Galatians - No Other Gospel: Paul and the Galatians

[Music] okay lots to get to today i hope you guys had fun with galatians and you went into axe a little bit and you got to you know kind of get a sense of paul a little bit a little bit more of a context and sense of who the galatians are so we're going to spend some time on both of those but most of this time is gonna be spent on paul because as i started studying this guys i i've been a christian my whole life pretty much like five six um but you know as your your walk with the lord it just it grows and changes and the ways that you study scripture change and the things that you learn and i just felt you know as i spent time in galatians studying paul in this way i felt like the lord was showing me things about paul that i just had not seen before and i love that about the word so let's look at paul first so paul is born saul of tarsus right we all know that name and saul was like the big grumpy dude in the new testament that everybody was scared of they think he was born like four or five a.d somewhere about the time of christ it's not like there's a facebook reminder that says hey it's saul's birthday today so round four or five a d is there is their guess why i think that's interesting is because you remember last week we talked about when galatians was written and it was probably 46 48 a.d i don't know why guys but in my mind when i picture paul i think like way older than this he's 40 ish 40s not old so it's just interesting get some context of who paul is now and in antiquity that might have been a little bit older but at the same time he was he was in his 40s when he is writing this this letter to the church in galatians um a little bit you saw some of this in your homework but he hated the church didn't he he hated the church pharisee of pharisees he says and i think that's interesting because it gives us context into paul is he's going to address some of these things in galatians about the things that they were going through on the points of the law and things like that he knew his stuff he knew what he was talking about so he was a pharisee of pharisees he knew the law he knew what people should be doing that they should be crossing their t's and dotting their eyes and that's how he promoted but he hated the church and you see that he was going around even arresting christians he went to places where he would he asked the leadership hey let me send me out to all the districts so that i can go and round up these christians we also know he was present at the stoning of stephen holding everybody's jacket just kind of watching and it says approvingly that was saul not awesome right that's his bc days but i think it's interesting to point out that he is there with you know kind of this is the mean dude like i said again that's bc before christ before he has his conversion but i want to give a little juxtapose that just a little bit with after his conversion a little nuance about paul because as we read galatians he's he's kind of cutting still right isn't he you know he's a little harsh he's a little direct and so we're not seeing paul in his best mood but if you want write it down or you can look it up but i want to read to you guys romans 9 3 because this is another side of paul that i think we need to also consider and in 9 chapter 9 verse 3 of romans it says for i could wish that i myself were accursed and cut off from christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh this is saying that paul deeply loved his people deeply loved paul understood the gospel he understood jesus so much and yet he was saying i would rather be cursed literally condemned to hell if it meant that my brothers the israelites the jewish people would be saved so i just want to give that juxtaposition a little bit that while yeah paul cuts to it and he is direct and he's got some word and certainly in his bc days he was not a dude to be messed with we have this side of him after his conversion that deeply deeply deeply loves the people and including the galatians and i think and we'll see that too as we go but the last thing to note about paul and this is where we're going to spend a little bit of time this is really really important paul was an apostle now we read that today and we're like yeah it's like a title it's like mr mrs paul the apostle it's not and this would have carried a whole lot of weight back in this day and so i want to look at this a little bit so we understand this word but if you look in galatians where you guys were did i even let you all go to galatians yet or were you still in acts but um galatians 1 this is where we see paul kind of introduced himself and so cuts right to it he says paul an apostle just in case y'all were confused an apostle not from men he's going to clarify further nor through men but through jesus christ and god the father who raised him from the dead we read these general opening letters at times and we're like yeah that's just how the bible starts at stuff it's like you know to whom it may concern or you know hey i'm paul but there's a lot that's in these opening letters these opening lines you don't want to miss those because there are some things that paul is being really intentional of his word choice here he wants you guys to see some clarifying points i am an apostle and that's not a title y'all know what this means and i'm not from men nor through man but through jesus christ and god the father so he's kind of like putting a little bit of an exclamation point on this but the reason he's doing this is because his authority is being challenged some and this isn't the first time but there is this group of folks called the judaizers and we're going to look at them more when we get to week three i believe and the judaizers if you can't spell that guys months and months and months i've been doing this i misspelled that word every single time so the judaizers make up your own phonetic you know spelling however you like that but the judaizers were these jewish folks that they were really struggling to divorce their christian belief with the law they they just couldn't do it and they were troublemakers they were stirring stuff up all the time stirring up the people against paul often but they definitely were coming after