Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: So you can open your Bibles to Galatians. I know, I have it typed out on that handout, which you can use. But it is always helpful to be able to see surrounding context. You know, perhaps I'm forgetting something or missing something, or you can kind of put pieces together from stuff outside of those sections. That's a really good exercise for what we're doing. And what we're doing is a what type of study?
Inductive Levi, you raised your hand. You know, good job you don't have. I guess you didn't have to raise your hand for that. What is an inductive Bible study? What does that mean? What do we do?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: It's like using the Bible to study the Bible.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah, using the Bible to study the Bible. We study from the what to the what?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: The inside to the outside.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah, from the inside out. We start with the immediate context and kind of grow. We don't do it meticulously like that with each and every word and phrase, but, you know, we make some assumptions, but that's really what you can be doing with each little bit, working from the inside out to understand the whole message, not only of the passage, but of the whole Bible. This passage does help us understand the whole Bible.
Can anyone kind of remind the group, because some of us come and go, miss various weeks. What are some of the highlights or main points of Galatians so far? We've just entered chapter two.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Kind of Paul saying, like, there's like, false teachings.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: And like, his is not like, from, like, he's like, teaching the gospel and hemisphere. Because, like, comes from God.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's a really good summary. He's telling them that he's preached a Gospel that was revealed to him by God, by Jesus. And we even read about that in Acts, chapter 9.
Compared to some of their beliefs being spread by false Gospels. Does anybody know what these false teachings, false Gospels were? Like, what's a word that could describe them?
Begins with L.
Yeah, it was kind of legalism. You could say it in other ways. Like we've said, they're confusing the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, demanding that some Old Covenant laws must be directly applied to New Covenant believers. Specifically what?
Yeah, circumcision, which we've said is the sign of the covenant. So this is a physical sign that marked off the Jewish peoples, via the men, to the rest of the world. So it marked them off. Importantly, the New Covenant also has a covenant sign, but it's different. What is the New Covenant sign? The sign that marks off God's people from the rest of the world.
Yeah, baptism. And then in a continuing way after baptism. What?
Yeah, communion. That's right. Those two things mark us off from the rest of the world. That's why we practice them. It's not merely just this symbol of someone being dipped because Jesus was dipped, which is true, but it's more than that. It is marking us off from the world. Same with remembering the body and the blood as we partake of that as believers. So that's kind of the heart of Galatians. I think it's a good summary. We're going to hop back in. We're in chapter two, verse six.
I'm going to start at the beginning of chapter two and read through verse 10. And if we have time, we'll go on from there, but we'll just start there. Try to get a little running start. Paul writes, then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately, before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running, or had not run in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery to them, we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
And now, picking up in verse six, and from those who seemed to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality. Those I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised. For he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles. And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised, only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
We'll stop there.
So let's just go through this verse six. And from those who seem to be influential and then we'll kind of skip that parenthesis mark for a bit, at least if you don't have parentheses, I do. And those who seem to be influential, those I say who seemed influential, added nothing to them, so. Or to me, to him and his missionaries. As a continuation, Paul is seeking out the influential people in Jerusalem, which we did kind of talk about last week. What does he mean when he says they added nothing to him?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: He wasn't influenced by the teaching.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah, he wasn't. You know, he may have been influenced in a way you could imagine, but his gospel, the message he preaches, doesn't change. They didn't say, oh, you also need to make sure to tell them that, you know, Christ raised from the dead because he wasn't doing that. No, all of the, you know, what you would call the essential points of the gospel were there. And so there's no essential point of the gospel that he had to then add because he didn't know about it previously.
So it's not that there was no benefit, even no influence he got from these other apostles. We could imagine he was encouraged by them and they got to, you know, share stories of what they had been doing in different parts of the world. But the important part in context is since we're talking about the gospel message, nothing to that is being added to.
And then in that parenthesis in between those two parts where he talks about the influential people not adding to him, he says what they were.
Makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality.
So is Paul being rude here?
What do you think?
Probably going to say? No, but why not?
He's just saying what they were. Doesn't matter. He's talking about Peter, James, and John.
