Same as It Ever Was

Paul concludes his analogy where he uses the soap opera of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael to explain situation involving the Judaizers and the new believers in Galatia.  

In this letter, he's doing everything he can to undo the damage these false teachers have done.  

They've infiltrated these churches and convinced them that the only way they can stay saved is through their own good works (Gal 2:4; 3:1-3).  The apostle repeatedly uses the Old Testament as an explosive to blast away at their false gospel.  

Beginning in Galatians 4:22, he uses the story of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory to illustrate just what's going down.  The Judaizers and those who follow them are just like Ishmael and his mom.  The followers of Jesus are like brothers of Isaac, "children of the promise" (Gal 4:28).

Ultimately, the man from Tarsus hopes his readers will understand that the relationship between these two half brothers still exists today.  He wants us to see that history repeats itself.  Here we go again.  

Same as it ever was.

Once again, Paul flips open the pages of Genesis.  He recalls, "But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit..." (v29).  He reminds them that Ish and Ike weren't exactly close.  

Once again, he describes Ishmael as "born according to the flesh."  In other words, this was when Abe and Sarah took things into their own hands to fulfill God's promise (Gen 16:2).  

The writer of Genesis says that the day Abe and Sarah weaned Ike as a baby, Ish mocked his little brother (Gen 21:9).  This is more than a little sibling rivalry.  Hagar’s kid openly talked trash and laughed at his kid brother.

Paul points out that just as Ish ridiculed and insulted Ike, "so also it is now" (v29).  What's happening in now Galatia is the same thing that happened back in Genesis.  In other words, don't fall for the Judaizers' trash talk of Paul and the rest of Jesus' followers.  

That's what Jesus taught His followers on a Galilean hillside (Mt 5:10-12).  Unbelievers will persecute those who trust God.  It’s Christ’s way of saying, “Haters gonna hate."

As a matter of fact, the radical Rabbi/Carpenter says this is pattern of persecution is actually a good thing.  It let's you know that "your reward is great in heaven."  

It happened then.  It's happening again.  Here we go again.  Same as it ever was.

The apostle quotes Genesis 21:10 which describes how Sarah insisted that Abe kick Hagar and Ishmael to the curb so that they would not be included in Isaac's inheritance.  

Paul wants us to know that folks like the Judaizers that teach self-salvation will never be saved through trying to keep the rules.  When the divine will is read, they won't hear their names.  

This family feud continues today.  Forget the Hatfields and the McCoys.  That ain't NOTHING compared to the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.  Jews and Arabs have been at war ever since.  We're not talking centuries, but millennia!  

Same as it ever was.

Notice in Paul's analogy the different ways he refers to the unnamed Isaac.  He's the child "by a free woman" (Gal 4:22, 23, 30).  He's the boy born through the "promise" (Gal 4:23, 28).  He's kid "born according to the Spirit" (Gal 4:29).  

He wants us to know that they all mean the same thing.  When we're born according to God's promise, we're born according to the Spirit and we're born free! 

Paul concludes his allegory with the bottom line: "So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman" (v31).  

This is what he wants the Galatians to take away from the illustration.  They are NOT like the Judaizers.  They are NOT like Ishmael.  

If you've placed your trust in what Jesus has done FOR you, then you're a child "of the free woman."  

Don't let these spiritual snake oil salesmen fool you with scriptural slight of hand.  And it's still happening today!  That's why we need be aware just like the Galatians.  It happened then.  It's happening again.  Here we go again.

Same as it ever was.

©2012

Jay Jennings

Brother from Another Mother

Family history and genealogy are incredibly popular these days. It's easy to understand why. The United States is a melting pot. 

Other than the native people who were already here when the explorers and colonists set foot on the shores, we all came from somewhere else. 

People want to know where they came from. We want to know who we are.

That's Paul's point here in verses 24-28. Using the story of Hagar and Sarah as an analogy, he draws a distinct difference between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant. 

He wants the Galatians to understand that while the followers of Jesus may share a few things in common with those who are under the law, they are actually brothers from another mother.

Don't forget that the apostle continues to hammer away at the Judaizers' false gospel taught in the Galatian churches. They've tried to use the Old Testament to teach these new believers that Paul didn't get it right. 

According to the false teachers, Jesus may have saved us but we must make sure we stay saved through religious rule-keeping. 

The Judaizers have clearly picked a theological fight with the wrong person. There may not be anyone on the planet with a better understanding of the OT than the man from Tarsus. 

