Dear Galatians
Week one - Just Jesus
Galatians 1
Bottom line: Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
“Plus” feels like a good thing -
Plus means we don’t have to choose between. “You can have this and this” instead of “You can have this or this”.
Post-resurrection - is Jesus a plus?
The good news takes awhile to leave Judea, but eventually the train gets moving and people start to hear about Jesus all around the Mediterranean in large part because of a guy named Paul who started a lot of churches and wrote a lot of letters to those churches
*It was tricky enough in the early years when it was a question between Jews about whether Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for, but then they started to add in the Gentiles and the math got complicated:
Jewish + Jesus = we can figure this out
Jesus + Jewish = a way in for the Gentiles
Just Jesus = whoah there, this is either too easy or too dangerous
This question has changed iterations through the centuries in terms of what goes along with the “+Jesus” but the heart of the issue remains the same - is Jesus a helpful addition, or is following Jesus the whole ballgame? Meaning, you believe in Jesus and it changes everything; or you don’t believe in Jesus and you live life under your own lordship or another lordship.
All in or all out seems like a lot - so we drift toward the mode of +Jesus
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul is going to argue, passionately, that anything +Jesus is a distortion of the gospel - it was an uncomfortable letter at the time, and it’s an uncomfortable letter still
Intro to Galatians -
- One of Paul’s earliest letters
- Galatia is on the eastern rim of the Mediterranean in what is now south central Turkey
- Written during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius - most people in town worship local gods and goddesses along with growing worship of the emperor himself and the power of Rome. Add to the mix a significant minority of Jews worshiping in their own synagogue, dealing with the growing threat of all the pagan idolatry and activity surrounding it.
- There are some political realities - the Jews were an accepted minority cult at this point with stated permission to pray “for” the emperor” instead of praying “to” the emperor- the addition of Gentile Christians who were trying to participate in the Temple made them fearful of political trouble, upsetting the status quo
- Paul shows up in the midst of this diverse culture and starts talking about one God and one Way, and this person named Jesus who is the king-to-end-all-kings…and then after awhile, he leaves to keep spreading that word in other places
- Not long after leaving, Paul gets word that everything he had started and shared in Galatia is getting changed by the Judaizers who came in behind him, and his authority/role is being questioned, and he is hot about it - so he sends a sharply worded letter to the church in Galatia…
1 Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers and sisters with me,
To the churches in Galatia:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.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!
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me. —Galatians 1:1-24
Paul was a deeply committed Jew, a Pharisee among the Pharisees, so the fact that he is saying “you don’t need to be circumcised” means this isn’t something additional, this is altogether different
*How wild in our world today (and back then) to encounter someone who has changed their mind about a deeply-held and publicly-held belief
-Example - Paul Kingsnorth’s essay, “The Cross and the Machine”
Paul was hunted down, called, and sent by Jesus himself
Apostle - “one who is sent”
- Wildly inclusive - Jesus died for all who would believe, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female; His death and resurrection changed everything possible
- Wildly exclusive - anything plus Jesus is a distortion of the gospel; and it’s the subtle stuff that’s the most difficult to navigate and has been tripping us up for centuries
Grace vs Law, or Grace vs Truth
Jesus is neither - he is full of grace and full of truth (John 1)
Jesus +