Saturday, October 6, 2012

Galatians 5:7-12 – Bleeding Jesus



Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

7You were running well. Who cut in [on] you to not be obeying the truth? 8This persuasion [is] not out of the One calling you. 9‘A little leaven leavens the whole lump’. 10I am persuaded concerning you in the Lord that you will think nothing differently but the one troubling you, whoever he is, will bear the judgment. 11But, brethren, if I am yet preaching circumcision, why am I yet being persecuted? Consequently the scandal of the Cross is negated. 12O that the ones opposing you would castrate themselves!

In my last two posts I looked at verses 7-9 and observed that Paul is at this point not necessarily writing in a smooth logical manner. He appears rather to be in an emotional froth over the Galatians’ devolvement into legalism. As a result, the sentences seem to be individual outbursts of his frenzied mind. But what I want to observe today is that even though he is in an emotional frenzy, yet every outburst is in itself a pearl of wisdom.

To begin with, in verse 10, he injects something few of us would express or even think at this point: I am persuaded concerning you in the Lord that you will think nothing differently…”   Matthew Henry observes: “Herein he teaches us that we ought to hope the best even of those concerning whom we have cause to fear the worst.”  Once again, Paul is living out what he told us in II Timothy 2:24-26: “The servant of the Lord must not argue; but be gentle with everyone, able to teach, and patient; in humility instructing those who oppose them; that perhaps the Lord may grant them repentance, to the acknowledging of the truth.”  Calvin comments, “It gives us courage to learn that good hopes are entertained about us; for we reckon it shameful to disappoint those whose feelings toward us are kind and friendly.”    

I think we all know personally the truth of what all these guys are saying. Most of the time if someone is “displeased” with us, they let us know in no uncertain terms. Their abrasive, negative, demeaning, threatening demeanor only stirs in us defensiveness. On the other hand, in the (maybe) three or four times in our life that someone honestly offered us loving, gentle, encouraging correction, we are all keenly aware how much easier it was to hear them. It may still have wounded our evil pride to be corrected at all, but at least they communicated it in a way that gave us the hope we could change.

The key is to, like Paul here, turn that around and ask myself, “Can I see others’ faults through the eyes of love?” If I ever do need to “say something,” can I, will I deliberately say it in words that “minister grace to the hearer?” I believe, if we will just walk in the Spirit, the answer is “Yes, we can.” Out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth will speak kindly if that heart is living in Ephesians 4:29-32:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

On the other hand, if I am walking in the flesh, I’ll never pull it off. Interesting, back in our verse 10, Paul injects the “in the Lord.” I’m not sure if he is referring to himself, that as long as his mind is “in the Lord” he entertains these hopes, or if he is referring to them, that his hope for them is not in them but in the Lord who “begun a good work in them.” Perhaps it makes no difference. Either way our hope springs from the Lord and His presence, His power, His involvement in the details of our lives. The key to their success or ours is to be walking “in the Lord,” “in the Spirit.”

And what is the hope that Paul entertains concerning these people? “… that you will think nothing differently.”  Here I would like to inject that the reason Paul can hope this hope is because he is convinced there is truth. He can hope this hope, that they will think like him, because truth is objective. The truth is the truth. The more anyone grasps the truth, the more we’ll all think alike. This is precisely why it is so important to be in the Word, reading it, studying it, attending to its teaching, and trying to live it out. The Word is the truth. It is the great Touchstone of Reality. We are all bombarded constantly with other ideas, thoughts, and paradigms of “truth,” which invariably appeal to us to one degree or another. Only an attentive consideration of God’s words can help us see through the maze of it all and make the many, many mid-course corrections it takes to arrive safely at our destination.

It just comes down to the fact that “truth is truth.” If people are genuinely born again and seriously seek the mind of the Lord, in the long run we will agree on what is the “truth.” The Word is our hope and should be our constant diet. The closer we all get to the Lord, the closer we’ll be to each other.

One last thought: in the last half of verse 10, Paul refers to “the one troubling you.” Some suggest based on this that there was really only one person causing all the trouble. However, I would suggest this is just a collective singular. Nearly all the other references are clearly plural: 1:7; 4:17; 5:12; and 6:12,13.  Regardless, it is interesting how Paul shifts the threat of judgment from the Galatians to those who are promulgating the errors: “…but the one troubling you, whoever he is, will bear the judgment.”  

From this, I would suggest there is another pearl of wisdom lurking in the heart of Paul. Matthew Henry made the comment, “…we should always distinguish between the leaders and the led …” My observation from life is that most people, if left alone, will actually live fairly quiet lives. What most people want is just to be left alone, to go to work, make a living, and come home every night to their family. There are actually very few people in this world who will go around and stir up everyone else. Every time I see a large protest, I always wonder who’s really behind it. Sometime notice how on many of the signs they hold the print is strangely similar. Someone else put it in their hands. The fact is all of those people would be somewhere else minding their own business if someone hadn’t stirred them up. At any rate, my point is that I think we waste way too much time fighting the “led,” when in fact the real problem (as Paul is here intimating) is the leaders. I think the bottom line is, if you want to stop a movement, figure out who the leaders are and somehow stop their influence. The whole thing will then probably die away. Obviously the “led” themselves are still responsible for the choices they are making and, in fact, the whole book of Galatians is being addressed to the “led,” but still, it is the leaders who need to be dealt with most severely. The whole world, it seems to me, would save a lot of time and trouble, if they just observed this simple fact.

My, my. How the mind of a godly man bursts with wisdom. Cut him, it would seem, and he only bleeds Jesus.


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