Galatians 1:18, 19 – On Being Factual

 As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this passage:

¹⁸Then, after three years, I went up into Jerusalem to inquire of Cephas and remained with him fifteen days ¹⁹but I did not see other of the apostles except James the brother of the Lord.

Once again, I am aware that Paul is making a point here. I intend to pull it all together and consider his point. However, on the way there I have no problem whatsoever observing the man and learning what I can simply watching him. “He who walks with wise men will be wise.”

That said, notice a little thing Paul does. Notice how he is reporting the facts of his visit to Jerusalem, emphasizing he had little initial contact with the other apostles. To that end he says, “I did not see other of the apostles” but then adds “except James the brother of the Lord.”

Paul was always careful to be factual when recounting details. I remember in I Corinthians 1:14-16: ^“I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)”

Notice he’s doing the same thing as in our passage. He makes a statement of fact to support his point, but he is also very careful to make sure what he reports is factual: “I didn’t baptize anyone except Crispus and Gaius … well, oh yes, there was also the household of Stephanus … beyond that I don’t remember anyone …” His point being made was that baptism wasn’t an important part of Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians. “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (v.17). But in making that point, notice how he is careful of his “facts.”

One of the advantages of telling the truth is you don’t have to remember what you said or who you said it to. You just speak the truth to whomever you’re speaking to the best of your knowledge. Over the years, memory may jumble facts but it’s good when you’ve sincerely tried to be factual. It is easy when speaking to conveniently “leave out” certain details which might “distract” from our point. It’s also easy to embellish the truth “just a little” to make it more “colorful.” But we do so at the peril of our own integrity.

I believe this matter of being carefully and deliberately factual is a fundamental issue of our integrity and not something to be taken lightly. Paul didn’t take it lightly. He was personally, internally motivated to make sure that what came out of his mouth was truth.

Here we are back to the issue of truth. Truth is such an important thing. We constantly make decisions based on what we perceive to be (or want to be) the truth. What is at stake in our present discussion is the “facts” we give each other. We all depend not only on our own perceptions of truth, but then we have to depend on others around us. We actually depend to one extent or another on other people telling us the truth, that they accurately relate facts, that they mean what they say. And when we don’t, one way or another we mess up everyone else. When we say, “I’ll be there at 5:00,” or “I’ll take care of that for you,” or “Here’s what I’ll charge you/ pay you to do that,” etc., others make decisions based on those statements. When we simply don’t do what we said then we mess up their plans, perhaps making it difficult for them to keep their promises. It simply is very important for all of us to realize it is of utmost importance that what comes out of our mouth is truth.

Paul was careful to be factual. We should be too.

Galatians 1:15-17 – “But when God …”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this passage:

¹⁵But when God, the One setting me apart out of my mother’s womb and calling [me] through His grace, was pleased ¹⁶to reveal His Son in me in order that I might be preaching Him among the Gentiles, I immediately did not confer with flesh and blood ¹⁷neither went up into Jerusalem toward those [who were] apostles before me, but I departed into Arabia and returned again into Damascus.

As I am studying these verses, there is an enormously important issue at stake, that being the entire matter of apostolic authority. I am tempted to jot down some thoughts on the subject but I might wait until I’m further into the text.

For today, indulge me a moment to pause on those opening words, “But when God …”

Many, many times in my earthly existence, those words have been my strength and stay: “But when God …”

I often think, “and it’s a good thing …!”

Praise God that He intervenes in the cobbled up mess of our human bunglings!

I am constantly amazed how He has in the past and continues to intervene in my life. My wife and I are quite sure we’d both be dead today if He hadn’t stepped into our lives in college. There are just so, so, so many ways I have set myself on completely the wrong course, thinking I was doing the right thing, only to have the Lord somehow intervene and rescue me before I [completely] crashed and burned. “But when God …”

It’s just one more reason why we all desperately need Him in our life. I seem to have an infinite propensity for bad decisions. And I live in a malevolent world where the very air itself is trying to kill me. Washington is cruising on a path of national complete self-destruction. If it’s “up to me” basically I’m dead. I desperately need a God Who’s bigger than it all, Who’s committed to my good, and Who will intervene and rescue me whether it’s me or the world or Washington or satan’s demonic hosts trying to kill me. My wife needs that kind of God. My kids need that kind of God. We all need that kind of God. The good news is that our God’s name is Jesus “for He shall save His people from their sins.” His very name means “savior,” “deliverer.”