Let me ask another question. Maybe you guys can deal with this one a little better.
He's saying God shows no partiality, referring to these pillars. Right. Peter, James, and John.
Why is that a big deal? That God shows no partiality even to them?
Yeah, they were all called by him. Does it mean anything for us, though?
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Maybe, like, we can, like, we can, like, share the gospel just as well as that they did and, like, go through things that they did because, like, they're no different than us.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that is also a relevant. Yeah, that's. That's true, exactly. Anything else?
Yeah, yeah. Our worth isn't less than theirs. I think those are both really, really great examples.
And it is so important that, look, we talk, you know, we might think about Peter and Paul and John and James and these guys as really, really just big figures. You know, you think, you know, if I could have the faith of Paul, that'd be incredible.
And that's true. And Jesus appeared to them individually so we could be tempted to think, wow, look, we are really insignificant compared to them. If we just added up the merits and the things that they did in their life, they probably outnumber us all.
And if God is showing partiality based on these sorts of traits, then okay, you know, he's going to look on the well studied pastor who has loved people his whole life compared to a young Christian who is struggling with sin differently. But he doesn't do that.
Why doesn't God look upon different people? Even between an apostle and me or someone else, that is seemingly insignificant. Why can God look at them with no partiality?
We're all sinners.
Yes, I think that's true. Is there anything else you, you might add?
[00:10:42] Speaker B: So we're all like Christians and so it's like, I feel like it's like God's our Father and like a father wouldn't like kind of like show favoritism.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Yeah. And it, it's true. It's in the grand scheme across the world also that you know, we are all sinners. When he's looking at just Christians, what is he looking at? When he sees the Christian, someone who's been redeemed, what does that mean? When he sees that sinner, what does he actually see?
What is credited to that sinner?
Yeah, he sees the righteousness of his Son and every single Christian, they've been clothed in Jesus holiness. That's what justification means, credited with righteousness. But not one we've earned. And not even just this righteousness that God poof created and put on you. No, it's the righteousness of the Son credited to you. So he looks at all Christians, from Paul to any of you that have believed in Jesus with the same exact righteousness.
That's really, really cool. And so we don't want to skip over this little parenthetical statement because it tells us something essential about God and His justice.
And he can be just and save sinners because sinners can be credited with God's perfect righteousness through faith in His Son.
And that is true even of them.
And so that's why he wants to point this out.
So whoever these influential or non influential Christians were in Jerusalem and the area of Judea, it does not matter ultimately because the gospel that he's been preaching does not change. And God doesn't show partiality to These Jews that walked with him during his life, and even the Gentiles he's writing to in Galatia. There's no partiality between the two.
Continuing, he says, on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, we'll stop. Who are they? So when they saw. Who are they?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: The influential people?
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And it might even just. I don't know if it's the influential people or just all of the Christians in Jerusalem at the meeting, but it's kind of hard to tell. So it's either one or the other. I think it is at least the influential people.
Now, who are the. Just as a reminder, who are the uncircumcised and circumcised are these two groups. Who's the uncircumcised?
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Gentiles.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Gentiles. And so the other, the Jews. So Gentiles include the Galatians. Right. So very much relevant to them, the Galatians and everybody else that are not Jews. Now, how do we know that they were called to those specific peoples? So he's saying I was called to Gentiles, Peter was called to Jews. How do we know this?
Or is he just now telling us off the top of your head? Does anybody know where we might find the evidence of them being called to these peoples?
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Romans?
[00:14:26] Speaker A: That's a good guess, but there may be a little bit in there, but maybe less specific to those people. The Gospel was first given to the Jews and then the Greeks. We read in Romans 1. But specifically for Peter and Paul, we can see at least Paul in Galatians 1:16, God was pleased to reveal his Son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. And Also in Acts 9, 16, this is when he was converted.
We read, but the Lord said to Ananias. He said, sorry. He said, go for. He was telling Ananias to go to Paul. He said, go for. Paul is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles.
And so we know that Paul was specifically set apart for this by at least these two verses. There might be a couple others, but at least by these. And it's also clear, and also somewhere else in Acts, that Peter was sent to the Jews, but also revealing to him that Gentiles are being grafted into this covenant.