paul for his authority like you're not really an apostle and so that's why it's really important that we understand what this means and why they were questioning because why were they questioned did they have reason was this good so look at the word apostle in the greek i'll let y'all pronounce that because i'm sure you all you know can speak greek but it's one who is sent and it would function as an emissary and would carry the authority of the one who sent them and it's that last part right there that's really important because it's it's not just it's not just a messenger but it's a messenger that carries the authority of whoever sent them so the first time you see this is back in the new testament you see or i'm sorry back in mark and luke you see where jesus is sending out his disciples and he sends them out with authority with his authority that is that they can cast out demons and he sends them out who were they having the authority of they were having the authority of jesus so that's where you see that sending out but it's it's important that you note that it has authority the idea of being sent this one's a powerful one look at john 12 49 for i have not spoken of my own authority but the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak i love this one guys because this is jesus talking and he's telling who sent him and the words that he is saying you know guys i have the authority of the father who sent me and later in the other places in the new testament it talks about how jesus said if you've seen the father you've seen me the father and i are one but here's this other piece of like he's saying i am saying the words of the father i am saying his commands he's telling me what to say and what to speak it's that authority peace so look back again at galatians 1 1 an apostle not from men nor through man but through jesus christ and god the father oh who raised him from the dead i mean i feel like he's just trying to keep adding these exclamation points on are y'all getting this i am an apostle and here is why so but why would it be be questioned back to these judaizer guys who you know they're stirring all this stuff up well there's some qualifications to become an apostle and to be considered that so flip over your bible to acts one and we're going to look look in 21 and 22 and there's two things the first one see it's freebie it's already written up there for you but in acts 1 21 and 22 what's happening here is remember judas betrayed jesus and so the the apostles are there trying to figure out we got to replace him so what do we do so it's here in acts 1 21-22 where they say what what they're looking for what are the qualifications if we're going to call this guy an apostle and it says so one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the lord jesus went in and out among us beginning from the baptism of john until the day when he was taken up from us and one of these men must become with us a witness to the resurrection so the two points that they're pointing out is they're saying first of all he's got to be taught by jesus he had he had to hear all the all the things that jesus had had to tell us when he was here that's the first thing and the second thing and this is a biggie he's got to be a witness to the resurrection so those are the two big big things the other one um that is in some texts and as i read it i sort of see it as almost like a um a confirmation of their apostolic authority but just flip over a page to acts 2 43 and it talks about the apostles and it says ah came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles so they did signs and wonders so those are the three main qualifications that you would see but i want to particularly camp out on the taught by jesus peace and the witness to the resurrection because those were really important what we have to ask ourselves is i'm going to take this a little bit out of order but let's let's tackle the witness the resurrection thing when did we see when did paul see jesus because this one's kind of a funky one right because he was saul back when jesus was here so he wasn't actually he wasn't there at the tomb with the disciples he was not following jesus when did he see them and you guys read this in acts 9 when you when you looked at his conversion so it said in acts 9 jesus says to saul he sees this giant blinding right and he hears this voice and he says saul saul why are you persecuting and saul asked him who are you lord and he said i am jesus who you are persecuting or persecuting so we don't know exactly like all the minutia of how this conversion went down because the bible doesn't explicitly tell us but we know there's this big light and we know that there is this thundering voice but we know that paul did see the resurrected jesus and we know this because they tell us he tells us in other passages so i'm gonna have two passages here in first corinthians but it's it's not a lot i'm trying not to make you guys flip too much but i love it when you guys can see this stuff on the pages of your bible but go to first corinthians 9 1. and here paul's going to ask some rhetorical questions i have a feeling he had to deal with this issue of why are y'all always questioning my authority but he says in 9 1 he says am i not free am i not an apostle meaning yes i am have i not seen jesus our lord so he's asking these rhetorical questions yes i have i've seen the risen lord flip over to first corinthians 15. and i said six there but let's let's go back let's go to 16 star or i'm sorry chapter 15 verse 5. and this is talking about who jesus appeared to and it says and that he jesus appeared to cephas and then to the twelve then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep then he appeared to james that's jesus's brother then to the apostles last of all as one untimely born he appeared also to me for i am the least of the apostles because i persecuted the church of god but by the grace of god i am what i am and his grace toward me was not in vain on the contrary i worked harder than any of them that was not i but the grace of god that is with me so this is paul explicitly saying he puts in this phrase untimely born because he gets it he knows that he wasn't there at the tomb so he knows that you know he didn't see