51. Bible Study Series Part 1 - Galatians Chapter 1

Welcome back. We are here with the For Freedom podcast, and it's good to be back together. And me and James are sitting here in the... In the same room. In the studio, the For Freedom studio. Yes, yes. It's good stuff. It is good to be back together. John is coming live to you from North Carolina. I'll be live to you from North Carolina as well. And John's coming in and doing a homecoming service for me at our church, and a revival time of special messages that he's going to be doing Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week. And so I'm pretty excited about that. Oh. He didn't know that. I didn't know about that. I just told him about it. Okay. Exciting stuff. Well, I guess we just need to go ahead and play that intro. Which intro? The best intro. The best one? Sort of goes like this. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. You obey your pastor. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got... Hey, you don't have a King James. You don't have a Bible. Oh my God. Oh my God. But you know, there's so much more. When you just put it in the table. So when you said, if you didn't get into the Bible, then you got to go ahead and pray the Bible for a generation to the American Baptist church. I still believe if you're cold today and hell before I get my calories on a woman, I'm a preacher. Young preachers that do love God get pulled off in the Calvinist. And I'll fight it. I'll fight it. I'll fight you in the parking lot over it. I'll get personal with you. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom Podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network. That seeks to bring freedom in Christ. From the spiritual abuse of legalism. In the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Now here are your hosts. John Holyfield. And James Saifert. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of scripture. But the defining principle in scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently. Until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. Bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. All right. We are going to get into this today. So we got some things planned. We are going to be getting more into some in-depths of some issues. I think specific issues that we think will be beneficial to those that are listening. And really beneficial for us as we study this and going forward in our ministries. And those types of things. But we're in the process right now of really gathering materials. Doing a lot of planning and prepping for future episodes. And getting some things in the works for some guests that we're going to have on. So we're excited about that direction. We want to do this though. We had talked about this before. We mentioned it I think in a past episode. But and I think I mentioned it a couple times at the meetup just to sort of get some feeler out there. But we're going to try this. We're going to this. And so we do request. This is what we want to ask. If you think that after this is over that it was like interesting, beneficial in any way. We would request that you give us some feedback and say, you know, we like that stuff. We may do some more of it. Or if you thought, no, this is probably one of your worst episodes ever. Could be. Very well could be. Train wreck. We could have just inserted an actual train wreck. We could have. If you're just doing it with your mouth. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Let us know and, you know, we won't have to do this, but we're going to do a little bit of Bible study. Not role play. Inside joke there for anyone that wasn't at the RFP meetup. And there's a good reason why you need to be at the next meetup whenever it happens. Yes, you do. So we're going to do some Bible study today. And what do we wanted to do? We wanted to start with is probably, you know, a Bible study that actually really applies to what we talk about. And that is we're going to begin going through one chapter at a time, the book of Galatians in your Bible. So this may be an episode where you want to hit pause right now and come back to it whenever you have some time to open up your Bible and follow along with us. But so that's what we're going to do. We're going to get into the book of Galatians. James, are you excited about this? I'm really excited. Galatians is a dangerous book. It's something that you can really get lost in. And so we want to help you through this time. We want to give you some good practical information for the time as you go through here. It exposes the most popular substitute for spiritual living that we have in our churches today. Is that making a lot of noise? It is making a lot of noise. I just wanted to see if it messed you up. No, it doesn't mess me up. It is a time that is substitute for spiritual living that we have in our churches today, which is legalism. And that is a quote by Warren Wisby that says that is what I just said. It's a dangerous book. And so what is legalism? And we're going to look through these things. But what our whole purpose is, John, is exposing legalism and freeing people from the abuse spiritual side of legalism. And so we want to do that today by going through Galatians a little bit. Yeah. So we said this when we got to host the RFP, but I don't think I've actually said it on ours. And that is, I believe. Breaking news. He's about to say it. I believe that legalism is a form of spiritual abuse. I think putting a burden on someone that is extra biblical to where you are guilting them into those behaviors is a form of spiritual abuse. It is taking misusing God's word or the church or any type of spiritual thing. You can't see my arm over here that I'm using because I'm not on the camera. I'm going to use this arm again. But don't smack me in the face. Okay. And using that in a way to negatively affect someone. And so I believe that that is there. And so I think that there's a lot of Bible that addresses that. And it's not just in Galatians, but like you said, Galatians is probably the prime book to go to where we get a lot of our theology on this subject. But so in order to get into what we want to do is we want to cover the chapter. But real quickly, this is important as you're going through any type of study of Scripture, and that is context. Context, context, context. Context is king. How many times did you say that just now? It was like four or five just now. I tried to say it like three times. I said it more than once. You said it like four times just now. Context. Now it's five. All right. And in order to get the context, we have to know the background of the letter that Paul wrote and why he wrote it and who he wrote it to. Because that sets up the context for the entire book. And without knowing that, you can really fall into some errors with the book, with any passage of Scripture, without knowing the context of the entire book that it's being written in. And so I guess the first place to start off is the title. Yeah. Galatians. Why is it called Galatians? Why is it called Galatians? Well, it's because it was written to a Roman province in that area. Unlike sort of Ephesians where it's written to a church in Ephesus. This is actually a complete region that it's being written to that had major cities there. And they called the region Galatia. And so there were many churches that Paul was actually writing to as he was penning this letter. Because it wasn't just one specific church that fell into the problems that Paul's addressing in this letter. It was actually like a whole