And so that's kind of how we know who they're called to go to.
Now verse eight, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles. So this also helps us to see more clearly that he is using circumcised and uncircumcised as metonyms. Does anybody know what a metonym is?
Anybody?
That's okay. I don't think I would have known.
Maybe there's a grammar nerd in here.
So it really is just a metonym is a word that is symbolic for a larger group. So it's related in that, yes, Jews are circumcised.
And he's just using it to refer to Jews, not merely just like that, one aspect of their bodies. He's talking about Jews in general or Gentiles in general by using one descriptor of them.
And so that's how he's using it constantly.
But he kind of goes back and forth. We see him, especially with Gentiles, we'll see him go between gentiles and uncircumcised. So don't get lost in that. He's just going back and forth to show us that these are, you know, the same group of people.
Now in verse eight, I want you to lay your eyes on it. Is there anything significant about this verse that you see?
Anything at all?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: It.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Is there nothing significant in this verse.
It's in parentheses. But those were added by translators.
Greek didn't have parentheses.
But that doesn't mean it's unimportant. I think it means it's really important. He's explaining something.
What's he.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: That God would show partiality to one apostle in their work.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. God would not show. He's not showing partiality to one apostle in his work.
It's showing something about God's plan.
It's showing us, well, one, that the gospel is the same because their God is the same. Even though the gospel is going to different peoples. We don't change the gospel when we go from Jews to Gentiles, just like we wouldn't change the gospel when we preach it in America or preach it in India.
You know, you might. You would speak in a different language and use different cultural references for illustrations. You know, lots of things in their forms might look differently, but the gospel doesn't change no matter what people group we go to, because God doesn't change.
It might seem obvious, but in the missions world it's really not.
Often the gospel is being changed to fit a context, but that's not what we should do at all. We're seeing that God is the same, the gospel is the same.
Also that we're all working together.
And also we see that.
What we're seeing here is that God had a plan to redeem peoples from all over the world.
His plan of redemption is far larger than just this ethnic group of Israel. It is far larger than that. And that's important, especially to Galatian Christians, and it's important also to American Christians like us that this God has a plan to bring peoples from all nations to himself.
That's what's significant about verse eight.
Now in verse nine, he goes on and says, and when James and Cephas and John.
Who are these guys? Who's James, brother? Jesus. What else? Is he an apostle? That's Rihus, Cephas, Peter. Yeah, we know who Peter is. He's also an apostle. And John, who's John?
Also an apostle.
Yeah, Jesus did love John, and John reminds us of that.
Yeah. What books did John write?
John.
Yeah, that's right. And also Revelation, first, second, third, John. What did Peter write?
Boom.
I think he helped write Mark. Mark wrote Mark. But Mark was a partner with Peter and probably would have gotten a lot of his understanding and source from Peter himself. So. That's very astute, James. Did he write anything, James? That's right. See, a lot of them are easy. These guys the books are named after themselves from, you know, tradition has named it. Paul doesn't have, you know, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, Paul be a little redundant at some point. But anyway, so we know these guys are.
Why do they matter? What does Paul call them in this passage? I've mentioned it a few times. Yeah, they are pillars. Why do they matter, though?
They're pillars. What does that mean? Why do they matter?
[00:22:11] Speaker B: They were all part of the original apostles that Jesus taught.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they were part of original apostles, that's true. And there were 12 of them. But these three maybe stand out particularly as pillars. Is there anything that happened and during their life, maybe with Jesus life, that maybe kind of helps us understand that they're set apart?
I think the transfiguration is the biggest one. They go and see the Lord transfigured before them. They get a glimpse of what the glorification will look like in seeing Jesus up on that mountain. And so they had a special knowledge and understanding and special revelation of Christ and what glorification at the end of times would look like. And I think that gave them a lot that kind of Made them leaders and pillars in the church. So they do matter.
We also see that they, those very important men gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and Paul.
So what does he mean by that?
[00:23:24] Speaker B: It was like a vowel. Friendship.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: A what?
