Day 3
Lisa Scheffler, author
We type out so many messages in the modern world that we often abandon the pleasantries. Our emails might not even begin with a “Dear ______,” or a “Hello. How are you?” We may just get straight to the point.
Ancient letters were much more structured and formal. They usually started with a greeting, followed up by a few lines that would reestablish rapport and praise the audience.[1] In his letters to the churches, Paul usually followed his greeting with a thanksgiving and a prayer.
Not here in Galatians. After his greeting, Paul gets straight to his point.
Read
Galatians 1:6–9
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
Why is Paul so frustrated and angry?
What does he want for his opponents?
Reflect
Paul is frustrated and astonished that the Galatian believers were abandoning the true gospel for another. Let’s start today by considering the gospel that he first shared.
The sermon recorded in Acts 13:16–41 gives us an example of the message that Paul proclaimed as he went from town to town in Galatia. Paul often began his visit to a new town by speaking in the local Jewish synagogue. The climax of his message was this: “‘We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus” (verses 32–33) and “therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses” (38–39).
In other words, Jesus was the Messiah God had promised and it was through him, and not the law of Moses that people would be made right with God. While many rejected this message, many Jews and Gentiles in the region responded and believed. But trouble was coming.
Another group of missionaries traveled through the region and proclaimed something different. Something that wasn’t really good news at all (verse 7). Paul was frustrated and angry because the Galatians were falling for it. As we’ll discover in the next few chapters, these believers were turning back to the law of Moses because they’d been convinced that their faith in Jesus was insufficient to make them right with God and to grant their entry into the covenant community. As one commentator puts it, “their departure was a decision to live in B.C. days when the A.D. days had arrived. It was a decision to recede back in time into the days of Moses and to reject the epoch-altering revelation in Christ.”[2]
Paul will have none of it. The message of Paul’s opponents was not something over which they can “agree to disagree.” The difference between Paul’s gospel and the opponent’s “gospel” was not a mere difference of opinion. It mattered. It mattered so much that Paul denounced these opponents using the strongest language. Paul invoked a curse on anyone — whether it be a person, an angel, or even Paul himself — who preached a different gospel.
Paul’s not incensed because he was contradicted. He’s not mad because he was being challenged. Paul loved these people and knew that if they adopted a distortion of the true gospel, they would not be “living in the grace of Christ” (verse 6). Paul recognized “that everything is at stake here — both the gospel of grace itself and the no-strings-attached inclusion of the Gentiles as full and equal members of God’s household”[3]
In our social media, sound-bite saturated world, we’ve become used to people being outraged. It’s not hard to find some politician, pundit, or preacher trying to stir up controversy by treating everyone who doesn’t agree as a mortal enemy. And while some of these controversies are important, they don’t rise to the level of what Paul is talking about here.
Paul’s outrage had a narrow, but critical focus, and his motivation was love. Paul spoke forcefully because he wanted people to experience the life-changing gift of God’s grace and find eternal acceptance within God’s family. Are we concerned about the same?
Respond
As we move through Galatians, we’ll consider what kind of “false gospels” we encounter today. Do you have any initial thoughts?
Paul loved the people in his churches enough to be outraged that they were being deceived about what the gospel was and what it accomplished for those who believed. Do we love people enough to care if they know and understand the true gospel? Pray over your answer.
[1] Keener, 58–59.
[2] Scot McKnight, Galatians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 51.
[3] Gordon Fee, Galatians, (Dorset, UK: Deo Publishing, 2011), 26.