network of churches. There were several churches that had been drawn into error by some of these teachings that Paul was trying to address that he helped us. He was instrumental in starting in one of his missionary journeys. John, do you think that there are networks of churches that could fall into the same category that have gone in error? Who have went a certain route that maybe be over-biblical or supersede what the Bible says. And now they sort of fall into the same category of where Galatia's at. Like a movement? Sort of a movement or a cold or, you know. Dropped a C word there. Dropped a C word. It's a four-letter C word. Context. Context. Four-letter C word, not multiple-letter. Moving on. Okay, so that's the title. The author and date would be the next thing to come. Yeah, so the author is Paul, the Apostle Paul. And how do we know that? Well, he starts out by saying, Paul, an apostle, not for men, nor through man. Oh, so he identifies himself as... He begins the entire book by saying, this is who wrote it. I'm not ashamed of this letter. I'm not going to not put my name on this letter. So he starts out by saying that. Now, the date and the time is debated at times. Some people believe it could be 49 AD or all the way up until 59 AD. So about a 10-year time span that it could have been written to this church. Yeah, so a lot of these reasons, too. If you want to dig deeper into that part of the subject, if that interests you, I highly recommend... And this is for David D. O. I highly recommend Chuck Swindoll's Living Insights on Galatians and Ephesians. He has a section in the introduction where he breaks down the different reasons of the dating and where you date the letter written. And some of them have to do with a couple of things that he says, the urgency of what he's writing in. Could this have happened? Did he start these churches in his first missionary journey? And as soon as he moved out of that area to go back to Jerusalem, these Judaizers came in? Or was this something that he wrote like years later whenever he actually found out and word finally got back to him? And so people fall on different ranges. You don't want to know where I think the dating is? John, I would love for you to tell me that. Thank you. I'm glad you asked. I've been thinking that the whole time since we've been sitting here. John, what time do you think it was written? I think, honestly, my position is I believe that this letter was written in 49 A.D., making it Paul's very first letter. Okay. Now, that would not make it the first New Testament letter. We have that in the book of James. Well, big James here. Big James. All right, so we have that in the first letter that was penned chronologically. It would be the letter of James. What did you say? I said spit it out. Come on now. It would be the book of James. But I believe that the first letter that Paul wrote was this one. And I think the tone that you see in Galatians when you go through the whole book, maybe I mischaracterized it, but almost the anger that comes out in Paul's letter in this book shows that it was an urgent letter. He had just found out about it. He was upset that it happened so quickly from the time that he had been there. And so that's where I sort of fall on. I think that it was his first letter ever written. So this is the first letter of Paul to the churches. And I believe it was Galatians. I believe it was written in 49 A.D. Well, there you have it right there from the great Dr. John Holyfield, who just received his honorary doctorate just a couple of weeks ago. He now has given his commentary of what he thinks it is. Confession time with John will be later tonight. So there's a background setting here. Paul founded mostly. All right. Paul founded the church in this area in Acts 13. It talks about he began to plant these churches. And John, give us this quote by John MacArthur and tell us the purpose of this. You're going. You're not stopping at all. No, we're going. Oh, my goodness. There's a live recording here. Is it going? It could be. The water just went straight up my nose. See, the people want to know this. No, they don't. Where are we at? We're at the purpose. The message of Galatians. The message of Galatians is the message of the Christian spiritual freedom. His deliverance by Christ from the bondage of sin and religious legalism. That's a quote by John MacArthur. And, yes, that's the message of Galatians. You know, one of the interesting things, you'll find this in Paul's writings. Paul normally has sort of a method to where he is setting up a letter whenever he's writing it. You can find this just about in any book. Romans, Ephesians, Galatians is this way. Philippians, Colossians are the same way. And when he does this, he starts off with doctrine and theology. So he begins his letter with a greeting, and then he goes into dealing with, like, some doctrine, theology, and it's just real, like a Bible class. And then he takes the final chapters of the book, and he takes where he had just broke down that theology, and then he shows how it can apply to your life. So this sort of happens in the book of Galatians this way. So the first three chapters are going to be addressing the problem and theological. When you get to chapter 4, 5, and 6, it's sort of like right in the middle of the book. That's where he's taking it, and he's going to a more applicational idea. And so that whole issue is the Judaizers coming in and wanting to say that, okay, you're saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, but you also have to get circumcised. And to maintain your right standing with God, you have to be circumcised. And Paul comes in and says, you've distorted the gospel. Let's explain why that's a distortion of the gospel. And he really gets into that in chapter 3. And then in chapter 4, 5, and 6, he vents against a breakdown of, you know, that's where we get the fruits of the Spirit and the deeds of the flesh and these types of things and how to break this down. You know, in chapter 6, he says, if somebody's fallen, restore such a one. Bearer burdens and, you know, whatever you sow, you reap and that kind of thing. So it's really applicational. But, yes, the message of this book is your spiritual freedom in Christ. All right. John, why don't you go ahead and while you're talking about it, because I think it's good. I think we've explained this before, but just for someone maybe who's a new listener who hasn't heard it, give us a good basic definition of what legalism is, just so they know. Because what we said was this is freeing us from the bondage of sin of legalism and religious legalism. So how would you define legalism or what would you give us a good definition of legalism? Legalism is – it can be applied in two different ways. It can be applied in sort of the aspect of working for your salvation and then working to maintain your salvation or maintain your right standing with God. And I like to define it this way. I say legalism is putting upon someone a extra biblical burden, thinking that to them it's a command of God when it is not. But that's just a John Holyfield definition. I can get a little bit more technical. I believe it's Dr. John Holyfield. Well, Dr. John. Don't want you to misquote that. David Platt actually broke it down. And I think another good place is Sinclair Ferguson wrote a book called The Whole Christ. And he has a chapter in there on the danger of legalism. And he's explaining about this sort of historical account that happened in the 1600s in Scotland. And he breaks down some really good stuff on