Threats to the Gospel

Any man-made requirement added to race alone by faith alone turns the gospel in the something else. It's the King James version or CSV or synergy or it's getting up before five on making sure that you find your quota on a thousand other things that become softly the damnable plus for Paul this was an issue of the preservation of the gospel and the apostle was not about to overlook such a grievous error very gospel was its it was at stake for the church. Then, and for the church today we welcome you to Renewing Your Mind and another message by Dr. Derek Thomas's series. No other gospel lesson back. This is lessons three and four in Galatians chapter 2 and this is one through 10 on this recap just a little. Paul was defending himself at the tail end of chapter 1 Judaizers in the Galatian church for accusing him of being the charlatan Johnny-come-lately wondering where he got his gospel from and Paul went out of his way to give some history and narrative about his conversion and how it gone to Arabia and then he gone to Jerusalem limited metric Peter for 15 days, but the whole point of all that was to say that you got this gospel, not from man, not even from Peter, James and John, but he got it from the Lord that was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit and through his studies of the old testament tenant and so on. Now you remember that in Galatia of the problem is that these were calling them Judaizers. For now, and that's a lesson elastic term and since scholarship of the various sects within Judaism that range from extreme left and we might call those Seleucids or Hellenists to extreme right Judaizers and under Judaizers were saying that is not enough to believe in Jesus. You've also got to believe and adhere to the boundary markers of Judaism and they were things like circumcision on things like the food laws and the calendar that the Jewish calendar and certain worship practices in an ensemble and Paul that was anathema. That was the gospel. Plus, so not Jesus only by faith only apart from the works of the law.

For Paul, that was the damnable plus and he was having none of it now. What was it that led the Judaizers to insist on these boundary markers, and it was there interested Jewishness citrus. Their sense of Jewish identity.

It was what they identified themselves as within Judaism as a Paul now again goes back in history and he goes back to two incidents, one in Jerusalem.

Some 14 years later. Chapter 2 in verse one, so it would gone ahead in time but there was something that happened in Jerusalem and there was something that happened in the Church of Antioch to the north. That reminds him of the same problem that's now affecting the church in Galatia so so were still in Galatia is rising to the Galatians, but is having a kind of flashback to two incidents that that impact what he's about to say in the church at Galatia. So the first one is back in Jerusalem and its �14 after the visit that he made and spent 15 days with the apostle Peter and what Paul now really wants to say is, there was the same disease that was the same room inspection and the church in Jerusalem, and in order to understand that when we need, unpack a little bit of history and we need to set the time put ourselves back not simply in the mindset of the Jews in Jerusalem but in the mindset of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who are still attending the temple. Perhaps they're still going to synagogue there still being parked by rabbis on and there's a there's a kind of sense in which the church is still under the umbrella of Judaism and its trying to find its way forward in terms of what aspects of Judaism are good and what aspects are being fulfilled what what aspects of Judaism, a ceremonial and will fulfilled in Christ. What aspects were simply aspects that defined Jewishness more and a sense in which Israel was a theocracy, a country a nation and had ethnic identity and and what part of that needs to be removed as the gospel now traverses its way through Europe and into Hellenistic and and Gentile territory well. 14 years later Paul went to Jerusalem, and with him. He takes Titus and Titus is a Greek and that means that Titus is an circumcised and this is a problem and apparently it's still something of a problem for people like James's the Lord's brother and none Peter or Cephas, and perhaps John the three most important disciples apostles who are disciples of Jesus and and and they're still working their way through this issue now.

It's the same issue that will be brought to the Council of Jerusalem. In acts 15 and as I said in previous sessions.

Because Paul doesn't cite the Jerusalem Council and its conclusions. Galatians is probably written before the Jerusalem Council, but this is an issue that would impact the church should be a would be on the agenda of the church for a decade or more before that would be clarity about the issue. Galatians is about freedom of one of the great lessons in chapters 5 and six. For example, is that if you are in Christ to a free and I'm free from the necessity to obey the law in any shape, where will form in order to be justified, and in the issue. The issue here in Galatians justification is not sanctification it's justification and and Paul is saying in Christ we been set free from all the birds on all the law no Paul will unpack that in more detail and then more theological detail. Once we get into chapters 3 and four but but now here the issue is circumcision with the case of Titus and the there's a woman Elizabeth actually she was emancipated from slavery in the 19th century and when she became a free woman. She wrote free. What a glorious ring to the word free.

