BIBLE STUDY WITH ME | Galatians 1

hey guys welcome back to my channel today we are gonna be starting a new Bible study series and I am so so excited as you can see from the title we're gonna be going through the book of Galatians I thought I was pretty familiar with this book but even in just studying through it to prepare for this video there is so much I learned and I know that I'm gonna learn even more in filming this video because that always happens there is always something new to be learned from God's Word and there's a lot of good stuff to be learned in this book so as for why I picked Galatians I had been kind of back and forth between first and second Thessalonians and also first and second Peter I mentioned that at the end of my James study that those were the two I was thinking through and I was just really back and forth I wasn't sure which study to do next and I was talking to a friend about it and he suggested that Galatians might be a good follow-up study to the book of James which we just finished a couple weeks ago if you didn't watch that and so I've spent the past two weeks reading through the book of Galatians and my friend was so right and I want to explain why I think Galatians is a good follow-up to James by giving you a little bit of context on the book so as you know whenever I do a new Bible study series I like to give a little bit of context of the book and I think that anytime you start reading through a new book in the Bible it's a really good idea to do that I mentioned this in all my Bible study series but one of my favorite resources for doing that for getting that context is the Bible project they do books on every single book of the Bible breaking down the historical context who the book was written by who it was written to and the purpose of it and they are so helpful to have that overview and that context as you're going into reading and so a couple things I want to share from that video about the book of Galatians one is the book of Galatians is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul and it was written to a group of churches in the region of Galatia which would be modern-day Turkey so a lot of Paul's letters to churches begin by commending those churches for what they are doing well but the book of Galatians starts a little bit differently so Galatians Paul is actually writing the letter from this place of deep passion and frustration and the reason for that is this Paul had actually visited these churches in Galatia on one of his missionary journeys and during that visit he did named to them the gospel of Jesus Christ he'd given them the good news he had shared the gospel with them and then now in the time since he had left those churches they had begun to adopt these old ways of thinking about the law that following the law specifically the Torah was what they needed to do in order to be justified that following the law was necessary to earn salvation which was the complete opposite message of the gospel that Paul had given to them and so the galatians are adopting this false teaching and they're also preaching it and paul is writing this letter to firmly rebuke them and Paul just comes right and he gets right to the point he is speaking truth and in that there is so much just direct good truth for us to learn from and why I think this is a good follow-up to the study of James is because as you know if you went through the James study with me James really emphasizes that faith without works is dead and if you went through the study with me you know that we talked about how that doesn't mean that our works earn our salvation or that our works earn our faith but rather when we have received the gift of salvation that works are going to be evidence that we have truly received that gift and that our faith is genuine they're going to be a natural byproduct of our faith they're not going to earn it and so the book of Galatians I think is a great follow-up to James because I think that it really helps to clarify a lot of these concepts so if it's not about the law which we're gonna hear about in this book then what is even the purpose of the law and if works don't earn our faith yet works are still important because faith without works is dead then how do we live out the way that God has called us to live without doing so in a way where we are thinking that we are trying to earn our salvation but what is the relationship between law and works and salvation being a free gift but the way we live still being important to God and how do we go about living in the way that he has called us to live and so Galatians is going to bring a lot of clarity to all those things and I am so excited to be studying this book if you haven't gone through one of my study series before basically how it works is I will do one video each week covering one chapter so today we'll be doing Galatians 1 and I'll read through the entire chapter out loud on camera stopping to share some thoughts and then I will pick just one or two verses to dig deeper into and to study and the purpose of that is that it's not realistic to do a deep dive study on every single verse without making this video five hours long but I think it's important to read the whole chapter for the sake of context and really understanding what's going on and then studying those one or two verses is a way of really focusing on okay what can I take from this what can I remember and continue to think about as I'm walking away from this because realistically you're probably not going to remember everything you learned or read about from the whole chapter but what can you really focus on and study and dig deeper and how can you apply that to your life there's my introduction without further ado let's just go ahead and grab our Bibles if you have one feel free to follow along grab a cup of coffee if you want to and open up and turn to Galatians 1 verse 1 Paul an apostle not from men nor through man but through jesus christ and god the father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia so right off the bat Paul is establishing that his authority is not from man but from Jesus Christ and from God who raised him from the dead verse 3 grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be the glory for ever and ever amen I love that Paul leads with the gospel I was just talking to some friends about this in Bible study that it can be hard to know how to share Jesus with other people and to know how to start that conversation but Paul doesn't even ask those questions he just in his introduction presents the gospel message literally not even three sentences in and he is presenting the gospel verse six I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel not that there is another one but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ and so again right off the bat here you see Paul's frustration you see the strong language he's saying I'm astonished I am shocked that you are so quickly turning from the truth that I have presented to you and he's quick to clarify that there is not another gospel that there's only one gospel but that there are people who are looking to distort the true gospel of Christ verse eight but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the we preached to you let him be accursed so Paul is saying I don't care who else comes in and says that the gospel really means this if it's different from what I presented to you if it is different from the true gospel not only disregard that message but let that person who is bringing that false gospel let him be accursed also I meant to mention this in the introduction