In this letter to the Galatians, he uses the truth of the Hebrew Bible as a wrecking ball to pound away at their phony gospel.

After bringing up Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and Isaac (Gal 4:22-23), Paul uses their story as analogy. "Now this may be interpreted allegorically" (v24). The original text literally reads "which are things allegorized.” 

The Greek verb here is αλληγορεω/allegoreo. It's the idea of trying to convey something other than literal meaning. It means to talk figuratively, to use analogies and to illustrate using comparisons.

Let's be VERY clear here. Paul is NOT saying that the story of Abraham's two ladies in Genesis is some sort of fairy tale fabricated to explain something not understood. 

The story of Abe, his aging wife and their young maid is much more than some sort of risque soap opera. It's actually TRUE! It is history. It is fact. 

We're to read the OT for what it says. It's not to be spiritualized. We are to read it in context of God's bigger story, the Meta-Narrative. In that story, Jesus is the Point of the story. Jesus is the one and only Hero of the Bible. 

And here, Paul is simply using the story of Hagar and Sarah as a way explaining the difference between those living under the law and those living under grace.  

When the apostle's done with his illustration, we'll have a better understanding of who we are and where we've come from.  We'll realize that living under the law is NOT a family heritage.  That's a brother from another mother.

The apostle begins his analogy.  "These women are two covenants" (v24).  Paul compares Hagar and Sarah with two of God's covenant promises.  

The mother of Ishmael plays the part of the Mosaic Covenant, "One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, she is Hagar" (v24).  

In case you missed it the first time, he repeats it again: "Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia" (v25).  She reps the promise Yahweh made with His people through Moses on the mountain just after He freed them from 400-plus years of Egyptian slavery.  

It included the Ten Commandments but actually numbered a grand total of 613 commands.   That’s right, the Mosaic Covenant was 613 conditional commands.  

In order to gain God's blessing, the people had to obey them perfectly, completely and flawlessly (Ex 19:5-6).  

Read that again. There were 613 backbreaking commands.  Take a look at the impossible standard God dictated to Moses that's listed in Exodus 19-31.  

And it really didn't make it any difference if there was one or 613.  Before the Big Mo could make it back down the mountain, the people were partying like rock stars in front of a golden cow (Ex 32).

The Mosaic Covenant was NEVER intended to save anyone.  God gave it to His people to let us know that we could never save ourselves through our own performance, even on our best day.  

The law is not a spiritual therapeutic treatment but a diagnostic device.  Paul puts it this way in Romans: "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom 4:20).  It's used to diagnose our disease.  

It is NOT the cure.  He gave us the law to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we need a Savior.  We need Jesus.  The Ultimate Remedy.

But there are those who misuse the law as a means of salvation.  That's like trying to cure an appendicitis with MRI.  It doesn't matter how many times the patient gets scanned, there's no treatment involved.  It only reveals the disease.  

The Judaizers were some of those that used the Mosaic Covenant as the cure.  Paul let's us know that Hagar represents that futile and foolish effort of self-salvation in his analogy.  "She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children" (v25).  

The "present Jerusalem" is where priests still offered animal sacrifices at the temple altar in the first century.  This was pointless for two reasons.  

First, Jesus' death on a Roman cross fulfilled God's requirement for sacrificial death once and for all (Heb 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).  Second, God's Spirit hit the road and left the temple centuries before (Ezek 10:18; 11:23).  

Hagar is the ultimate femme fatale in this drama.  She's the bad girl that leads us down the bad road.  She is the "present Jerusalem."  

She is the pinup girl for the Judaizers.  She represents slavery.  She represents works righteousness.  She represents self-salvation.

Meanwhile, the other female lead in the story is Sarah, or as Paul describes her, the "Jerusalem above" (v26).  She symbolizes life under the grace of Christ.  

Just as Abraham and Sarah should have trusted in the promise of God to provide a son through Sarah, we should trust in the promise of God to save us through grace by faith in Jesus.  Sarah is free.  And she represents the freedom we have in Christ.  

This reference to "Jerusalem above" is the New Jerusalem that God will drop from heaven when all things are made new at the final fulfillment of His promises (Rev 3:12; 21:1).  

It's God’s heavenly paradise.  And one great and glorious day, heaven comes to earth when His kingdom literally comes.

Then the apostle makes a VERY important description of Sarah (who is strangely unnamed in this analogy).  "She is our mother" (v26).  Let's be clear about this, Paul says.  If you’re a follower of Jesus, Sarah's your mom.  Not Hagar.  