Good thing. Someone once said, “It be our wisdom to trace our every good gift back to God’s benevolent heart.”

And one more thing. I realize I’m seriously extrapolating from the text, but notice that the Lord’s interest in Paul didn’t start one sunny day as he was traveling to Damascus. He refers to the Lord as “the One setting me apart out of my mother’s womb.” All of us are seriously indebted to the One Who has actually been watching out for our good since our very conception. Of course we could extrapolate even that back to “eternity past,” “since the world began,” “before the foundation of the world …” Point is that we are no “lately” thought in God’s heart. He said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and ordained you to be a prophet …” (1:5).

There was clearly a time when the Lord “called” Paul “by His grace.” But He had set him apart from his mother’s womb. So with us. Calvin said, “…He is said to separate us from the womb, because the design of our being sent into the world is that He may accomplish in us what He has decreed. The calling is delayed till its proper time, …”

This is a truth on which I nurse to maintain my sanity. Again, I have made so, so, so many bad decisions in my life. There is so, so, so much I would go back and change if only I could. So many things I wish could have been so different. On the one hand I fully realize I am responsible for my every bad decision. There is a sense in which I am simply suffering the consequences of those bad decisions. It is my fault. Yet … just before I go find a seventh floor window somewhere, I can sincerely comfort myself with the thought that God has allowed it all. Even my bad decisions. Jesus warned Peter he was going to fall. “Satan has desired to sift you.” He knew he would fail. He encouraged him to succeed, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” Yet what He told him was, “but when you’re restored, strengthen the brethren.” Next to Judas Iscariot, Peter’s failure probably goes down in history as one of the worst. Judas hanged himself. Peter got up and changed the world. The Lord took his “bad decision” and used it to finally purge out Peter’s pride, to make him a genuinely humble man, a man who no longer constantly self-destructed putting himself forward. And so it is with each of us. He has very carefully allowed even our failures and the failures of others who have influenced us. When we survey it all, we can do like Judas and hang ourselves or like Peter and learn from our failures, be better for what we learned, and let God use the “us” we are today. He’s been in charge all along. We are where we are today, we are who we are today, because of a good God.

Left to ourselves, we’ve all proven again and again our fetish for self-destruction.

“But when God …”

Galatians 1:13,14 – Considering What We're About

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this passage:

¹³For you heard [about] my former lifestyle in Judaism, that I was excessively persecuting the church of God and destroying it, ¹⁴and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many ones of the same age in my race, being exceedingly a zealot of my ancestral traditions.

Obviously, Paul’s point is to emphasize that he is not in any way unfamiliar with Jewish traditions. His repudiation of them in the Gospel is no way rooted in ignorance of them. As Luther observed Paul saying: “I have,” he says, “at one time defended the traditions of the Pharisees more fiercely than any of your false apostles. Now, if the righteousness of the Law had been worth anything I would never have forsaken it”.

Looking at this verse actually reminds me of three things:

1. Zeal is a delicate thing. Notice it says of Paul that he was “excessively” persecuting the church” and he was “advancing in Judaism beyond many” and he was “exceedingly” a zealot for his ancestral traditions. Paul was a zealous person. But, as it says in Prov 19:2, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” Paul observes of the Jews (like himself) in   Rom 10:2: “For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge”. Zeal is, of course, in itself a good thing. God made us to work and to work hard. It is good to “throw oneself” at a task. “Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart …” Col 3:23. The problem in a sinful world is that we have the freedom to be zealous for anything, good, bad, or indifferent. We should be zealous but we need to be careful what we’re zealous of. That is one way I think parents can help their children, by helping them think through what they’re throwing their energy at. They can, of course, be so easily enamored by things that are wrong, or simply unimportant, but they’ll be far better off to pursue things of value. I suppose it’s even incumbent on all of us who are “older” to try to guide the “younger” to channel their energies into things that will really matter, whether at work, at church, in our extended families, in chance encounters, whatever, we should sincerely try to help young people channel their zeal in valuable directions. Zeal is a very good thing but it is also a delicate thing. “It takes a steady hand to carry a full cup.”