legalism there. So I want to – if you want to dive into that a little bit, pick up the book Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ, and check out that chapter. It's excellent. But David Platt in his commentary on Galatians says legalism is one working in our own power. It is working in our own power. Contemporary form of this error, he says, is the idea that we're saved by grace and then we live the Christian life in our own strength. Essentially leaving grace behind. Another aspect of it is working according to our own rules. This involves adding rules beyond what God has already defined as the basis for his relationship with us. And then the third aspect of it is working to earn God's favor. Sometimes legalism is practiced in order to please men. But the main idea is that by doing certain things, one increases in favor before God. And I think that that definition that Platt gives about legalism is so evident. And like my past experiences, my past, you know, of being within sort of legalistic communities, it nails it. Yeah. The final purpose that we're going to talk about as we go through this book study is that there were false teachers that had invaded these churches. You can imagine Paul as sort of the planter of these churches. He's the parent of these churches. And these false teachers began to come in and preach a different message than what Paul had taught these churches. And over time, truth fades if it's not taught properly. And so Paul was coming in and sort of a father, a reprimanding type of giving them instruction of saying, Hey, listen, you guys have weighed from the truth because you began to listen to these false teachers. You began to allow them to come in and say these things when this is not true. This is not wholesome. This is not right. And so Paul had to come in and sort of reteach what was going on and what was going to be said as he looked at that. And so there's some interpretive challenges that we're going to talk through as well. I like this. I think this is important because when I go to a book and I'm setting up a book, I like the aspect of confronting interpretive challenges. Because I feel like that whenever you're going through a book, yes, it's important to give where there's people that approach this and have problems, come away with it with different points of view. And we can dig into that and look into the why and sort of develop why we believe it's this. And so there are some in the book of Galatians, some interpretive challenges that we have. And so we've highlighted, I think, five? Yeah, five. And really, when we talk about those interpretive challenges, if you look at MacArthur and Sproul's life, they were best friends. They loved each other. But yet they differed in some areas. Baptism. Baptism and what circumcision was to the church. Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism. There's some things they differed in, but they still had a great relationship. They still had good friends. And they were still able to have meaningful community and meaningful ministry life together. And I think that can be done, but it's identifying those things and understanding them going into those relationships. Yeah. And some of these interpretive challenges, some of them are harder to figure out. Some of them are like, you know, okay, I can see where somebody's coming to this conclusion of it. Or some of them, quite honestly, I've studied every aspect of it, and I still don't know where I stand on it. Because it's like I can see evidence on both sides. Yeah. Some of them are pretty simple. Some of them are pretty like, I don't see how these people are coming, but this is actually a pretty popular belief from this text. And it's really bogus. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go through a couple of these. There's five of them that are interpretive challenges. The first one is Paul's meeting with Peter, James, and John. This is in chapter 2. And this was Jerusalem's council meeting that you've maybe heard before from Acts 15. Oh, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. Let me, was this Jerusalem's council meeting from Acts 15? Or was this another visit like Acts 11? Is what you have to ask yourself. Yeah, so this is when you're trying to pinpoint in history when this confrontation between Paul and Peter took place. Did it happen at the Jerusalem council, which takes place in Acts 15? Or did it happen at another time? Possibly this instance when they were delivering food to widows and that type of thing and bringing resources in, which is recorded in Acts 11. Or is it maybe something that's not recorded? And I have a position on that, but we're going to, you know, we'll get there when we get to chapter 2. There you go. Number 2, does Galatians 3.27 teach baptism regeneration? Well, let's look at what Galatians 3.27 actually says. Go ahead and read that into the mic, John, so we can all hear you. Shut up. All right. Almost there. No, not. This is his first time reading the Bible most of the time. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Is that teaching baptismal regeneration? We'll find out when we get to chapter 3. Next verse, John. Go ahead and read that for us. The next verse is the next interpretive challenge. Does this teach us that there are no differences between genders in any area? There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. This has actually been a more popular interpretation that has been on the scene here lately. Yeah. Especially with the LGBTQ plus thing that's trying to come out and trying to, you know, hey, we can keep religion around, but you guys have to look at the Bible and see that God doesn't see that my gender matters. Yeah. And so is that a right interpretation of that? We will cover that when we get to chapter number 3. The fourth one is in Galatians 5.4. This signifies that can someone actually lose their salvation? A question that has been asked throughout centuries. The Baptists like to say the once saved, always saved. But this is what Galatians 5.4 says. It says, So could someone lose their salvation, John? It's a great question. We're going to find out. We are going to cover that when we get to chapter 5. And then probably, quite honestly, when I went through this book a few years back, I believe one of the hardest ones is covered in chapter 6. And it is, what exactly did Paul mean when he said the Israel of God in chapter 6, verse 16? Which says, And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be unto them, and upon the Israel of God. What is that? What is it? We'll try to give some explanation when we get there. And the good thing is we've got Dr. John Holyfield here with us to give those definitions and explanations. So we're going to do this, and this is where it might be beneficial if you want to take notes, if you want to stop and listen to this when you're taking notes and stuff. But we're going to break down chapter 1 now, so hopefully we can move a little quicker through this. So we're going to take chapter 1, and we're going to split it up really in two places. So I think the good division of chapter 1 happens at the end of verse 10 and then the end of the chapter. So chapter 1 is sort of grace declared in Paul's message, which is verses 1 through 10. And then part 2 is grace demonstrated in Paul's life, which is verses 11 through 24. But let's read chapter 1 with everybody. So if you have your Bibles, you want to crack open the book of Galatians, and we are reading from what translation, James? What I have in the studio is the English Standard Version. So I've got several laying around. This is the one that... But we speak American. Sorry, we do. We don't speak English. We speak American. So I need to go get my New American Standard Bible? New American Standard? Why? That's a great point. Well, if we speak American, maybe we need an American Bible. The New American Standard Bible. How about that one, John? I'm an Englishman. I speak English. Well, I've got an ESV right here. An English Standard Version. Okay. So I'll read the first 10, and I'll let you read the last until verse 22. That's so correct. All right. Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God of the Father, who raised him from the dead. And all are the brothers whom are with me to the church of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from 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 forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting. I want to give some context, but I know we will read. Yeah, I know. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there is some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we were an angel from heaven, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now say I again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For I am now seeking the approval of man nor of God, or I am trying to please man. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Okay, verse 11. 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. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 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 fathers. 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 apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 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. Man, some interesting insights we get into Paul's life in that chapter. But the first thing, like we said, is going to be grace declared in God's message. So the first thing that is established, and we sort of said this with the author, is the writer. And who is the writer? Paul. Paul. He says, Paul, an apostle, not for 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. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So why is it important? Number one, it's important that Paul lays out that he's the author. But why is it important that he says these things? Well, the Judaizers discredited Paul as an imposter. You may remember in Paul's life, he persecuted the Christians. He would try to trap them so that he could throw them in jail or even kill them. We see the first account of Paul in Scripture is when the death of Stephen happens. And Paul was standing there and he is issuing the execution of Stephen. And so he's there. He's the guy that's killing the Christians. So when he comes out, the Judaizers are going to be skeptic. You can imagine if a... It was sort of like the Judaizers came into these churches after Paul had been there and said, why are you going to let somebody who used to kill Christians tell you about your Bible? Yes. They were character assassinating Paul. Yeah, they were. And luckily he was still alive to be able to come back and judge his character assessment. I bet you that maybe they even said, they came in and said, you know, Paul was the quintessential rebel. He would have been. Paul was the quintessential murderer of Christians. Yeah. So what actually, I mean, he says he's an apostle, John. What makes him apostle? Yeah, that's a good study that we're going to hit really quick because we could spend a lot of time here. And so the fascinating thing is really you get all of chapter one, Paul telling his story because of what James had just said. They were trying to discredit the fact that he's an apostle. Well, what defines an apostle, James asked? Well, a true apostle, and you have movements today like the New Apostolic Reformation and the NAR, and these people are trying to say there's apostles today. I personally, in my theology, do not believe that's possible. And here's why. First of all, for someone to be an apostle, they had to be an eyewitness of the resurrected Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 9.1. Second, their office was confirmed by miracles, signs, and wonders, which is in 2 Corinthians 12.12. And then they had to be hand-selected by the risen Lord in Acts 1.21 and 26. But somebody would object. Wait a second. Was he there? Was Paul hand-selected by Christ? He wasn't a disciple. So how does that make Paul an apostle? Well, he tells us in chapter 1. Yeah. Right? He tells us in chapter 1 when we get over to verse... Where was it? He says that he was... He did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. Verse 12. But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Yeah. Jesus actually, the ascended Jesus, stopped Paul in his track, and he chose Paul to be an apostle. He did. That has not happened since then. So there are no more apostles today. Some of the Judaizers may have said, well, was Paul there when Jesus was resurrected from the dead? And the truth, you know, the fact there is Paul was not. But Paul was confirmed by the others in what had happened with Jesus coming to him afterwards. Yeah. And we do know that there were some signs and wonders and miracles that Paul was able to do as well. So we see that who did not send Paul? He starts out plainly saying, man didn't send me, and no man's representative sent me. I was sent by God himself. And that's who did send Paul. Jesus Christ, God the Father, sent him. And he says that all in verse 1. He lays it out very clearly at the beginning of his dissertation here of this book by saying, I was not sent by man, but I was sent by God himself. You have in verse 2 Paul's friends and Paul's audience. Yeah. And then we get to verses 3 and 4, the Savior. Yeah. Which is he gives the normal greeting there, grace to you and peace. And the interesting thing about this letter as opposed to most of Paul's letters is that how quickly he just moves right on past the greeting and he just goes in. And many that commentators and scholars believe because Paul was actually angry when he's writing this letter. You can hear it. Yeah. And you can see like he's not wasting any time. He's like, okay, grace you guys. Love y'all. Now, let's deal with this. Boom. Right there. Like he's getting in quick. Yeah. So. The source, the blessing is grace and peace. The source is from God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then what did Jesus do? He gave himself for our sins. What Jesus accomplished? He deliverance from the evil age. I'm going to go to the next one, James. And then in verse five, you have the glory. It is the direction of the glory and the extent of glory. Why don't you read verse five? Verse five says, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. And so the direction of the glory is to who? To God. And the extent of the glory? Forever and ever. Forever and ever. Always. And that's the message of really our lives is the glory of God. Yeah. You know, it is to glorify God. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Yeah. We, and I love that part of that. We enjoy. Enjoying God is supposed to be a part of our lives. MacArthur says, as we get into this next section, MacArthur says, Yeah. That's huge. Something small that seems harmless, but can become an old path. And can be very harmful. Yeah. Yeah. And all of a sudden you begin to get, as John's going to be preaching on this week, so self-centered. So begin to destroy your self-image and have worry, anxiety because of this one thing that someone adds to the gospel, that adds to their Christian life, that begins to be harmful, that at the beginning didn't seem harmful, that at the beginning didn't seem wrong. But now it becomes a standard by which we judge everyone by. Yeah. And so we get into this. This is where the greeting ends, and verse 6 picks up to Paul just like laying waste to the issue. And he says, I am astonished. You know, what is he saying there? This is one of the reasons why I think this was an earlier letter, because he was saying so quickly, I almost feel like he was just there. And it so quickly happened. He was there. He preached the gospel. They came to Christ. And then just so quickly, it happened. You guys have deserted the grace that we presented to you. And now you're saying, oh, you got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to be this way. You got to live this way in order to be right with God. And he's saying, how did you desert the grace? It's sort of like, you know, the most amazing thing, the most amazing food or dessert, and you have it right in front of you, and you push it away, and you go for McDonald's. Sorry, I hate McDonald's, guys. Yeah. Yeah. It would be like saying, you know what, guys? We were going to go to Ruth Chris Steakhouse, but instead I found a really... Oh, no, no. You got a free meal at Ruth Chris. Yeah, a free meal at Ruth Chris. But guys, I just read a report, because John spoke on this yesterday, that I found a restaurant that is the most famous restaurant in America. So we should go and get it. It's not expensive at all. And it's McDonald's, and we can go get a double cheeseburger. And you've thrown away this grade A awesome steak from Ruth Chris for a McDonald's cheeseburger. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what Paul's trying to get across this, like, amazement at. Why would you ever leave the grace of God? And if I were Mitch Knuff right now, I would say, you've taken the King James, and you've taken something great, and you've thrown it away for a nice day. How would you know the gospel? Yeah. It's all right. I just can't help myself. But he says, you know, at the end of verse 6, another gospel. And he says in verse 7, not that there is another, but there is some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Are those people still around today that want to distort the gospel of Christ? Absolutely. I think they're everywhere. And I think until the millennial reign, until Jesus destroys this world, they will always be there. Until the devil is removed, there will always be people who want to distort the gospel and what Jesus has done for us. You know, Swindoll has some interesting quotes on these two verses here. He says, And then he says this, And I think that's why these things thrive. Yeah. You know, think about the movement of, you know, like the belief system that Mitch can buzz into, the whole Ruttmanism thing. I mean, people, we are gullible. I'll say it. I'm gullible. I can pretend to be gullible. But he didn't learn his stuff from Ruttman. He didn't learn it from the internet either. Paul's passion reminds us that truth should matter to us. Now, another thing, real quickly, before we move to the next two verses, is where he says another gospel. This is an important note to point out. This is heteros. And it is another of a different kind, not another of the same kind. It's sort of like, this drink, I like it. Another. Okay? You know, you want another of the exact same thing. Like, I had, like, some great barbecue yesterday at your church. Yeah. And I wanted another plate of barbecue. It's not that. It's not another of the same kind. A second helping. It's, do you want some food? No, I want another of this completely different thing. And you go for something else. And so it's another of a different kind is what he's saying when he uses that word another. You're going from pork to fish. Yeah. A complete change. A complete change. Different animal, different mate, different everything. And that's contrary to the Greek word alas, which is another of the same kind, like we were just saying. And so let's move to Paul's anathema. Okay. And that's accursed. That's the word, the Greek word behind accursed in your English translation is anathema or anathema. And it just means to be damned. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, why don't you read that, James? Yes. Verse eight. Verse eight says, uh, but even if we were an angel, if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preached to you, let him be accursed. As I have said before. So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you another gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed. So he uses this word twice, accursed. So he's very serious when he's saying this. It's not like he's just flippantly throwing this out there. He is very, very serious when he's saying, let them be cursed. Let them be thrown away. Let them be banned. Let them be excommunicated when he's saying this term. Which is, is, is huge on many fronts because it tells us number one, that the importance and the purity of the gospel message is a huge thing. You know, we have intentions on doing an episode on hyper separatism at some point. And the Young Baptist guys did just did an episode on mountains or hills to die on. And they talked about like, what is something that we should say, theological triage, secondary, tertiary issues, what should we separate from? And the thing that we get from this passage in Galatians is that one of the things that we have to hold in solidarity with is the gospel. Yeah. The gospel is something that if we don't have agreement on, we cannot. Yeah. We cannot have fellowship. I mean, and some of us that come out of, you know, maybe that hyper separatism movement may be triggered a little bit by that and say, no, we should be able to get along with everybody. Honestly, we do have Bible that says, you know, if anybody comes preaching another gospel. It's cursed. Yeah. He's saying, let them be damned to hell. Yeah. That's really what that Greek term is getting at. I love what Swindle says here, John. He says that altering the gospel is damnable doctrine. He's literally saying that it's complete heresy. When you change the word of God, it is complete heresy. And too many times in our life, people have added to the gospel, which is changing it. Yeah. If you have a recipe, if you've got your mom's recipe, your grandma's famous banana pudding recipe that she won 14 different blue ribbons for how great it was and every county fair, everybody wanted it. And you took that recipe and you said, you know what? I don't like that she uses this specific kind of sugar. I'm going to use a sugar substitute. And I'm going to maybe, I really wanted to add some other things to it. She didn't put pecans in it. I want to put pecans in it. And all of a sudden you began to change that banana pudding recipe and you took it to the same show. It wouldn't win the prizes because it wasn't the same thing. It was changed. It was added to, it was modified, and it was not the same banana pudding. Yeah. John Phillips said any kind of teaching that minimizes salvation through grace alone is another gospel. Yeah. And that's huge. I mean, you start to take away grace and we're not antinomians. And we'll explain that term later on, but we're not like the hyper grace antinomians. We believe that there are things that the Bible tells us to do and things that we're supposed to obey and commands in the New Testament. But you cannot minimize a God of grace. It's one of his attributes. Yeah. So it goes from Paul's athnema here. This is the accursed side to Paul's allegiance. So in verse 10, John, go ahead and read that. What is Paul's allegiance to? He says, for I'm now seeking the approval of, he said, he asked the question, 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. Who's his allegiance to? What is he establishing there? He says his allegiance is to? I'm a slave to man. No, no. He's saying I'm a slave to Christ. Yeah, I'm not a slave to man. I'm not a slave to man. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. And he's saying my allegiance is the gospel. If I was concerned about man, I would let this go. Yeah. He said, but I cannot let this go. Guys, I'm going to give you a message that people are not going to like. Yeah. That people are going to come at me about because I do not serve man. I have to serve God. Yeah. And so this brings to the next sort of section of the chapter. This is the grace demonstrated in Paul's life. So Paul really starts to give sort of a mini bio here of really like a bio of after his conversion and what things do. He really begins to defend who he is and what God called him to do. As MacArthur says, Paul's defense of his apostleship was for the purpose of defending the authority and the integrity of the gospel that he had faithfully proclaimed in the Galatian churches and everywhere else he went. Because this was his life. This is what he was called to do. He literally gave up every status that he had. He gave up every moment of fame that he could have had to simply start churches and to tell people about Jesus. Yeah. And I want to say something before we get into this. I know we're going to end up going a little bit over on this episode because we're a little ambitious trying to get through a chapter. I told you, John. I know. But I think this is – if I can just be like really applicational here. I think a lot of times with me, I've always had sort of questions. Like you hear people that are doing things and – use the RFP guys for a second, okay? So a lot of times the question comes up, how often and how much should these guys defend themselves in the public arena? Somebody attacks them. Somebody makes an accusation against them that we all know that are friends with them, know it's bogus. Should they ignore it? Should they defend themselves? And we sort of wonder like if you defend themselves, are you really like playing into that person's hand? A lot of these questions and issues come up. Is there Bible on should we defend ourselves? And I think that we see we can get some practical wisdom on this from Paul. And I think that one of those practical aspects of wisdom is that we see from Paul is this. That if the attack – if the attack coming at you compromises the message of God that you're trying to deliver, you have to defend your position. Yeah. You have to defend the attack against you. For instance, Paul was attacked by many people and he let them go. But whenever they were attacking Paul's apostleship and saying you should not listen to what Paul's saying because he's not really an apostle, he did these things, Paul said, okay, now it's time that I defend my apostleship and I defend who I am. And he goes into this mini biography. Yeah. Because it was – these people were buying into the false message that they were getting. And so it was important enough in that aspect. And can I say this? It was Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture to do those so we know that what Paul was doing was a right action to take. Yeah. So I think in that aspect, if it's affecting your message that you're delivering to people and people are starting to be swayed by it, then yes, you have to defend yourself. Yeah. That's great. And so as we go through this last couple of verses, and we'll try to rush through it a little bit. We know that your time-wise is sacred here, is Paul's gospel. What was this? He begins by saying this was not from man. He is saying that this is from God himself. He really goes back to what he had just spoken about, how God was the one that delivered this to him. And so he's delivering it to you from God. And so this is not man's. This is not man's gospel. This is not after man. This is from God. He says in verse 11, I would have you know. That English translation of that, I would have you know, is sort of the vernacular that we have. And it really is basically saying this. Let me make it perfectly clear. He's like, let me just put it out on the table. And then from verse 12, he says this was not from man. It was from God. He reiterates that message again. And so then he starts getting into his past in verses 13 through 14. Yeah. He begins to talk about his religion. He was a Judaizer. He began to talk about how he persecuted people. He was the purpose of his life was to kill people, was to persecute them, was to throw them in jail, was to get rid of this gospel that he thought was a heresy, that he thought was, this is going against everything that I've been taught in the Old Testament. How can this man say he's from God? How can this man say this blasphemy things? And so Paul begins to do these religious purposes. He wanted to destroy the Christians. That was his whole purpose. And that's important part too because, okay, was Paul's past ugly? Yeah. Did he deny it? No. No. In fact, it's part of his testimony of how powerful God's grace is. Did he glorify in it, John? No. No. And that's the problem. Too many times I think we see an important figure or someone and they begin to glorify in their past sin. Well, look how sinful I was. Yeah. Look how great of sin I did and God redeemed me. No. It's accepting your sin and that God redeemed you but realizing that God did not redeem you so you could talk about that. He redeemed you so you could use that as a narrative to say, listen, God was able to redeem even the vilest of sinners, the chiefest of sinners, as Paul says. Yeah. And if I could throw out some just sort of like love to our boy Nathan at the RFP. The quintessential rebel. Whenever he was called the quintessential rebel, Nathan, I think, responded just like Paul with that. And you know what he said? He said it on the RFP and then he responded to Brandon Vaughn the same way. He said, I was a rebel. Yeah. He said, I definitely was a rebel. He said, yeah, I had a hard time as a teenager. And you know what? God saved me. Yeah. It's like, you know, okay, we were all crazy, rotten sinners before God saved us. Why is that such a, like, oh, he was the worst rebel and this is why he's left. I mean, it was, you know, you don't understand the gospel if you're making that kind of argument. Yeah. You're right. He began to go through his past ambitions and his past legalism. And we began to look at the tradition. The five books of Moses can be written out in about 350 pages of God's word. And so we began to look at the past legalism that Paul had. I want to read verse 14 too. He says, 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 fathers. And, you know, some of our listeners can be that way. They'll probably say, you know, yeah, when I was in the IFB, you know, I was completely bought in. I was the guy who knew the King James only arguments and went after people. I was the one who was like ready and roaring with my suit and my tie. And, you know, I knew all the ins and outs of all the standards. But don't come quiz me on theology. Yeah. And true biblical doctrine. And this is what James was getting at. You know, the Talmud virtually replaced it. And it took up 523 books. Almost double. And printed in 23 volumes. It is a wordy, rambling, and inconsistent conglomeration of songs, sermons, fables, and