jesus in his resurrected form then he says as one untimely born jesus revealed himself to him in some way so this is paul's words here but i want to show you because all these places i've shown you so far is where it's somebody it's paul remarking for himself that he has seen the resurrected lord one of the big requirements of being an apostle but look at this one too so this is interesting to me i i just as i was reading this i had to think about ananias just a little bit because ananias is a christian and he knows who saul is he's terrified of who saul is so you can only imagine when he gets this word from the lord that says you need to go and meet saul of tarsus he had to be terrified so i don't think i mean he's not making this up the words of scripture he records here what he says and he says but the lord said to him to ananias go for he is my chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the gentiles and the kings and the children of israel this is important because this is another source this is ananias this isn't paul proclaiming of himself saying that he was specifically chosen to be this emissary that's to have that authority my authority this is jesus talking to ananias telling him that he has chosen paul to do these things but the second one that we talked about so i think we got the resurrected lord i think we can go that he has seen the resurrected lord but it was actually the other issue that the judaizers really struggled with it was the taught by jesus part because they knew that he wasn't walking around with jesus so how are you going to make that work paul so paul tells us a little bit go back to galatians just later in the chapter a little bit go to galatians 1 11 let's start there let's read that first for i would have you know brothers that the gospel 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 so there's paul again just reiterating i didn't hear this from a guy so then the question is is okay so you say you heard this from the from jesus and that you had a revelation so then we have to kind of look at paul and go well when would this have happened that answer to galatians also answers that question for us if you go down to start in verse 15 of chapter one but when he who had set me apart before i was born and who 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 the apostles before me but i went away into arabia and returned again to damascus and then after three years i went to jerusalem to visit cephas and remained with him 15 days so that's where we we would assume then he he's again he's putting this seal his this big stamp on the fact that he did not get his teaching of jesus from man if he had gone straight over to peter and james and gotten the lowdown on everything that jesus did that would be more questioning of where did your where did it come from was it from man but he tells you over and over he says in galatians one he says in galatians 11 and 12. i did not get this from man so he goes away into arabia and again the scripture doesn't like explicitly tell us what that three years looked like did he learn and was he taught by jesus through the scriptures that's absolutely possible did he go and actually have some kind of other revelation of jesus that could be too doesn't explicitly say but the fact is that he was meeting this other requirement of being an apostle okay so i just spent a whole bunch of time gave you a whole bunch of scripture on all of this i'm going to throw one more at you yeah just one okay first corinthians 14 37 if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual he should acknowledge that the things i am writing to you are a command of the lord exclamation point the words that i'm saying paul is saying are a command of the lord and i get it i've given you all a lot of scripture on that and i've camped out on the lab on that why is that so important churchy terms we call this apostolic authority why do we care why does it matter well if we don't believe in the authority of paul what are y'all doing in galatians here you have to believe that the words that are here if anyone thinks that they as a prophet or spiritual he should acknowledge that the things that i am writing to you are not my words they are not man's words at all they are a command from the lord and so that's why i wanted to build all of those things so you can even see even what apostle means and the ascent and the authority piece because you need to see that these words are actually the command of the lord now i i had to go here with paul guys because people like to say i like the bible i like the words of jesus camp me out in the beatitudes and i am one happy camper but that paul guy no thanks if you have been in bible study if you have read your new testament you're going to know that paul tackles a lot of controversial hot topics you might say it's paul is the one that lays out the structure of the family and and a wives submitting to their husband it lays out uh church leadership and what the roles for men and women are to be in the church he lays out church discipline i mean he kind of hits them all and so there's a lot of folks that say okay it's good i'll take jesus words but paul no i don't like those feminists can't stand paul guys can't stand paul but to do that you have to you've you've got to make amends here with first corinthians 14 37 because these words are a command of the lord and today culturally yep we kind of struggle with that maybe just a smidge but it actually was even an issue back then uh if you want or i will summarize it for you but uh 2nd peter 3 15 and 16. if you don't flip there then write it down 2nd peter 3 15 and 16 because this scripture is huge but in it peter is acknowledging to who he's writing to that um that paul writes some things he says our brother paul like he you know i was like trying to soften him up a little bit our brother paul writes some words that are hard to understand he says and we could go okay yep sometimes paul's stuff it's a little hard to understand but he says that we must not or he says people will try to twist them meaning the hard things that paul says as they will other scriptures that phrase right there as they will other scriptures is huge because right there he is telling you that the words of