to be done, so a group of those who believed this way shuffled off to inform the Gentile Christians that Paul’s message was okay in so far as it went, but he had missed some very important items like circumcision and the importance of showing reverence for God by following His law. For Paul, though, it was all about entering into Christ. Living by faith because one was in Christ was the only identifying badge anyone needed; they no longer needed to rely on such things as circumcision. Thus, it all comes to a head in the issue of circumcision and who exactly God’s people are. Is it only about being in Christ and living by faith, or was there more to it than that?

Paul says that fourteen years later he went to Jerusalem again (whether it was fourteen years after his conversion or his first visit is not clear nor is it clear which visit to Jerusalem described in Acts this visit corresponds to - the one in chapter 11 or 15 - although it was probably his visit to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15). Paul went to lay before them the gospel that he had already been preaching for years. By this time it was too late for him to be influenced by them or receive his gospel from them. At this point all they could do is to reject it or accept it. Thus, in setting his message before them, Paul now does precisely what he had not done so many years before. Paul acts in a manner opposite to what he had done before because circumstances have changed. This shows him to be a wise and godly individual (by saying that he went due to a revelation he shows that he went purely because he believed that God told him to go) but opens him up to the charge of being weak-minded and inconsistent in the eyes of those who would think in a worldly manner.

When Paul says that he did this for fear that [he] was running or had run [his] race in vain, he does not mean that he worried that he was teaching a false gospel. He was clearly confident that he had been called by God and was answering that call (Gal. 1:1, 15-16). Paul is aware that his God-given commission would not be complete if there was a division between his Gentile churches and the leaders in Jerusalem. He went to confirm the unity between these two wings of God’s family not to confirm the gospel he was preaching. If Jerusalem denounced and disowned his Gentile mission then his work in evangelizing the Gentile world would be greatly frustrated. If the unity of the church was denied, it would greatly undermine the message of God’s one family that Paul had been preaching. The concept of all believers being one in Christ would not be destroyed (it would still be true) but it would be greatly damaged (of course this damage would be caused by the disobedience of men rather than the message of the Kingdom being untrue). Paul presented his message to the leaders in Jerusalem in the hopes that they would readily embrace his mission and his message, and that is precisely what they did.

The language in verse 3 is difficult to understand and demonstrated the great intensity of emotion that Paul was feeling. He was, evidently under pressure by some (probably at the council in Jerusalem) to get circumcised but he did not give in. The fact that it became such an issue, though, clearly left Paul upset and emotional. Paul had brought the Gentile Titus with him as a living example of the diversity in Christ that had come as a result of his Gentile mission. Yet, some, whom Paul calls false brothers demanded that he be circumcised. This is where it all came to a head. Would Titus be considered a brother because of his status in Christ or would he have to take on the badge of circumcision and become a Jew to be fully accepted as a brother? Paul calls these men false brothers because they would not accept Titus as a true brother unless he became a Jew. Paul says that they had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. This implies that their primary loyalty was to the tradition of their badges rather than the gospel of Christ or His church. They were adding adherence to the Jewish customs to entering into the life of Christ which means that they were not relying on His life at all.

Paul, with the blessing of the leaders in Jerusalem, had held firm and not forced Titus to be circumcised. The gospel that he had preached to them had been shown to be genuine. Those who lived by faith that they could die to themselves and enter into the life of Christ would enter into the one, true, and unified family of God; nothing more, nothing less.



Devotional Thought

Paul felt strongly that the only that mattered in determining who was and who was not part of the family of God was whether they had entered into the life of Christ as was evidenced by living by faith. Is this your sole standard in determining whether or not someone is your brother or sister or have you let other criteria seep into your thinking?

Galatians 1:18-24

18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother. 20I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24And they praised God because of me.



Dig Deeper

As Christians we usually think of being independent as a negative quality, yet depending on the circumstances, it is not always that way. I once knew a young man who grew up in a very tough neighborhood. Both of his parents struggled with dependency on drugs and alcohol and were not very reliable or trustworthy on a regular basis. The vast majority of his siblings and cousins either were in and out of jail or involved in activities that would soon land them there. There were also precious few role models for him to look at and admire while growing up in his neighborhood. Normally the deck would have seemed stacked against a young man growing up in circumstances like that but he was extremely independent and stubborn. Normally, neither of those are well-thought-of qualities, yet they served him well. He was determined to not be influenced by the people and things around him and he succeeded precisely because of his independence.

Although Paul was certainly in different circumstances than this young man, they did have one thing in common. The trait of independence, which is so often a negative, proved to be an advantageous quality in certain circumstances. Paul’s critics from Jerusalem that have gone to Galatia have accused him of being nothing more than a pawn of the Christians in Judea, especially the apostles. He is nothing, they claimed, but an apprentice teacher to the real apostles, one who had completely mucked up the message of the gospel that they were actually preaching. He was, according to these teachers, distorting the gospel to make it easier for Gentiles in order to please men and gain a larger following. So these men went to Galatia, claiming that they were the ones who truly knew the sort of gospel that the real apostles and Christians in Judea were teaching. They should be listened to, not this confused wannabe apostle.