The bitter struggle was over free the soul to go out to heaven unto God with no chains to pull it down free. They also had a brighter look in the very stars seem to sing with joy. Yes, free, free by laws of man and by the smile of God in heaven lasts them who made me so she was born a slave in February 1818, and 1855 sheep purchased her freedom to become a dressmaker to the political elites in Washington. She became a confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln, the presidents wife friendship ended when Elizabeth wrote a tell all book and broke some confidences of the First Lady on the First Lady never forgave her and she ends her life in economic slavery. She was a slave she was emancipated, but in the sense she ended her life back in slavery a different kind of slavery but an economic slavery.

Nevertheless, because of poor decisions that she made. She lost sight of what it is that that made her free and in a sentence. That's exactly what Paul thinks is going on in the church in Galatia and Titus is the test case said Titus is a Gentile.

He's not circumcised. He's Greek and in the eyes of Jews and and you know when you converted from a certain condition you you sometimes take a while for those prejudices to be removed doesn't always happen overnight. And so, although in the eyes of the Jews certainly Titus was unclean with morally unclean. He was spiritually unclean.

He was untouchable in strict Judaism. I just wash your hands if you came into contact with him.

You couldn't eat at the same table as him and and and so on. So Titus is the perfect test case. But Paul isn't trying to convince Jews to try to convince Jewish Christian system is trying to convince people like all people like James and Peter and John and for Paul, the gospel is at stake. Now this is where it gets very interesting. In the New Testament, in the case of Timothy and Timothy has a Gentile parent in a Jewish parenting and he was uncircumcised, but Paul has him circumcised because there was no issue about Timothy Norma's making a fuss about Timothy but people are making a fuss about Titus and people in very high circles in Jerusalem are making a fuss about Titus and so this now becomes a test case and Paul has to it's not a it's not a decision that Paul can make as it will because this was a thing in different you could go one way you can go the other didn't really matter now because there are those in the church in Jerusalem who are insisting that Titus be circumcised and insisting drawing into question the validity of Titus is salvation. If he wasn't circumcised there cross the line.

This is not to shall we become all things to all men, and in order for Timothy to gain access to Jewish circles would be better for them to be circumcised and then that just wouldn't be an issue and could move on and and so on.

Now, in the case of Titus they'd made it the gospel issue. They made it a justification issue unless Titus is circumcised. He is not in the right standing with God. They said yes believe in Jesus, but you've got to add circumcision. Well, as I suggested before, might be a different server issue for us. It's not her circumcision at some it's the King James version or CSV or is the NIV or its sermon getting up before five, and making sure that you had your carton and if you don't do that. This is a skepticism. I don't think is your truly saved or homeschooling. I mean if you send your kids to public school.

How can you possibly be a Christian who could possibly be justified or it might be republicanism that unless you vote in a certain way, where certain hats you cannot possibly be a Christian, or it can be the use of alcohol in moderation, or it can be joining country club or can be an insistence on a certain practice in baptism and a thousand other things that become sexually and sometimes not so subtly the damnable plus for Paul this was an issue of the preservation of the gospel. This is an issue of the purity of the gospel. What is the gospel. All those other things that fine and we should discuss them when Christians may come down one way or another on on each and every one of them, but in and of themselves they are not the gospel.

Well, it gets a little more sensitive than that.

It's not just the issue of circumcision. It's the issue of race and this is a very contemporary moderns of the field towards Titus was a Gentile and this was a racial matter, it wasn't anti-Semitism. It's the reverse. It's anti-Gentile is on and the Jews had a suspicion about the moral, spiritual qualities of a Gentile. They will lasts then human. Even so, this is a this is a racial thing and this is so is a very contemporary 21st-century issue in the world and uncertain in the part of the world where we are recording this session this morning. It's complicated. So Paul says sermon I went up because of a Revelation, verse two and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential but so Paul doesn't know he doesn't make a big public fuss. He doesn't call the press and the camera crew to film and embarrass see person James knowing that they met privately that sometimes sometimes meetings need to take place in private, but everything these Republic things to be on Facebook and Twitter under Christians need to learn that the not everything they do and say another all of their opinions need to be on Facebook because of the people read this thing on the gospel is judged by the standards of what you put on Facebook and on song. The gospel is at stake here and the unity of the Christian church is at stake so Eva says in verse three, even Titus was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek yet because of false brothers secretly brought in F false brothers secretly brought in in Galatia Judaizers Russellville but now they've heard that Paul is bringing Titus to Jerusalem and so these false brothers to notice the term false brothers are people who are advocating something which isn't the gospel and from those first six and from those who seem to be influential, but that will makes a difference to me. God shows no partiality. There always those who are influential authors. They think they're influential and that words carry a lot of weight and gravitas in and they affect different sections of the church and they have followers and so on and they have number of friends, and likes on their Facebook accountable or whatever it is that those I say verse six who seemed influential.