paul is scripture to the new testament church what would have been their scripture it would have been the old testament like that's that was that was the big dog that was the thing they you know honored and that's your old testament that's your scripture peter is saying paul's words they will try to twist them as they will other scripture he calls the words that paul wrote scripture so again it just takes you back to that piece guys that if you're going to you got to take it all we don't get to take little pieces we don't get to take just jesus's words or we don't get to take this little snippet that we might like it is the command of the lord through and through i love that part but the other reason why this is really important is remember back in acts 2 42 what it said with the new church what they devoted themselves to the number one thing that it said that they did is that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching so it's kind of a big deal it's the it's the thing that we are laying a foundation on you go to ephesians 2 20 and it reminds us that we're part of the household of god that's built on the prophets and the apostles with jesus as the cornerstone i'm paraphrasing but you can look it up ephesians 2 20. it matters it really matters that we understand before we even dive further into galatians that the words that you're going to read are the command of the lord that paul's words have authority okay that was a lot of policy i told you i'd end up spending a lot on paul but now we'll get to i want to segue just a little bit but one more little kind of caveat with the with the galatians but then also with paul i want to look at the route that paul took because i think this says some really cool stuff about paul so if any of you guys are super type a and you were like uh i messed up on my map i totally get that i totally get that i don't have a solution for you but i i get that i i yeah that was a tough one okay but i want to point out to you first of all i am well aware that i probably completely confused you all but it's really not me it is in scripture there are two antiochs i might have gotten to marco about that this week of wait what um so let's just check out paul's route okay this is his going route he's going to make his big little circle here he's going to go to perga he's going to go to that second antioch there iconium and then lystra and then derby is where he ends up a couple things about this first of all what i want to note is what happened to paul in derby so you know paul doesn't have a lot of it's not good in derby and it says that the people that were actually in iconium and livestock they came over and stirred up people in derby and they stoned paul you know i this is going to be a confession moment i don't know if my sister will ever watch this bible study but when i picture stoning i have a tendency to picture when i might have one time got really mad and i did pick up rocks and i threw them at my sister i did i didn't even get in trouble for i don't think i didn't get caught i'm really sorry angie about that but sometimes when i think of stoning i think of it more like that like somebody just picking up rocks i mean i know it's malicious but in our modern day context we don't have this what this stoning actually is like and there was there was actually it sounds like two different ways that this was happening sometimes they would be at the top of like a cliff area and they would throw the person down and then like throw a giant rock on top of them and see if they'd survive that but then the other times like in the case of stephen it's just they're on level ground and they're just pelting them with i mean this isn't hail this isn't like a you know just an annoyance this was a form of capital punishment and a really bloody and horrific form of capital punishment that's what they were they were doing to paul so this is that was his day in derby he gets stoned they drag him out of the city they stone paul and what does he do love this guy he gets up and he goes back into the town maybe there's some things i forgot to tell you all about the gospel i mean that's amazing to me he goes back into derby but here's the other thing that he does did you notice we see our whole little map this is why i love little visual things but look at this derby there we got antioch that's where he started from it would have been real easy guys for him to put his helmet back on and take his ball and go home he would have said you know what that's good i'm good i've been stoned i've been drug out of cities i'm going home i'm done with y'all i find that particularly interesting guys as we in our day i mean safety is the highest virtue right just do whatever's safe oh man paul knew nothing of that absolutely nothing of that so much though that check his route going home he goes all the way back to all the pieces all the places except paphos and you know that last one salamus got left out but he goes the long way home it i don't know what that is in in kilometers or what that would have been in bible day for him to actually get over from derby to antioch and go just go back home but i know it had to be a whole lot closer than what he chose to do but i think this tells us something about paul it's why i wanted to read you guys that passage in romans 9 3 about the how much he loved his people he loved them so much he loved these people so much that he's sharing the gospel with he's so convinced of the gospel he is sharing that he is willing to go all the way back the long way to people that hated him and do what he he was he was establishing churches along the way he was appointing elders he was wanting to make sure that these believers were set so to say that paul had done some vested work with these folks is an understatement choosing to go back to the places that he was persecuted that didn't appreciate him one bit this is where he went so as i i spent most the time on paul i want to talk a little bit about the galatian people as well i i feel like for the most part we covered some of that last week there's a little bit in your study um you can study them that people group more the galatians from everything i read are interesting and the more i read i feel like they're us very polarized people