Paul’s whole point in these opening passages is that he is independent. In claiming this, though, Paul must walk a fine line because Christianity is a religion of unity. He must show that, on one hand, he received his calling and his mandate to preach the gospel independently of the apostles and the Judea Christians, yet his message was not independent or different. He had arrived at the same gospel, but through independent means. He never sat at the feet of Peter, James, John or any other apostles. His gospel message came directly from Christ and the Scriptures, but Paul will also carefully show that it was the same gospel that any other of the apostles were preaching, and that he was unified with them.

When we remember the case that Paul is trying to make for his own independence in receiving the message of the gospel, we begin to see his incredible character and integrity. Paul candidly tells the truth here even though it could provide damaging fodder for his critics. It would have made his case appear much stronger to simply say that he never had early contact with Peter or James, but Paul knows that would be lying, so he tells the truth, even if it appears to make his case weaker. He did eventually go up to Jerusalem and even stayed with Peter for fifteen days (a trip that is apparently described in Acts 9:26-28. While he stayed with Peter for fifteen days, he also saw James, but none of the other twelve apostles (although James was an apostle, he wasn’t one of the twelve) We can’t ever be sure of the purpose for his trip other than knowing that it wasn’t to learn the gospel from Peter or James. It is possible, though, that the one ting that Paul would have liked to learn from Peter is some of the details of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is a fairly safe assumption that Paul knew the Old Testament Scriptures well and was able to have his entire theological world shifted once it was revealed to him that Jesus was, in fact, the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. He would have been able to recalibrate his interpretive understanding of the many Messianic passages of the Old Testament based on this new understanding, but it is doubtful that he was anymore knowledgeable about the specific details of the life of Christ than anyone else. This he could learn from Peter and may have but the details of the life and ministry of Jesus were not one-in-the-same with what Paul meant when he referred to the gospel, which was the announcement of the unveiling of the kingdom of god.

Paul realizes that his claim that he did see Peter after three years but did not receive his understanding of the gospel or his commission from him is a fact that will be attacked by his opponents, so he affirms that it is no lie. That wouldn’t be necessary unless Paul understood the risk of him being accused of lying.

Paul gives us some very important but easily missed details as this chapter comes to a close. He was personally unknown to the churches of Judea (literally, it says the congregations in Galatia that are in Christ) and yet, what was their response when they heard the report? Before we get to that, don’t miss the point that Paul has made another subtle point here. He was already preaching the gospel before he was known to the churches in Judea. We might expect though, that the response from the churches would be "that horrible Paul is now preaching some fake gospel, a watered-down version of the real thing." Yet, that was not at all there response. There certainly was some fear that it might all be a trick, and that Paul was trying to win their confidence only to further persecute and destroy the church. What was never in question for them, however, was the fact that he was preaching the true gospel. He hadn’t received it from any of them, he had received it independently. Despite that, here he was, preaching the same gospel that they knew as the true gospel. He was preaching the faith that he once tried to destroy. There was never any charge that he was preaching a different faith until these men came from Jerusalem and started making these claims. Their response, then, was to praise God because he was preaching the true gospel. For Paul it always comes down to a matter of God’s glory. Rather than being a cause for fear or more problems for the church in Judea to deal with, Paul’s independently gained but completely unified message of the gospel was a cause for them to give glory to the one, true God.



Devotional Thought

Certainly none of us could claim that we were given the message of the gospel as a direct result of a revelation from Jesus Christ and free from any human influence. Yet, would the message of the gospel that we proclaim cause other Christians to praise God? Do you regularly proclaim the gospel at all?

Galatians 1:10-17

10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul Called by God

11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

13For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.



Dig Deeper

When I was in college, I spent one summer giving tours at an historical mansion in my hometown. One morning I went to turn the lights on in the house, which was extremely secure, soundproof when on the inside, and locked. I was the only one on the grounds at the time and as I was going from the second floor to the third floor, I clearly heard a man’s voice yell out "Nellie" twice (which happened to be the name of one of the residents of the house in the 1850’s). To this day, I don’t know if what I heard was demonic or not, but there didn’t seem to be any rational explanation for what I experienced. What was ironic was, at the time, I was extremely skeptical of any type of ghostly or demonic encounters. Yet, I had experienced something that couldn’t be explained. When I did try to tell people about it, I made it clear that I wasn’t the sort of person that just naturally believed in that type of stuff, but I had heard what I heard. I went to great lengths to demonstrate that my motivation did not come from the fact that I was a nutjob that had ‘experiences’ like that all of the time. If people thought that, they thought wrongly.