but if you want to actually read about the missionary journey where Paul goes to these churches in Galatia and presents the gospel to them you can read about that in the book of Acts verse 9 as we have said before so now I say again if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed he says that twice verse 10 for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God am I trying to please man if I were still trying to please man I would not be a servant of Christ this is one of those verses that I think is pretty popular that a lot of people know it and it's just talking about not seeking man's approval but rather seeking God's approval and this is one of the verses I was really familiar with from Galatians and to be honest I never really understood the context of that because Paul is coming in here and he's correcting people who are not living according to the true gospel who are not preaching the true gospel who are distorting truth and he is rebuking those people and he's not afraid to say it like it is he's not afraid to call them out to tell them that what they're believing what they're sharing is not the true gospel and then he circles around and says look I'm not trying to please you guys I'm not trying to win your approval and because of that I'm not afraid to tell you the truth I'm not afraid to correct you because I am not trying to please you but rather I am a servant of Christ I am here to do his work I am here to proclaim his gospel and that is what is driving me what is driving me is not winning over your approval or getting you to like me and I think that a lot of times when our goal is for people to like us that is when we can start to sort of dilute the truth or soften it a little bit but Paul is not afraid to give the full truth because he is serving God and not people I almost sort of picture him saying like you might not like to hear this but that's not really my goal I'm okay with you not liking this I am bringing the message of God I'm correcting where the gospel is being distorted and if you don't like it too bad he is saying I'm not going to compromise the truth just to make it more palatable to you just to make it more comfortable for you because this is the truth and it might be disrupting the way that you are living but that is precisely what I am intending it to do verse 11 for I would have you know brothers I love the way that's phrase I'll have you know guys for I would have you know brothers that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel for I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ and what Paul's referring to there is his conversion he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus that changed his life from being Saul the persecutor of Christians to the person who is now proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles writing most of the books in the New Testament it's this crazy conversion story and if you're not familiar with that story you can check it out in Acts chapter 9 but it is incredible and again that is what he's referring to here he's saying look this wasn't some secondhand thing that was passed along this came directly through revelation from Jesus Christ and he has therefore been given the authority to proclaim this gospel verse 13 for you have heard of my former life in Judaism how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it if you're familiar with the story of Stephen the martyr the first Christian martyr that also happens in the book of Acts Paul is one of the people he was Saul at the time who was standing there looking on as that happened and so Paul is not lying when he says that he violently persecuted the Church of God that he was fully against it doing what he could to destroy it and God got a hold of his life transformed him and now he is somebody who is proclaiming the gospel who God is using in incredible ways verse 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father's and the reason this is important is because this is exactly what the Galatians were trying to adopt they were trying to go back to that old way of believing that adhering to the law is what was going to earn their and so Paul is basically saying like look I've been there I've done that I was beyond anyone in my class I was advanced in Judaism so he's in a way establishing that credibility of saying look if that's what you want to boast about or think that that is what justifies you I have more boasting rights than anyone but verse 15 but when he who had sat me apart before I was born and who had called me by His grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles I did not immediately consult with anyone nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus there's a lot in those couple verses so I love that he's saying in verse 15 he's saying but he who had set me apart before I was born so Paul I don't know how old he was at his time of conversion but he had lived this life already of persecuting Christians and that's who he was known as yet even in that before Paul was ever born God knew the plans he had for him he knew how he was planning to use Paul that he was going to reveal himself he was gonna reveal his son to Paul and he was gonna use Paul to preach the gospel to the Gentiles and I just think that's so encouraging because the same is true for all of us Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which he prepared in advance that we should walk in them before we were ever born God knew the purposes for each and every single one of our lives and regardless of the ways that we have messed up or flat-out rebelled against him God still knew in our darkest moments when we were far from him how he planned to use us and what his purpose was for us and he knew already that story of redemption long before we ever experienced it and the other thing that stands out to me about this verse is that he's saying look when this conversion happened I didn't immediately go and consult with anyone he didn't go up to Jerusalem or to the people who were apostles before but instead he went away to Arabia and he returned to Damascus and what this makes me think is just this time away where he can grow in his knowledge of God cultivate that relationship and it almost reminds me of Jesus how his public ministry didn't begin until he was 30 and he is Jesus right but there were those 30 years of maybe not being up in front of everyone or actively involved in ministry but there were those years of preparation that happened before his public ministry took place and that sort of what I get from what Paul is saying here that this conversion happened but he didn't immediately put himself in front of all these people but he had this time away that I would imagine was full of preparation of just like I said growing to know God that God was using to prepare him for the ministry that was going to be coming verse 18 then after three years so there were three years of being away in Arabia after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas which my commentary made the note is Peter I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas / Peter and remained with him 15 days I don't know if I realized before but I just think that's so cool that Paul and Peter got to spend time together because I just picture Peter as I picture him in all the gospel stories of walking with Jesus and living alongside Jesus and then I picture Paul as being later and being a part of the early church and doing his missionary journeys and his conversion but really those timeframes overlapped and these people were living in the same time and I just think it's