Galatians: Finally...Melons?

Melons and cucumbers look pretty good when you’re eating dust most of the time. And so the people complained. Who brought them to this place of dryness and monotony when they could have fish and garlic, onions and leeks?

The Israelites were willing to trade their freedom for the delights of food. They minimized the food God had provided and whined about what was on their plate. (Num 11:4-6)

They were willing to go back to slavery for melons and fish.

As we conclude the book of Galatians, we see Paul writing to rescue churches from similar thinking. These new Christians throughout Galatia had been given new life. No longer were they under a death sentence.

But they were listening to those who were luring them back to slavery.

Paul reminded them: you are set free. Trusting anything but Jesus’ sacrifice was a walk to Egypt’s whips and chains.

This is our last lesson on Galatians. Feel free to review the lessons, as listed in the sidebar to the right.

For now, please read Galatians 5:1-4 and think about what Paul composed to people he loved and mentored. Write in your journal the impressions you get. Have you tried to return to the land of melons and cucumbers, ignoring the slavery that’s part of it? What is God asking you to lay down in the name of freedom?

Galatians: Branded

If you’ve ever been around livestock, you’ve seen a branding. A branding iron, heated to cherry red, is pressed against the flank of the cattle, leaving a mark on the skin for life, identifying the owner of each calf.

Paul reminded the Galatians as he closed his letter that he, too, was branded. In Gal 6:17, he said that the stigma or brand-mark of Jesus was on his flesh.

The irony of that comment was that judaizers (Jews who were trying to lure the Galatian believers into obeying Jewish law over Paul’s teachings) were insisting that the Gentiles be circumcised. That was the mark on their body which identified them as set apart for God.

Paul’s brand allied him with Jesus’ crucifixion, not the old laws. He was marked for life, owned by Christ.

So he told the Galatians it was no longer necessary to be circumcised. What mattered, Paul said, was a new creation.[1] While the judaizers required circumcision to be set apart, Paul said believers were set apart as a new creation.

Today, we don’t see circumcision as a rite of being set apart for God. But we sometimes have other practices which may seem to make us worthy of walking with God. And we trust those practices rather than placing our trust solely on Jesus’ work of redemption.

While the new believers in Galatia were tempted to trust in Jewish law and traditions, Paul reminded them again that they were new creation, set apart by Christ. They had been set free, not to return to traditions, but to walk in the life Christ had given them.

Do you wear the brand-mark of Jesus?

Have you trusted anything besides Jesus’ death and resurrection to give you freedom?

How do you trust and celebrate your status as a new creation?

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[1] Gal 6:15

Galatians: community

Emotions looked like a bad stock market line graph in those days. One day, my joy soared and the next I was sitting in the basement of discouragement.

Fortunately, when the small group asked me, “So how are you doing?” I told them.

I was in the early weeks of pregnancy after two successive miscarriages, and hormones were playing tennis with my emotions.

They gathered around me, put hands on my shoulders and prayed. From that moment forward, those emotional swings leveled out. I still had ups and downs, but not those crazy extremes.

I’m glad I live in a community.

In Galatians 6, we see a few responsibilities of community. In v 1, we are asked to gently restore one overcome by sin. In v 2, we’re told to share each other’s problems. In v 3, we’re told to get off our high horse and help.

Up to this point, Paul’s letter to the Galatia churches urged them to run from legalism. Their salvation did not depend on their rules. But, in chapter 6, he seems to pile on the rules.

Not so. He points the way to valuing relationship. First, in the early chapters, with God and now with one another, Paul describes a healthy community.

Read Galatians 6 and answer these questions in your journal:

Paul describes a healthy community in the early verses of Galatians. What does that look like?

Why is verse 3 important in a healthy community?

Why is verse 5 also important?

Reflect on verse 10. Do you see that happening in your life?

Galatians: not your to-do list

Carrie had the fruit of the Spirit emblazoned across her bathroom mirror. Surely, if she saw the list every morning right after her shower, she could remember to behave herself all day. She’d scrubbed fog off of “self control” several times and tried to be sure she carried “love” to the breakfast table.

The kids weren’t always much help, though, as they dragged themselves through extended bowls of cereal while she prodded them to dress for the bus.

Usually, by 8 am, Carrie’s fruit felt as fogged as the list on the mirror and she trudged through her day, defeated by her own lack of self control.

You may have the fruit of the Spirit list on your walls, too. Maybe you’ve felt defeated, too.

But take a look at Gal 5:22 again. That is not our to-do list to be checked off each day as we grit our teeth and show patience to the sluggish driver at the stop sign. This is the fruit of the Spirit.

In other words, when we exhibit any of these traits, it’s because we’ve allowed the Spirit of God to shine through. These are his traits, not ours. This is his nature, not ours.

We can’t become gentle and good by determination but by surrender. The fruit list is more of a thermometer of our heart. If we see love, joy, peace, patience, etc. in our life, it’s because we’re allowing God to reveal his nature through us.