2. Our strengths are also our weaknesses. Interesting, Paul says, “You heard about my lifestyle …” My lifestyle. Paul wasn’t just occasionally zealous about something. It was his lifestyle. It was one of the strengths of his character that whatever he did, he did it with uncommon energy. Occasionally we all know someone like that, someone seeming to have an endless reserve of energy. Whatever they do, they go at it passionately, whether a job assignment, a competitive game, a new hobby, whatever. It is a strength that some people possess. Unfortunately, that same strength becomes their weakness when it gets channeled in a bad direction or used in selfish or inconsiderate ways. Martin Luther was another person like that. He said of himself: “I too may say that before I was enlightened by the Gospel, I was as zealous for the papistical laws and traditions of the fathers as ever a man was. I tried hard to live up to every law as best I could. I punished myself with fasting, watching, praying, and other exercises more than all those who today hate and persecute me. I was so much in earnest that I imposed upon my body more than it could stand. I honored the pope as a matter of conscience. Whatever I did, I did with a single heart to the glory of God.” Before he met the Lord, he was a zealous person, but that zeal was misdirected into a cruel asceticism. But when that same zeal got aimed toward the Lord, Luther became the “morning star of the Protestant Reformation.” It was true of Paul, it was true of Luther, and it is true of us: our strengths are our weaknesses; and our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. Realizing this, it is very important that we consciously sanctify our strengths.

3. Legalism makes people persecutors. It’s interesting that, before meeting Christ, Paul was “being exceedingly a zealot of my ancestral traditions.” He says in Phil 3:5 he was “…a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the Law a Pharisee.” In today’s language we would say he was a howling legalist. A keeper of the rules. And what did it make him? Did it make him gracious and kind? No. It made him a vicious persecutor. The same was obviously true of the rest of the Pharisees of his day. They were a pompous, immoral, self-righteous, critical, hateful, cruel bunch of people who persecuted anyone who deviated from their rules. They even murdered the Messiah Himself because He didn’t keep their rules. (He had a little talk with them one day in Matthew 23. Everyone should read it some time.) I hope anyone reading this can see exactly where I’m going. It is my definite conclusion that still today legalism makes people persecutors. Paul will go on later in this same book to tell us that a real relationship with God, a real knowledge of Grace, will make us gracious – the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, … As far as I can see it has always been and always will be a pitfall of the church to fall into legalism. Obviously it was happening in Galatia. And obviously it is excessively common today. And how does it affect people? It turns them into vicious Pharisees. I believe that is a major reason why the face of Christianity is clearly not love but rather cruel, judgmental, rule keeping and the forcing of those rules on everyone else. Legalists are incapable of communicating grace because there’s none of it in their own hearts. I could go on and on about the subject but I’ll conclude by saying what I see is that even supposedly born-again people who allow legalism in their hearts become persecutors. To whatever extent they allow legalism, to that extent they become cruel rule-keepers. If they are a little legalistic, they’ll be a little a mean Pharisee. If they are very legalistic, they become monsters who may impress themselves and each other, but, like Paul, a tool not of God but the devil. It is incumbent on everyone who names the name of Christ to resist every possible intrusion of legalism and instead to cultivate a genuine grace relationship with Christ. That and that alone will make us gracious people. That and that alone will make us like Jesus.

I seriously could write on for hours on the three points above. When it comes to “what we’re about,” each one is monumentally important, I feel. God help me to be zealous for good things and encourage others (especially young people) the same. God help me to realize how much my strengths must be sanctified, lest they express themselves as weaknesses. And God help me fill my heart with the grace of knowing Him. May my heart truly be so filled with grace that it simply has no room for legalism and all its cruelty. In my tiny corner of the world, may the face of my faith be really truly Jesus.

Galatians 1:11,12 – The Delicate Issue of Truth

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this passage:

¹¹For  I make  known to you, brothers, that the Gospel preached by me is not according to man, ¹²for I neither received it nor was taught [it] from a man but through a revelation of Jesus Christ..

This passage, once again, reminds me of the importance of Truth. Obviously, as all commentators note, Paul’s opponents apparently proffered the argument that his teaching of the Gospel was not as authoritative as that of the apostles who actually learned it from Christ. “The truth he taught you,” they imply, “is not true truth.”