fancies. After that, many years later, the Jews then developed the Midrash. And then in the Mishnah, they came to govern the Jewish people. And you see what happened is through that. I've had a Midrash before when I played football. Oh, my goodness. Is that the same thing they're talking about here? Some of them might think so. I don't know. But the idea was is like as time went on, they got to be more slave to the extra biblical things and got away from God. And you see that in all of Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees. He says, you say this, but doesn't Moses say this? Yeah. The whole, why didn't your disciples wash their hands before they ate? Yeah. Okay. Okay. What are you talking about? Like it's not in God's word. It's not part of the law of Moses. Now, this next part is where me and James may differ. Okay. Because I believe that we have here in Galatians, we're an aspect of Paul talking about the sovereignty of God and salvation. I do believe that. If you're a listener and you don't believe that, we're okay. It's cool. I get that some people have not come to that. I would encourage you to study it out for yourself instead of just rejecting it. It's definitely not heresy. But I believe this is an aspect of Paul's election in verses 15 and 16. Let me read it to you slowly and see why. He says, But when he who had finished 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. What is he talking about there? He's talking, guys, he's talking about his conversion. He's talking about his salvation. And when did he say that it happened? He said, in my life, God had set me apart for that before I was even born. So what does that tell us about God? He's sovereign. He's sovereign. He's sovereign. Now, I believe that that was his election. Who elected Paul? God did. When did it happen? Before he was born. How was Paul elected? He was elected. The last part of verse 15, by grace. He didn't deserve it. He didn't do anything to earn it. Yeah. And we used to be saying grace and called go together for whomever God chooses in his grace. He calls through his word. And why was Paul elected to be the apostle to the Gentiles, to the non-Jew? Yeah. James, you want to argue about that at all? For sake of time, I will. We'll just move on. We'll just move on. We'll just move on for sake of time. Yes. Yes. That'll be the best thing. Now we go into the conversion of Paul. Paul's conversion. What did Paul not do? This is through verses 16 through 17. Let's look at them real quick. It says, I did not immediately console with anyone. So after he was converted, he didn't go to the local Dr. John Holyfield and say, John, what do you believe? Why do you believe it? He didn't immediately do that. What did he do instead? He said, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who the apostles were before me. So I didn't go to James and John and Peter and console them. But I went away into Arabia and I returned again to Damascus. He got away. He said, I've got to get along with God. I've got to figure this out for myself. I can't listen to what Dr. Holyfield or Dr. Ruckman says. I've got to listen to what God says. I've got to get away with him. And he got away in the Bible what he had, the Old Testament. And then he was able to get away with what God was saying with him and through this divine intervention. And I believe this, and this is Johnology. Just so you know, this is Johnology. This is my opinion. I don't want you to take this as exegesis because it's not. This is just my opinion of my study of this passage. I believe that the three years that Paul went away to Arabia, it was Christ that was teaching him. I believe Christ appeared in an after ascension form and he spent three years with Christ in Arabia. Now, I've actually heard Sam Gipp believe that he didn't think that this is a misreading and thinks that the new translations mislessly. People went thinking Paul spent three years in Arabia. And I'm like, dude, you are crazy. But MacArthur said Paul went away to Nabaten. I'm totally jacked up that pronunciation. Arabia, a region that stretched east from Damascus to the Sinai Peninsula. Although he does not identify the exact location, it seems likely that he stayed near Damascus. The place and purpose of his sojourn in Arabia are unknown, but that was surely the place of his preparation for ministry. Now, after he left Arabia, where did he go? Went to Damascus. And after he went to Damascus, where did he go? He went to Jerusalem. And that's what he tells us in verses 18 and 19. Who did he meet while he was there, John? He met Peter. And he met, well, Cephas. He says Cephas. Cephas first, yeah. But that's Peter. Yeah. Okay, Cephas is, you'll find as you look through Scripture, you'll find any time the person being referred to as Cephas, that's Peter. So he meets Peter, and he meets Jesus' half-brother James, the author of the letter book of James. And he says, you know, he was the Lord's brother. And he says, I didn't meet any of the other guys. These are the only guys that took me in. Yeah. Well, and it even goes to show here, he didn't go to them first. He gives his definition and his layout of timeline here because he wanted them to understand. I didn't go to Peter. Because then if he just said, yeah, whatever happened, I got saved, and I did some things, and then I went and talked to Peter and James and John, people could have said, well, oh, you're just taking what Peter, James, and John had said, and you're regurgitating it. But instead, he said, I went to God first. Yeah, that's a good point. He's reiterating again, then I went to Peter and James and John. Now the apostles that were with Jesus are affirming me. Yes, exactly. So he's making sort of a double point. He's going back to that beginning part. He's saying, I got it. He's going back to that beginning part. I got it from God. But listen here. I've also met with the apostles, and they confirm me. Yeah. He's like, so. What more do you want right now? Exactly. And so then he goes to, he was there for 15 days, and then we get to verse 20. I want to read verse 20. I sort of wrote this down as Paul's honesty. He says, in what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. It's sort of like, listen, I'm not lying here. Let me tell you the truth. Truth be told. Yeah. We say things like that all the time. And Paul is like reiterating this. Guys, I'm giving you the God's honest truth here. And so then we see his route. He begins to tell us like what way he went. He says that he went to the regions of Syria, Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. So in verse 22, we see his status there in Christ. And then verse 23, his testimony, they only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. What was his testimony among them once they met him? They say, yeah, this was the guy. Yeah, that tried killing us. But now he's not. Yeah. In fact, he's preaching God's grace. Yeah. And they were blown away by it. Yeah. And so we get to the final point, his purpose. Yeah. And what was his purpose? His purpose is the same as ours. And they glorify God because of me. Mm-hmm. What is our purpose? To glorify God in everything that we do. And in make our lives something that points glory to God, that other people will look at us not to bring glory to us. Yeah. But to bring glory to God. I know, I'm sort of getting into this and looking at James. I'm not speaking in the microphone, so I'm sorry about that. That's all right. That's all right. Can I tell you, can I give you guys a little bit of inside baseball? Hey, we got our closing