Yeah, I mean, it could be a vow of friendship. I. I don't know if. If it's necessarily a vow. It might be. I'm unaware of that, but yeah, yeah, I think it's related to that. I don't. Again, I don't know for sure if that's a direct.
All I know, and again, I don't necessarily know everything about this. All I know is that it's just very common for your right hand to be in fellowship. We still do this today. How.
How does your right hand mark fellowship? What do you do with it?
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Shake hands.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: You shake hands, Right. And Caleb did this. So, yeah, you know, greetings of all sorts happen with our right hands, you know, because it's typically the dominant hand probably, but, you know, so we can see in a sense. I don't exactly know how they would have used it physically, but there is a, you know, a friendship, a close friendship even to being, you know, right beside a promise of continuing friendship and fellowship. I think that is important because they recognize that God had indeed entrusted him with the gospel to the Gentiles.
And now you can't maybe see it super clearly, but what happened might be regarded as even judgmental today. I think they heard what Paul taught and met him and made a judgment. He's teaching, and they're saying, you know, they're deciding if what he's teaching is true.
But their judgment isn't deciding whether or not what he taught was true. Their judgment is just recognizing what God has already done. That's so often what we do in the church is recognizing in people what God has done, what not done.
That's a really great parallel, I think, for how churches try to affirm true Christians by baptizing them and letting them join. As we are not declaring that we know for a fact that you're a Christian or he or she is not, but we're saying we recognize, based on the fruit of your life and your testimony that God has done something in you. We are not deciding who is truly saved or not. God does, but we do our best to recognize it accurately so we can recognize what God has done in some people's lives.
And it's not judgmental for churches to do it. We just want to be careful to only affirm what God has actually done.
Now, does this extension to the right hand of fellowship teach us anything about how we should view and treat other churches.
Can you tap him?
Thank you.
Sorry. We can hear you breathing, buddy.
Does. I'll repeat the question. Does this extension of the right hand of fellowship teach us anything about how we should view and treat other churches?
[00:26:54] Speaker B: We should seek to put it.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: We should seek to be closely related.
Yeah, we want to be related. Or how can we be related? You know, what are some examples?
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Just teach the gospel.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Teaching the gospel that, you know, how does gospel do?
[00:27:25] Speaker B: What, like, all, like the same gospel?
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, hopefully, you know, if they're teaching different gospels, they're not really. We. We do not really extend the right hand of fellowship. We wouldn't believe they're true churches. Right.
You know, just some examples like, you know, we can love them in various ways.
Are there any ways that maybe we do this even here? Over there?
Yeah, we pray for them. Right. What church did we pray for just a little bit ago? What?
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Evergreen.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Evergreen, right. You know, you'll sometimes hear it prayed during the service about another church, either close or, you know, a mission partner of some sort.
We can work with them when possible.
You know, and there's some examples for this with community events. I think another way we can work with churches is, you know, don't plant a church next to another gospel preaching church, which, you know, I've seen happen. And it's just kind of silly to do such a thing. It's not, like, needed in the area. You know, be strategic, talking to other churches where you might want to go.
But again, we want to establish and evaluate the trueness of their gospel first, just like these apostles did with Paul. They met him, understood and recognized that God really had revealed to him the true gospel, and they extended fellowship to him. Yeah, I think another way we partner.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: With other churches is through sending missionaries.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we do that all the time. Right. So we give to the Southern Baptist Convention, and a lot of that money goes to missionaries. So we actually partner with tens of thousands of churches to send a lot of missionaries all over the world.
And that's a really great example of how we do this. Now, verse 10 says only they asked us, you know, they. The apostles here, they asked us to remember the poor. The very thing I was eager to do. Who are the poor?
[00:29:41] Speaker B: People with no money.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: People with no money. That's a good guess. Yeah. Is it all the poor or is it a specific group of poor people and you're saying, you know, no money? Okay, are there any other types of Poverty that might be in view.
It could be. Right. That's another good guess.
Let's. I think we get a hint in Acts 11. So turn in your Bibles to Acts 11:27. Yeah, so. Oh, I'm in chapter 27. Chapter 11, verses 27 through 30.