Interestingly, Peter engaged in the same kind of emphasis in II Peter 1:16-19: “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, …  And we have the more sure word of prophecy; to which you do well to take heed, as to a light shining in a dark place,…”    

“Truth” is a very delicate thing. What both Paul and Peter are dealing with is the problem that people must discern for themselves what is “truth;” and that they must do so while barraged by messages from a million different angles (and motives). Pilate scoffed, “What is truth?" as he looked Truth in the face and turned away. What is truth? What is true? In a sense we are all locked continually in a battle to discern what is truth? On the relational plane we must discern whether people are “telling us the truth,” whether it be at home, at work, at the grocery store, etc. And on the much larger plane, we must discern what is “truth” in the religious world or should I say in the world of values and motives and our entire “world-view.”

(I suppose I have to interject the people who want to say there is no truth. That mentality is a huge problem today but I will choose to ignore it here. I’ll just say it is as absurd as the fact that the very statement itself is a statement of truth. They want us to believe it is true that there is no truth. Absurdly illogical.)

See what is at stake here for the Galatians. If what Paul says is truth, then they should hang their eternal destiny entirely on grace. If what the others are saying is true, then they also need to include the practices of Judaism in their lifestyle. Heaven and hell hang in the balance. Yes? Yes. Each individual Galatian must make a choice. What is the truth? … and then order their life accordingly. And realize their choice is of eternal consequence. Such is our life every day.

Hmmmmmm. Since this is my blog, indulge me to meander a moment. Truth is very important to me. I don’t know if that is somehow my nature and/or the fact that I am an engineer. (The field of engineering is based on applied science – figuring out the truth of why things do what they do, harnessing that knowledge, and using it to solve problems). It may also be due to some extent to the fact that early in my life I read Francis Schaffer’s book, “How Shall We Then Live?” in which he emphasized the importance of not only truth but absolute truth. The thesis of that book was that the rise and fall of Western culture is entirely a matter of our having embraced truth, then abandoned it. For myself, I feel to this day that what Dr. Shaffer said is in fact absolutely true.

But what I see around me is that hardly anyone else appears to care about truth. It seems to me that all anyone cares about is what they want to be true. I study the Bible because I want desperately to know the truth. I know almost no one else who even cracks it. I know a lot of professing believers who I would think would be ravenous for truth. Yet they seem quite content to basically ignore the Bible and go on living based on what they want to be true. A tidbit or two from the pulpit is good enough. Where are the noble Bereans who “search the Scriptures daily and see whether these things be so”? And then no one is even interested in discussing “truth.” If I perceive that a person might be a truth-seeker, I might bring up some “truth” I’ve been pondering, only to get their disinterested “Oh” for a response. I’ve about gotten to the point where I just don’t even bring it up. I do my studies, think my thoughts, jot down some of them in this blog, and for the most part just content myself with trying to live these things out in my own life.

It is something I totally don’t understand. I am NOT better than anyone else. But that said, I just don’t understand why people don’t care about truth. I know, I know, people are sinners and naturally driven by their lusts not by truth (that was Shaffer’s whole point), and so it will always be true (in this world) that the human race as a whole will always be gullible, easily deceived, and even antagonistic toward truth. They would actually rather follow their lusts than be told the truth. But still, surely there are people who rise above that.

Oh, well. Love God. Love others. That’s my mission for today. That’s the truth. I will go on doing the best to seek and live out the truth as I discern it, and grant those around me the freedom to do the same (or not).

But what Paul is saying IS of monumental importance. What is Truth? To determine that is absolutely incumbent upon every individual and it is of eternal consequence what we determine.

As for me, I am convinced that the Gospel of the Bible, the God of grace and His Son Jesus Christ, of salvation totally by that grace, lived out in a life of gratitude is the TRUTH. God help me if I’m wrong anywhere that I would see it. And God help me where I’m right to live out that Truth everyday. And by Your grace, where I’m right, may I be a light in the life of someone else around me. Truth. Not from “man.” Not just someone’s ideas. But absolute, eternal TRUTH delivered to us from the absolute, eternal God.