so cool that these two figures and the Bible got to hang out for 15 days I'm sure probably more than that too but it's after those three years that Paul is telling us specifically he spent this time with Peter verse 19 but I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother shoutout to our James series and what I am writing to you before God I do not lie then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judaea that are in Christ so again he's reinforcing this point that he wasn't out in front of these churches or anything like that that there was this period of being unknown verse 23 they only were hearing it so again they weren't seeing him or maybe meeting him in person but it says they only were hearing it said he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy and they glorified God because of me I just think that's so crazy cool to think about what that must have been like that these people knew who Paul was that they heard these stories of him persecuting Christians of him seeking to destroy the church and they had heard of this conversion that he was now being used to proclaim the gospel and just that's incredible like that's amazing for us to hear that story but how much more so even for people who knew knew what his life had looked like before and I think that's just a reminder I think that sometimes we can make judgments on people based off of what their life has looked like and we can be skeptical if they claim that there's been a change in their life or they've come to know God but there is this radical transformation in the life of Paul and really that should cause us to be in awe at who God is that he is able to turn lives around and he has turned all of our lives around whether or not we were persecuting Christians beforehand or not we are all sinners and it is only by the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are transformed and I love that it says they glorified God because of me Paul is saying they heard this story of transformation in my life they heard this testimony and because of that they glorified God and that echoes what the Bible says in Revelation that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony our testimonies are meant to be an encouragement to point other people to God and to cause them to glorify Him and that's exactly what happened with these people who had observed Paul's life so that is the end of chapter 1 the verses I want to pick to study a little bit more are verses 9 and 10 and so I'm going to grab out my Bible study journal it's the scribe journal that I always use and will go ahead and study those okay so I'll go ahead and read the verses I wrote out again it was verse 9 and 10 and it says as we have said before so now I say again if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God or am I trying to please man if I were still trying to please man I would not be a servant of Christ and so the first big idea here is that anyone preaching a gospel contrary to the one we received let him be accursed and I want to read a note from my commentary from my Study Bible and it's just this simple note here that says the gospel is unchanging I'm going to write that down so we know from this that anytime somebody is adding to or subtracting from the gospel that is an indication that it is a gospel contrary to the one we have received and the person preaching it is to be accursed that it is a false gospel so I'm just gonna highlight that because it is an important idea and then I just want to make some observations about these verses that is really the first step when you are studying a passage is to just write down things that you have and so one thing I see here is that Paul makes a very bold statement of truth and that he reminds the people he is speaking to that he is not seeking the approval of man but rather serving God and so I'm just gonna write down that observation okay so I wrote that down it says Paul makes a very bold statement of truth and reminds the people he is speaking to and then I bolded this part that his aim isn't to please people but to serve God and I'm gonna go ahead and highlight that the other thing I noticed here and this one is honestly very convicting is that it is not possible to both seek the approval of man and serve God because Paul very outright says if I were still trying to please man I would not be a servant of Christ my study Bible says that Paul here is posing two absolutely incompatible goals we are either looking to please man or we are looking to please God there is no combining the two so I wrote down that note this is something I found to be really really true in my own life I don't think it really works to just try to not care about what people think or to try to not be a quote unquote people pleaser I have found personally that the only thing that frees me from being bound by the approval of other people is the purpose of God when I'm looking to please God I just naturally start to care less about pleasing a man when I am serving God and being obedient to what I know he has asked me to do the fear of what people might think naturally starts to fall away and this is something that God has really worked on in my heart over the years so I wrote that down that the purpose of God frees us from being bound by the approval of people I know that I'm already starting to encroach on my application section over here but for that section and for this section of prayer here where we respond in prayer to God's Word I am gonna be thinking through this question is there any area of my life where I am compromising truth in an effort to please people also are there areas of my life where I have made it my goal to please people because again Paul is telling us here that our goal cannot be both things we cannot have the goal of pleasing people and the goal of serving God that it is one or the other and so I want to honestly examine are there areas of my life where I have made pleasing people the goal so I have now just used the entire application section but okay I can pull out just my regular Journal to process through that a little bit more so that's what I'm gonna spend some time doing just continuing to think through these notes and these questions I wrote down and spend some time praying through that y'all how good is the book of Galatians I seriously cannot wait to keep going through this study with you and I also can't wait to hear what it is that you learned from this chapter and what verses stood out to you most so don't forget to leave a comment down below letting me know I love reading through those and just learning from the things that you are also learning if you did enjoy this video please be sure to give it a thumbs up and then also hit the subscribe button if you haven't already those are two huge ways that you can help to support to my channel thank you so much for watching and I will see you right back here next week for Galatians chapter 2 bye [Music]

Channel: Kaci Nicole

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Keywords: galatians, galatians 1, galatians bible study, galatians 1 bible study, bible study with me galatians 1, galatians bible study series, galatians 1 commentary, sermons on galatians, sermons on galatians 1, overview: galatians, bible project galatians overview, galatians bible project, bible video, galatians sermon series, galatians 1:10, for am I now seeking the approval of man, if I were still trying to please man I would not be a servant of Christ, galatians verse on approval

Id: C5YGsaeyB04

Length: 20min 30sec (1230 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020