If we see impurity, jealousy, envy, selfish ambition and the like, we’re seeing our old nature. That’s a clue that we’re not submitting to God but are choosing to follow our own desires.

Read Gal 5:13-26. For what are we called?

What’s the danger to us? (v 13)

How does Paul advise us to live? (v 16)

How can you apply v 25 to your daily life?

Journal about this passage and God’s call to you. If you are not seeing the Spirit’s fruit in your life, what’s holding you back? Can you make changes?

Galatians: Which race?

“Can I play with you?” Billy asked the group of children at the park.

“Sure! Here are the rules.” Susie spent the next five minutes going over the game kids were playing. Billy’s eyes glazed over and he wandered off to check out the circle slide.

Even children surround themselves with regulations.

But Paul had some other ideas:

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”[1]

We could summarize the book of Galatians with this verse. Paul is pleading with his readers to reject the slavery of rules and embrace the freedom Christ intended for his own.

In this chapter, Paul is working up to impassioned proclamation. In verse 5, he reminds his reader that trusting in rules separates us from Christ.

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”[2]

But we trust regulations, don’t we? We want to have a share in our own salvation, to contribute to our redemption. Somehow, regulations are easier than relationships. We want to show that we are worth saving.

Relationships mean we have to trust others while rules mean we trust the rules.

But freedom comes in relationship, not in rules. We are not worthy of saving on our own. We need relationship with Christ, not a pack of rules to provide how admirable we really are in obeying laws.

Paul begged his new Galatian churches to grip their new freedom. “You, my brothers, were called to be free.”[3]

Journal about these questions:

Read Gal. 5. How would Paul define freedom?

What did the “yoke of slavery” (v 1) look like for you?

Where are you in the “race” that Paul describes in v. 7? Are you running in freedom or trusting in rules?

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[1] Gal 5:1

[2] Gal 5:6

[3] Gal 5:13

Galatians: the child of freedom

Hagar, the servant girl of Sarah, was young and healthy. When she bore a son to Abraham, it was in the ordinary way out of human effort and plans. Sarah knew child-bearing was not a problem for the young woman.

It was impossible for Sarah to bear Isaac, but she did because God had promised she would. Sarah represented the freedom of grace while Hagar represented the slavery of human effort.

Using a familiar story, that of Hagar and Sarah, Paul tried to convince the new Galatian Christians that they had choices. Yes, they were children of Abraham, but Abraham had two sons: one born of human exertion and one born of God’s promise.

The Galatians were children of Abraham, all right, but grafted in because of God’s pledge, not their own efforts. Paul was upset that the Galatians as new believers would allow themselves to trust human endeavor rather than God’s assurance. He didn’t want them to give up the freedom of God’s grace and the blessings of his inheritance. The law was about human effort and Paul wanted the new believers to know freedom.

We sometimes stumble as the Galatians had, thinking that a set of rules might be simpler than a walk in the open air. Paul longed for freedom for the Galatians, not a return to slavery.

Read Galatians 4:21-31. Write in your journal about any impressions you have.

What benefits are there to following the way of Sarah (God’s promise)?

Is your faith based on God’s promises or on your own efforts?

What steps can you take today to walk in the way of Sarah?

Galatians: the birthright

Nick thought he was a slave at age 14, forced to work weekends and summers in his father’s small business. He learned skills he didn’t want to know, sweating when he wanted to play. He left for college glad to be free.

But a few years later, his father offered him a partnership in the business. This time it was his choice, and he returned to a position that now offered some financial security and great opportunity.

There’s a difference between a servant and son. Nick was always a son but saw himself as a teenage servant for awhile, with no choices and no opportunities.

In Galatians 4:1-20, Paul questioned why the Galatian Christians would shuck their birthright for a servant situation.

“…before you knew God personally, you were enslaved to so-called gods…,”[1] Paul declared.

But now, he continued, you are choosing to go back into slavery. Those who offer only a pack of rules and traditions are luring you to become servants.

Why would these false teachers do that?

Paul explained: “They want to shut you out of the free world of God's grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.”[2]

Paul pleaded with the people to remember their position as children, not slaves. “If you are a child, you're also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.”[3]

Consider these questions in your journal:

Have you seen situations where people return to the comfort of servanthood?

What does Paul see as the advantages of a child of God, as opposed to a servant?

Have you ever struggled with the lure of rules and traditions? What would Paul say to you?

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[1] Gal 4:8

[2] Gal 4:17

[3] Gal 4:7

Galatians: Grafted in

Once in Arizona I saw a tree growing oranges, grapefruit and lemons. How did that work? You can’t grow one of those orange-grapefruit-lemon trees from seed. Someone had grafted grapefruit and lemon branches onto an orange tree.

Grafting is an amazing way to give new life and Paul used that imagery in the third chapter of Galatians.

Galatians were grafting in the wrong teachings and Paul challenged them. Because they were considering a return to Jewish law, Paul gave them correct Jewish teaching in this chapter.