All right, you guys ready? Okay, look down at verse 27. Now, in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, named Agabus, stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
So does this help us? Clue us in? I believe that this is related to this trip that Paul's referring to in Galatians 2.
So how does this. Who are the poor?
If I'm right about the timing.
Yeah. What's Judea? Where is Judea?
What, Jerusalem or Jerusalem's in Judea, right? Yeah. Yeah, I kind of asked that in a confusing way, which I don't know, maybe. You guys have maps? You guys ever look at the maps in the back of your Bible? That actually is kind of helpful sometimes, but you got to make sure you're looking at the right era.
But I think you can see probably in some of them, you can see, like, big words like Galilee and Samaria, Judea. Those are regions. And within those regions, you can see cities like Jerusalem in Judea. So that's important. So he's. They came down from Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and said, hey, all of Judea is going to have a famine. And Paul, we see in other letters like 1st and 2nd Corinthians, also he is collecting money from churches, Gentile churches, churches in Antioch and further into Europe. So he goes through Asia and then into, like, Greece area and then back around. He does this collecting money for Jerusalem.
So he was bringing, I think even in this section of Galatians, financial relief to the Jewish Christians in Judea. So that's why Paul says, I was eager to do this. You know, they say, keep in mind the poor. And he's saying, yeah, I was very eager to do this. You know, that's partly why I'm here. Now there's disagreement. If, you know, Paul goes to Jerusalem in Acts 11, he also goes to Jerusalem in Acts 15. People disagree on what he's referring to in Galatians. I think especially with this talk about remembering the poor. I think that helps give evidence that in Acts 11 he goes. And then he goes again later, which is important in different parts of the book, as we'll see. But so he goes, remembering these poor people and also showing that the Gentile Christians love the Jewish Christians because we worship the same God. And this is true again, of all nations of the world, we worship the same God. Not all religions, Christians of all nations, we worship the same God, we preach the same gospel. And so we should love and support one another when we can.
And even though you might expect the Jewish Christians who receive the gospel first through Jesus himself, you might expect them to be doing this for Gentiles, but Paul is showing the love of the gospel by almost doing it the other way around, going to Gentile churches, collecting for the Jewish Christians, some of whom are requiring legalism and different false things, just to show love and unity among these churches, even despite some disagreements, some important disagreements.
Now, talking about the poor, how can we remember the poor?
What are some ways we can remember the poor today?
We can pray for the poor. That's good.
You know, raise your hand if you pray for the poor regularly.
That's good. That's great. That's good. I don't do it regularly. And I think we should. We should pray for the poor. There are other ways we can help or. And remember the poor.
Share the gospel with them. Yeah, we can share the gospel. That's right. Other ways.
You know, we can find ways to support their living.
So this could be anyone from homeless people to just people who are struggling financially.
And that doesn't just mean handing bags of cash to people on the street. I'm not saying you can't hand money to people on the street, but you can give food to people. You can volunteer at places that serve such. You can volunteer at shelters and rehabilitation centers, which I got to do in seminary. There was a rehabilitation place for homeless people who are getting off of drugs. And I just volunteered by preaching at their chapel. So I wasn't helping them day to day, but I could have if I volunteered in that way. So there are all these different ways that we can help and remember. And we can also just remember the poor by treating everyone like a human and just looking them in the eye like you would any other person. Well, hopefully, you know, you look people in the eye. That's a good thing to remind people that, you know, you see them, care for them, and just kind of looking out. I think these are all great examples, and I encourage you to write one or two of these down and try to implement it this week, especially the prayer part. That's so easy. Such an easy first step.
Now due to time, we'll stop there and pick up in verse 11 next week, or actually in two weeks. Next week will be different. Like I said, pray and then let's go worship. Father God, thank you for your word. God, help us to remember the poor. Lord, we pray that you would open our eyes to see when people are struggling, because it's not always people standing at intersections. It could be people near us even in this church. Help us to see needs and fill them.
Lord, we pray that you would draw people that are impoverished to the church, that we may even support them better because we would know them and be able to preach the gospel to them. Lord, we pray this all in your son's name. Amen.