they came like roots wise celtic and gauls that were very tribal and it and so i'm like yeah that that's that's us so the more i read about him i feel like i feel like i get them but there was a particular area when they were in leicester that i just wanted to look at because this just marked me that well let's review so what happened in lystra they come in and they preach the gospel and they love it the people are on fire and they're they're begging him will you please come and talk to us again next week the people are so excited about the gospel and paul can paul and barnabas continue to teach and preach now there's some jewish people that are not they're not loving this and they are stirred up it says with jealousy towards paul and barnabas and they start you know just trying to get everybody all riled up and get them out of here so then what happens let's look at this little piece right here acts 13 49 and 50. i've really tried to skip over this but my audience is women and i just can't and the word the lord was spreading through the whole region but the jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city and stirred up persecution against paul and barnabas and drove them out of their district guys it's galatian cancel culture right there they stir up these people to say we're done with you and drive them out of the city i find it interesting we know that every single word every syllable in scripture is inspired by the holy spirit is meant to be there in its original form and it says it could you know it could have just said the people the leaders stirred them up but it calls out the leading men in the city and these devout women so i have to pause i had i had to spend some time praying about that what what can we take away from who these devout women were and what were they up to and they were very persuasive weren't they they were respected they were considered to be women of high standing and so they were influencers and that's interesting because we just survived i don't i'm not sure is it women's history month or women's empowerment month i'm not totally sure but all that month is to elevate women make sure we are pulled up from something because for for greater influence that we need to be pulled up now if you hear that i'm dripping with a little bit and i sound a little jaded i'm sorry about that but here's where i come down on that i just anytime i'm i don't want women to be put down absolutely not nor do i want men to be put down but that's the problem our culture seems to like to elevate women at the cost of men and that's not biblical that's not right and we see that a lot so we we see all of this of the of these women that are very influential guys i don't feel like i'm struggling in our day to see women that are influencing others boy ladies danger danger some of these devout women that have best-selling books and they've got thousands and some of them millions of followers on instagram and facebook and they are 100 preaching a false gospel they are preaching a myology and it is an idol and it's convincing and they are stirring and stirring people up and they are really pushing and canceling the real gospel out of their district and i guarantee most of you either have probably followed some of them at some point or maybe continue to do so but i would challenge you to be very discerning about these devout women because they're christians gals they say they're christians they're purporting a gospel it's not going to be the gospel that we're going to talk about in galatians at all so it challenges me to think about how do i use my influence because i do think we have it you have influence whether you're at work whether you're at school whether you're with your kids whether you're with your friends and we can use our influence to either cancel folks and push them away from the gospel or we can invite them into the real gospel and next week we're going to start looking at that gospel and we are going to we're going to dip into a little bit talking about some of the things in our culture that are false gospels because i do think that's important but of primary importance as you guys are digging into this next week is to focus on the real real gospel there's only one and that's so important because we need to know what the real thing is so we can really just spot these other things from a mile away so we're going to read those scriptures we're going to get into first corinthians 15 and we're going to go over and over again what the real gospel is so that we can really spot what these devout women might be doing so that we are not being chased out of the district let's pray lord i thank you so much for paul such a amazing man and kind of complex and had this heart and love for his people and for the churches even when his safety was never going to be going to be safe he wasn't going to be held he was going to be chased out he was going to be stoned but what a model that is for us and so i thank you for his life that we can just learn the things to maybe have that sort of compassion towards people that hate us even lord i thank you for this book that we are getting to study from your word lord lord i pray that as these women that as we study in to next week into the gospel lord the gospel is the thing that changes our life every day and i pray lord that each word would not be you know something that maybe we think we've read 50 times i pray that it would come off as new and fresh like we've never read it before lord i pray we would just be impacted by your gospel in a way that just again renews how thankful we are for the cross for the fact that you came and died for our sin even while we were still sinners we thank you for that i pray lord that your spirit would just fill these women up as they study your word this week and as they go into their groups lord i just pray that there would just be sweet fellowship and that you would just be in those groups in jesus name amen you

Channel: Athey Women

Views: 381

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Athey Creek, Athey Creek Women, Devoted, Devoted Podcast, Through the Bible, Brett Meador, Amy McReynolds, Bible Study, Women's Ministry

Id: dVHSyyqYtWc

Length: 34min 12sec (2052 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021