Your spiritual identity is found in the one through whom God pledged to fulfill His promise to Abraham.  Sarah is not only Paul's spiritual mom, but she's also the matriarch for the Galatians and all of those who've placed their faith in Jesus.  

As a follower of Christ, you are not one of Hagar's kids.  You're a brother from another mother.

Paul goes on to quote the prophet Isaiah.  "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!  For the children of the desolate one will be more than the one who has a husband" (v27; Is 54:1).  

He's applying this prophecy to the "Jerusalem above."  Like Sarah, one great day she'll have more kids, grandkids and great grandkids than you could ever imagine.

The apostle connects the dots in verse 28 by writing, "Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise."  By placing our faith in what Jesus did on our behalf, we are Sarah's kids and Isaac's brothers.  

Hagar represents taking things into our own hands and trying to do what only God can.  Sarah plays the part of the one who realizes that the only answer is to place our trust in the Lord.  

If we've trusted in Jesus' perfect life in our place, bloody death in our place and glorious resurrection in our place, we're like Ike and "children of promise."  

And like Ike, a brother from another mother.

©2012

Jay Jennings

Abe's Two Boys

The Judaizers have duped the followers of Jesus in Galatia to believe faith in God wasn't enough to save them.  Christ's work may have gotten them into God's kingdom, but they've got to keep working to stay there (Gal 1:6; 3:1-3).  

These false teachers have twisted the Torah and fooled the gullible Galatians.  Despite their evil intentions (Gal 2:4), the Judaizers are pretty nifty in their knowledge of the Old Testament.  

But there’s just one problem. They’ve brought a toothpick to a knife fight.  They're up against the Apostle Paul.  Few people on the planet knew the Scriptures as well as he did.  

As Saul, he was rapidly rising superstar (Gal 1:14).  The young man from Tarsus was one of the few, the proud, the Pharisees (Phil 3:5).  He did his post graduate work under Gamaliel, the leading Jewish theologian of the first century (Acts 22:3).  

The Judaizers may be good.  But they are completely out of their league when it comes to the Bible.  Little do they realize that they've chosen to pick a fight with the man God's chosen to write most of the New Testament.  

This is like a little leaguer stepping in to face Hall of Famer Bob Gibson.  It ain't gonna be pretty.

Previously, Paul has made a powerful case for grace through the OT Scriptures (Gal 3:8-4:7).  Despite everything the false teachers have said about the law, it was never meant to save.  

We are only saved by placing our trust in what Jesus did for us that we could never, ever do on our own.  Jesus is the One God promised to Abraham.  Jesus is the the Point of the OT.  Jesus is the Hero of the entire Bible!

Once again, Paul flips his Bible open to Genesis.  Once again, he'll go back to the very beginning to demolish the faulty foundation of the Judaizers' counterfeit gospel.  

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise" (v23).  

These boys aren't mentioned by name, but everyone knows he's talking about Ishmael (Gen 16:1-16) and Isaac (Gen 15:4-6; 17:15-18:15; 21:1-7).  

You see, there's a striking parallel between this ancient story from Genesis and the unfolding train wreck in Galatia.  God had promised Abraham and Sarah that He would provide them a son despite the fact that they were old enough to be in a nursing home.  

They believed His promise.  But they thought Almighty God needed a little help.  So Sarah cooked up a scheme to have her hubby hop in the sack with a young maid named Hagar.  

Like the false gospel of the Judaizers, Abe and Sarah believed God might start something but they needed to help Him finish it.  

You know the story.  Hagar gets pregnant and has a bouncing baby boy named Ishmael.  And the Middle East has been at war ever since.

Paul pleads with the Galatian believers not to step into the same spiritual pot hole as Abe and Sarah.  What God starts, He WILL finish.  Or as he asked earlier, "Are you so foolish?  Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:2).  

Or as he wrote to his friends in Philippi, "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6).  What God starts, He finishes.  

Yahweh Himself stated it bluntly to Abe: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Gen 18:14).  You don't need to answer that.

Not lost in the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac is the fact that God continually reaches out to messed up and jacked up human beings.  They aren't great examples of biblical heroes.  On the contrary.  They continually got it wrong.  

Yet God placed them under the waterfall of His grace.  While Abe's faith may have been flawed at critical times, the One in whom he had faith was without flaw.  In other words, this isn't about the strength of our faith but the strength of the One in whom we place our faith.  

Abe, Sarah and their boy Ike are just early members of the endless parade of losers, goofballs and weirdos that God has graciously chosen to use to further His kingdom.