I did nothing. Teresa Paulison swayed by people it takes a strong person not to be influenced by others, not to be influenced by those who are powerful not to be influenced by those who are very vocal. Not to be influenced by those who have had a lot of influence and so you see something of the stature share of the apostle Paul. And in verse seven on the country when they saw that had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised. Just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, and there's a little clue as to the two principal parties involved in this discussion, it was Paul and Peter. And at this stage Paul is still relatively young and and there comes a point where Paul shines Peter in terms of presence and personality and all of those things and you have to imagine how difficult it was for Peter that this outsider who had never seen Jesus and never followed Jesus. All of a sudden he's getting all the limelight and God is using him in a way that is no longer using you and that brings all kinds of difficulties and all kinds of emotional reactions in some of the very worst things within us emerge when somebody else who in your opinion doesn't deserve the limelight gets all of the limelight, and you must become like Jesus, who became nothing who emptied himself and became obedient even unto death, and maybe that's part of the lesson from this historical narrative that is for you and for me. Are you willing to take the lesser roads. The one that isn't in the limelight, the one that doesn't get all the attention and glory because you're doing it in obedience to the war and it's not the opinions of others that matters, it's the opinion of the more and so you got this Titus issue and then verse seven on the country when I saw that had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised. Just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who walked to Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised walked also through me for my name to the Gentiles, and when James and Cephas, and John, who seems to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me that we should go to the Gentiles and data the circumcised, only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do so. The gospel times here and James and John and Peter agreed that God is asking them to be missionaries to be apostles to the circumcised Jews and Paul and Barnabas, and an Titus to the Gentiles, and there is there is agreement. The issue of race, Titus almost brought the church into disunity and almost poor. The church parked on the only thing that they required was that they remember the poor and is a member historical background to that Jerusalem frequently experience poverty and poverty, not because of weather conditions and drought and so on. But when Jews became Christians when they called Jesus Lord Cotillard's many of them were ostracized from their family.

They would lose family support their businesses would suffer certain Jews wouldn't go to their businesses and they would take the trade elsewhere, and so there's an element of poverty in the Jerusalem church. Especially, and you remember how Paul at least for two years of his ministry would be raising money from the Gentiles, to take her gifts to the church in Jerusalem and it occupies chapters 8 and nine, for example of second Corinthians and and that was in part a way of the Gentile churches giving back and recognizing their origins in Jerusalem recognizing the place of charity, the place of helping fellow Christians in needs race and social justice. The not the gospel. They have huge implications that come from the gospel and will see a little bit of that in the next lesson is removed from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of the greatest see this through to policies and that and we look forward to hearing that message tomorrow as we continue Dr. Derek Thomas's series. No other gospel. Paul's letter to the Galatians, glad you joined us on this with the addition of Renewing Your Mind. I believe web where Dr. Thomas just say that there were in danger today of adding to the gospel whether it be the version of the Bible we read or what kind of worship experience or churches provider how much we engage with the culture, we can easily slip into the trap of making our own preferences gospel issues.

Paul's entire letter to the Galatians provides the antidote to this common problem in Dr. Thomas's series helps us understand many of those lessons we'd like you to request this to DVD set for your donation of any amount today you can give securely online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us at 800-435-4343. Dr. Thomas is a leader teaching fellow and the senior minister at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia South Carolina it is also a professor at perform theological seminary in is always an order when he comes to our campus with a new teaching series like the one were hearing this week is the first time were airing it and again the title is no other gospel.

Paul's letter to the Galatians would like to send it to you for your donation of any amount to this ministry are number again is 800-435-4343 in her web address is Renewing Your Mind.org and in advance let me thank you for your generous gift. Those we just heard Dr. Thomas saying we will see an infamous confrontation between two disciples tomorrow. The message is titled, Paul opposes Peter is an important piece of church history as it relates to the gospel. We hope you'll join us Thursday for Renewing Your Mind