Martin Luther: “God creates faith in us through the Word. He increases, strengthens and confirms faith in us through His Word. Hence the best service that anybody can render God is diligently to hear and read God’s Word”.

Galatians 1:10 – The Insidiousness of Motives

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this passage:

¹⁰For am I now conciliating men or God, or am I seeking to be pleasing [to] men? If I were yet pleasing men, I would not have been being a servant of Christ.

At first glance this seems like a fairly vanilla passage. “Right, right. Yeah those people-pleaser types. Pleasing God, not people. Yeah, that’s my goal.” Hmmmm. I suspect anyone’s natural response would be to read this passage, assume it applies to someone else (certainly not ME or the group I associate with), and read on.

That is always a baaaaaad thing to do with Scripture. The Lord didn’t write the Scriptures for “them.” When I’m reading His Word, He is speaking to me. “Ten-hut! Front and center!” I have to stop and say, “Lord, help me see that this does in fact apply to me. I’m cut out of the same bolt of cloth as everyone else. I share their weakness. But how? In what specific ways?”

As I have pondered this passage, I think it is all too applicable. In fact, I would go so far as to say it ought to be a bombshell in anyone’s life. Actually, my mind is whirling. I will try to put it in some kind of logical order.

First of all, and I have run across this before, I think the church groups of which I have been a part have grossly failed to see this sin in their own hearts. The groups I’ve been a part of clearly see the sin of making a goal of “getting rich.” They are quick to say that no one should ever “serve God” for the love of money. It’s easy to see the evil of the televangelists. Most of their pastors, missionaries, and seminary professors live in relative poverty (by American standards). They are quite sure that is proof-positive that they are serving God, not money. But what no one sees is that one can “get rich” in more ways than money. And the verse before us addresses another perhaps more insidious way – people pleasing.

I fear it is really easy for a church-group to become an approval system. Like the Pharisees of Paul’s day, one can join the group and then literally ride the approval wave. Since the group thinks everything they do pleases God, one can conform zealously to their practices and convince oneself and the group I’m pleasing God. Just a few verses further in Galatians 1, Paul says of himself, “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (v14). In Judaism (Pharisaism), Paul could literally ride a wave of adulation. He could strictly and zealously conform to the traditions of the group and thereby garner their enthusiastic applause, all the while convincing them and himself that he was quite the servant of God.

Yet, all the while, he was nothing but a people-pleaser. He was “getting rich” in applause, adulation, and approval. I suspect he is referring back to that when he says, “If I were yet pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Notice the “yet.” When he met the risen Christ and chose to follow Him, he knew he was giving up that entire approval system. From now on, those same people would hate him and malign him. No more applause. No more easy “just follow the rules” approval system. I’m afraid we all err greatly if we let our church affiliation become an approval system. Greed is greed no matter what it is I “want.” And it is an abomination to make any group’s “rules” or “traditions” the standard of righteousness. Too, too often in my own life, I have conformed to the group’s standards of “righteousness,” often even myself questioning, “Where is that in the Bible?” But that is one thing I am trying hard to correct now. I want the Bible and it alone to be my standard of righteousness, whereby I measure myself and people around me. And my goal should be to be constantly letting God measure my heart and life according to that standard and not any other. As Paul says in I Cor 4:3,4: “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” Even my own conscience isn’t a reliable guide. Even it needs constantly to be submitted to the correction and oversight of the Scriptures.

I guess the sum of it all is to say that I think it extremely important, being a part of a church group, to constantly be guarding my heart and making sure I do not simply conform to their “approval” system, but rather that I am, in fact, a servant of Christ, and Him alone. The idol of “approval” is just as insidious (maybe more) that the idol of wealth. Yet, we cannot serve two masters.

That is, ultimately, I think Paul’s point here. What is he saying? He is actually allowing his own motives to come under scrutiny. “What was my goal in preaching to you?” Note that, even in proposing the question, he’s making a profound logical connection: errant teaching arises from a heart with ill motives. He is asserting the purity of his own motives to accredit the truth of his teaching. Matthew Henry noted, “He did not, in his doctrine, accommodate himself to the humors of persons, either to gain their affection or to avoid their resentment; but his great care was to approve himself to God.”

As Someone important once said, “Go and do likewise.”