God made promises to Abraham that still apply to Abraham’s offspring. Followers of Jesus are grafted in, like a new limb onto a tree, and made part of God’s contract with Abraham. The law had not yet been given when that first happened, yet Abraham received God’s blessing – not because he kept the law but because he believed God.

The law came later, with Moses. When the law was given, we were all put in jail until Christ paid the price for us. When the law code was published, lawbreaking became clear. No one had an excuse now. We were guilty by the law.

Jesus died in our place so that the promises made to Abraham are also available to us. We receive the blessing of God as an inheritance, not because of our efforts but because of God’s grace.

Paul wrote to the Galatians to remind them that they did not need to earn God’s grace through following the law. In choosing to follow Jesus, they were grafted in to the tree of life. They were declared children of Abraham and therefore heirs of the promise.

Consider journaling on these questions:

Are you an heir of God’s promises? Why has God allowed you to enjoy blessings? What are examples of God’s grace?

Galatians: double standards

Confrontation is never fun, especially if the confrontee is a well-respected elder. But we know nothing about Paul if we don’t know that he was passionate about the word of God.

So the thought of confronting Peter the apostle didn’t set Paul back. We’ve been looking at the book of Galatians, Paul’s first letter – written to his first church plants.

The idea of diluting the gospel with Jewish traditions got Paul’s pulse pumping. He was clear on the basic truths of his new faith, and wasn’t afraid to confront even Peter, reminding him “we are justified by faith, not by observing the law.”[1]

In other words, Peter wanted to live freely, not under the law, but expected non-Jews to live like Jews, observing the law. Why? Either we are saved by the grace of Jesus or by the law. Not both.

Paul understood that if righteousness could be gotten through the law, then Christ died for no reason.

Read Galatians 2, keeping in mind the differences between Peter’s and Paul’s teachings.

By the way, this difference was soon to be resolved at the Jerusalem Council as described in Acts 15. The idea of whether new Christians had to first become Jewish before coming to Jesus was an important debate for the early church.

I hope you’re keeping a journal as you read through Galatians. Write down your answers to these questions and feel free to leave comments on them as well:

Do you live by faith or by the law?

What does that look like in our culture today? (It probably doesn’t deal with circumcision and festival observances like in the first century)

Do you know someone who is confused about the place of law in his or her life? What could you tell him or her?

List some of Paul’s arguments with Peter.

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[1] Gal 2:16

Galatians 1

Ack! How is this new teaching better than what I taught you? That may have been Paul’s thoughts as he wrote his letter to the Galatians.

Last week, I introduced the book of Galatians and asked you to read the first chapter. Paul, who had just returned from his first church-planting swing through the area of Galatia (eastern Turkey), quickly learned that new teachers had followed in his steps. They were revising his message, telling the new believers that they needed Jesus plus some Jewish practices such as circumcision.

Paul was like a mama bear protecting the new followers. And some of his questions in the first chapter of Galatians go right to the point: What was the authority of these new teachers?

They had none, of course. They were changing the gospel of Christ. Paul was horrified that the new believers were buying it. Didn’t they look at these teachers’ authority?

Paul spent Gal 1 defending his own authority to teach, reminding the Galatians that he spoke not to please men but his authority came from Jesus. He spoke to please Jesus.

Re-read Galatians 1, reviewing Paul’s authority and the new teachers’ authority. Journal the answers to these questions and your responses to the chapter (and feel free to leave comments on them as well):

Why did Paul have authority to teach?

Do we know the authority of our teachers?

Do we speak with the authority of God’s word? Or do we speak to please others?

What do we base our faith on?

Galatians: an introduction

The churches planted in the area of Galatia were Paul’s first church starts and he wrote this letter bristling like a protective dad to defend his churches from false teachers. Judaizers – Jews who claimed that first you had to adopt the Jewish way before you could become a Christian – were trying to lead the new believers down a road of effort, not grace.

The book of Galatians reminds believers that we were set free from bondage. Paul reminded his readers that the Jewish law did not deliver, Jesus did. Why return to the bondage of the law?

Paul also reminded the Galatians that the covenant was based on faith, not observance of the law.

The stakes were high. Since the first Christians were Jews, some wondered if the way to Jesus was through the Jewish observances. Paul strongly opposed that.

The way to Jesus was through faith. Salvation comes by grace, not by what we do. The Spirit came by belief, not by observing the law. The Gentiles were adopted into God’s family not because they became Jews but because they saw Jesus as their Redeemer.

Judaizers were trying to lead the new believers down a path of law but Paul called that the path of slavery, of following the way of Hagar. A follower of Jesus had the path of freedom, adopted into Abraham’s family and heir to his promises.

Why, then, return to the yoke of the law? A believer had started his new life following Jesus and his freedom. Why trade freedom for the slavery of the law?

Those are the issues of the book of Galatians.

I’m starting a Monday Bible study which, for next six weeks, will look at the book of Galatians. Try to read chapter 1 before next Monday, when we discuss authority.