statements. Yeah. Okay. So a little bit of inside baseball real quick. Whenever Nathan sat down with me, and then I called James afterwards, and we talked this through. About joining the RFP network. You know what I said to him? You know, because I've told you this story. But I told Nathan, I said, we love it. We're excited. We're in it. But, and I told him this is my one caveat. If it ever starts to turn into a celebrity culture, I'm out. Yeah. Because it's not about us. It's not about us. And he began to explain to me why they didn't think that was going to happen and some of the things they're doing to keep that from happening. And can I tell you, we went to the meetup. And guys, if you may say I disagree with you, disagree with me on what I'm saying about this, you need to come to a meetup. Yeah. Because here's what happened at the meetup. Who were the, who were the, James, if I had to ask you, like, who were the highlight or the people or the persons that were the most important that were there? Oh, the family. Yes. It's the first time where the, the hosts or the, the speakers, which we didn't have any speakers, Matt Dudley may preach, but they were not the most important thing. It was about everybody else sitting at tables with people, getting to know them, hearing their stories. That was the, that, like, what you're, my takeaway from it was that was literally the most important aspect of what we did there. Yeah. John, let me give you a quick illustration to sort of talk about this a little bit. Um, I would say maybe seven years ago, eight years ago, I went to a, it was a pastor's fellowship conference in Oregon. I was in Idaho, so it wasn't a far drive. And me and my pastor and, and a couple of our staff went over there and Paul Chappell was there speaking. And there was maybe 200 people there. Wasn't a huge conference. Wasn't a huge thing. Um, same fellowship. We had speaking going on. We had things going on. And in that entire time, I shook Paul Chappell's hand one time and I called him Paul. I didn't call him brother. Paul. I didn't call him the apostle. I didn't call him the, I don't want to call him the apostle Paul, but I didn't, you know, we were there and he may have spent about a minute and a half with us. When we were at the dinner time, he was enthroned with his security and everybody else that was there. There was no one allowed to ever really go and talk to him. Security. That, that wasn't the case when we were at the RFP meetup. Man, I spent two, three hours with Nathan, JC, Brian, and some other guys after we're over the house. I went over to where they were staying and they're like, come on in guys. Went in, hung out. We talked. That wasn't the case. But you know else. And I think that maybe like, I know that I was more comfortable. I am sort of introverted to be honest with you. So when I get in a crowd, I do like, I have to really work at myself getting out of my shell. And, and so I, if you were there, you probably saw me and James together pretty much the whole time because I'm more comfortable hanging out with him. I know. And I tried to get out and meet other people. But one of the things that also impressed me about the Jason, Nathan, JC, and Brian was, they were sitting with different people at every meal. Yeah. They, they sat and they got to know new people just about every single meal. Yeah. And it was just, they were just normal people. You want, I'll, I'll go ahead and give you a little insight as we're talking through this before we close up. The best conversation, and I think you came in at the end of this, the best conversation that I had, I think, with any one of the host or, you know, the RFP guys was actually none of the guys. It was Brian's wife. Oh, Denise was great. Man, we sat down with Denise. And we really counseled us. We were like, give us advice. Tell us what you would do with these. We had some friends there. And all of a sudden we started asking about parenting advice and things that they did as far as growing up and having daughters and how Brian interacted with his daughters, his dad. You know, we're trying to employ, and it was just great just to sit there and talk with her. Yes. And, oh man, that was probably my highlight. I came home, I think after that night I actually called Allie and was like, hey, like, I just spoke with Denise and this is some awesome stuff. Like, you need to talk to her. Yeah. It was a great encouragement for us. And I think going back to our Galatians study, God was glorified. Yeah. Through them. And so that's the idea, guys. We want to have lives that glorify. And we already mentioned this, but the Westminster Catechism, I think, develops the purpose of man scripturally better than anything. I can't improve upon it. And it's the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Yeah. And Piper, in his book, and we've recommended this book before, so I'm going to recommend it again, Get Desiring God by John Piper, takes that thought and builds on it a little bit. And he says this, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And I think that's sort of what we want to close with. Guys, we want to encourage you to be satisfied and enjoy God and glorify him with your lives. That's good. Through his grace that he bestows upon us. Yeah. That's chapter one. I hope you guys enjoyed some of that. We sort of got into it after a while. We did. We're like rolling. It was fun. Yeah. But I hope that this was beneficial to you. We're going to come back with chapter two. And so give us some feedback. If you liked it, if you didn't like it, let us know. So we know this is an avenue. Maybe we can continue on later on and do something else. But I think the best thing we can give you is scripture. James, any closing comments? Well, I do want to give our listeners a challenge. Sam Velasquez on 26 Letters has been pushing people to give ratings and reviews on the Apple iTunes platform. I want to give you that same challenge. I want to look up real quick. They almost have 100 reviews. No. They almost have 100. I'm a little upset here because we are not getting that close. And so right now we are at, well, if iTunes changed their platform up a little bit and it's aggravating me a little bit. John, can you see how many reviews we have? They're still not popping up yet. So we want you to go and give a review. Give us a rating. Give us a review. And tell us what you think. How many reviews? We have 44 reviews right now. Where do you see that? 44 ratings. We got 44 ratings. Ratings and reviews. That's what is total there, John. 44 ratings and reviews. I don't know how many reviews we got. So we want you to give a rating. We want you to give a review. It's going to help our get this platform out to some other people. And we hope you do that. And so that's all I've got, John. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, Twitter, not Instagram, on YouTube. Come look at our videos on YouTube and you can see us face to face. And it can be like having a conversation with us. And so it'll be a great time. And, John, anything from you? We have 12 reviews. 12 reviews, 44 ratings. 12 reviews. We're behind the curve on that. We are. Yeah, thank you guys so much for listening. And if you're watching on YouTube, I apologize for the whole water coming out of my nose incident. But we thank you and are excited about moving forward in the future. Until next time, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources, and meetups to encourage you on your journey. For Freedom podcast. To be continued...

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