Paul’s opponents evidently accused him of ‘being all things to all men,’ but doing so as a way to curry favor with different groups of people, not unlike the way politicians will tell different groups of people different things so as to please them all. In essence, they were claiming that he was a people pleaser who was offering an easy and user-friendly gospel. Paul uses the first nine verses of Galatians to make it clear that this is not at all the case. In his opening verses he has already denounced his detractors, known as the Judaizers, and has sternly rebuked the churches in Galatia. If he was trying to please people, he isn’t doing a very good job. Verse 10 makes it clear that Paul has intentionally taken this tone. Regardless of what it may seem he is not trying to win the approval of men. If people thought that, they thought wrongly. The only thing Paul cares about is doing what pleases God. Paul, then, lays out a principle that can be applied to all areas of life. If you are trying to please men, you cannot please God nor call yourself a servant of Christ. We should note that Paul asks if he was still trying to please men, implying that he clearly believed that when he was a Pharisee, he was ultimately pleasing men even though he that at the time that he was pleasing God. He also makes the implication that the Judaizers are, in fact, the ones that are trying to please man because they are certainly not pleasing God.

As Paul often does, though, he doesn’t merely offer up rebukes to those who have mischaracterized or challenged him. He doesn’t arrogantly dismiss any charges against him and challenge people to blindly accept his authority and authenticity. He takes the time to calmly explain his position and demonstrate why he claims he is who he says he is.

For starters, he informs his readers that the gospel that he preached was not something that was passed to him by the brothers in Jerusalem or any other man. No one taught it to him, rather he received it directly from Jesus Christ. We know that one of the criterion for being a disciple was an experience with the risen Christ, and Paul definitely believed himself to be a legitimate apostle. This means that he believed that his experience with Jesus, particularly on the road to Damascus was as real as any other resurrection experience.

Whether they heard of Paul’s previous way of life from him or from someone else is not clear, but he obviously trusts that they know about it. They know that he persecuted the church. Paul uses the same word for persecute here, ediokon, that is used in Acts 9:4 which says, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" It should not be missed that Paul was persecuting the church, but when it comes to Christ, what is true of His people is true of Him. Thus, Paul realizes that in his zeal, he wasn’t just persecuting the people of God but the God of the people. His point in reminding them of this is that he was no people pleaser. Even at that time, he did what he thought was pleasing to God with unparalleled zeal. He held tightly to the traditions that the Judaizers were purporting to be so vital, so something drastic must have happened to make him change his mind.

What was it that changed his mind? The fact that God had called him by his grace. In the Old Testament times it was the prophets that were called by God and not man. The prophet had a word from God that he could not keep from speaking (see Jeremiah 20:9 for an example). They spoke the words of God regardless of how unhappy it made men (Jer. 26:10-11; 1 Ki. 19:2). Paul makes it very clear that this is how he sees himself. The apostles are the prophets of the new covenant and Paul clearly ties himself in this passage to the prophets of the Old Testament. He says that God had set me apart from birth. This is language reminiscent of the prophet who was (in language that would probably best be understood as a figure of speech) set apart in the womb by God (Jer. 1:5).

He also says that when he was confronted with the risen from Christ, he went to Arabia. Why would he do that? Paul tells us in v. 14 that he belonged to the tradition of zeal for the law which included violence to uphold the law if need be, something he was more than capable of. The two great heroes of this tradition were Phinehas (Num. 25) and Elijah who slayed the prophets of Ba’al (1 Ki. 18). Yet, in chapter 19 of 1 Kings, Elijah was stopped in his tracks by the threats of Ahab and Jezebel. He responds by going to Horeb (another name for Mt. Sinai) apparently to resign his commission as prophet but he is met by God. While there he was given a new mission from god (1 Ki. 19:15-18). Paul was no doubt quite aware of the Phinehas-Elijah tradition and was more than ready to resort to physical violence against those whom he saw as compromisers (see Acts 22:3-5). When he was stopped in his tracks by his encounter with the risen Christ, he did what Elijah did. He went to Mt. Sinai, which is in Arabia. Paul did what a puzzled prophet would do; he went to the mountain of God to resign what he saw as his commission and perhaps receive a new mission from God. Paul is basically informing us that when he heard God’s voice telling him that the messianic victory over evil had already been won in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, he had to realize that the true remnant of God’s people were the Christians who had been saved by grace and marked out by faith, apart from ethnic identity and the works of the law. Out of his fear and devotion to God, he had no choice but to renounce his former zeal and announce the Messiah to the world. Thus, Paul is clear that he has never been a man that worried about intentionally pleasing men. For Paul it had always been about pleasing God, regardless of the personal cost.



Devotional Thought

Paul believed that it was the message not the person of the messenger that validated what someone was preaching. Do you rely more on your reputation and what others think of you or do you stand alone on the foundation of your message? Paul was confident that his message and his life matched up, would he say the same thing about you?