Paul is asking the Galatians who they are going to be like.  Is it going to be Ishmael, "born according to the flesh?"  Or will it be Isaac, "born through promise?”  

Will we fail to trust that God will keep His promise and finish the work?  Or will we believe that He will do EXACTLY and COMPLETELY as He has said?

What's it gonna be? 

©2012

Jay Jennings

Hello, McFly!!

Advertisers use every trick up their sleeve to create a desire in us to want something. According to many commercials, we desperately need the product we didn't even know existed 30 seconds ago. 

But infomercials are the worst. A full half hour dedicated to whipping up our desperation for a Snuggie, Sham Wow or real estate investment CDs. 

We have no clue about the cost. We simply know that we need it. And we need it RIGHT NOW! Operators are standing by!! 

It's only after making the purchase that we realize we've invested in something that won't come close to delivering on the promises of the commercial. 

If only someone would have stopped us and tried to talk some sense into us before we did something so stupid.

That's EXACTLY what Paul is trying to do here in verse 21. It's like he just warned the Galatians about the foolishness of buying junk "as seen on TV” while the newly delivered box sitting on their front porch. 

These new believers have bought the spiritual snake oil sold by the Judaizers. These hucksters duped them into believing that their salvation is up to them. 

Believe or not, we're still buying their garbage today. Jesus was a good guy. Trusting in Him and accepting what He has done is nice start, but it won't finish the job. You need good works. You need law. If you REALLY want to be saved, you've got to save yourselves through obedience to the law. 

That’s when Paul grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us. Don't you realize what you're doing? Hello, McFly!!!

The apostle begins by talking to those of us who've been suckered into purchasing one of the Judaizers' self-salvation kits on late night cable. "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law" (v21). In other words, "So you want to be under the law. Can we talk just a minute?” 

Paul uses the Greek verb θελω/thelo. It means to wish, desire or want something. He wants to hear from those of us that were excited about being "under the law."

"Under the law" (or "under law") is one of Paul's go-to phrases. He uses it 14 times in his letters. It simply describes someone who is trying to impress God by keeping the law. Religious rule-keeping. 

There's one big problem. The law is NOT meant to save us. The law is meant to crush us. Being "under the law" is not like cuddling up under a cozy blanket. It's more like being squashed under a steamroller. 

The law was never meant to save. It was meant to pulverize us into realizing our need for a Savior (Rom 19-20).

Paul asks those who can't wait to be under the law if they have any idea what's in the law. "Do you not listen to the law?" (v21). 

Slow your roll and think for just a minute. Before you do anything else, stop and read the law. Have you read the law? I mean, REALLY read the law? Do you realize what you're getting yourselves into? 

There aren't just Ten Commandments, but a grand total of 613! And God requires absolute perfection if we are we choose the path of self-salvation (James 2:10; 1Jn 3:4). There's no curve. 

And the bad news is we've never gotten past God’s Top Ten (Ex 20:1-17; Dt 5:6-21) without putting our life in the ditch. In other words, if you REALLY want to be under the law, why don't you go back and REALLY read the law one more time?

Hello, McFly!!!

Here’s the deal. The law can't save anyone. Only Jesus can (Gal 2:16). The sinless Son of God perfectly obeyed the law that we could never obey. He died the brutal death that we should have died. He was raised to a new life that we don't deserve. He did what we could never do. 

The only way we can be saved is by trusting what He did for us. Eggheads call this "penal substitutionary atonement.” A guy named Luther calls it the "Great Exchange.” 

Paul says it this way: "For our sake, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in Him we might be the righteousness of God" (2Cor 5:21). In other words, ONLY Jesus could stand up under the crushing weight of the law. He did what we could never do.

So, let's talk. Do you really want to try and save yourself? It doesn't matter whether it's perfect obedience to God's law He laid out in the Old Testament or our own handy dandy self-salvation kit. We can't save ourselves. 

Bible reading won't do it. Church attendance? Nope. Baptism is just bath without Jesus. Paul is telling us to pump our breaks if we think we've got the mad skills to do this on our own.

So you want to live under the law, huh? Hello, McFly!!!

©2012

Jay Jennings

Giving Birth to a Snow Tire

Let's be honest.  The process of sanctification ain't pretty.  From the time God justifies us until He glorifies us, it is a long, slow, painful procedure.  And when you consider the raw materials the Lord has to work with, namely despicable me, it is easy to understand why.  

As unpleasant as sanctification is for the one on the Potter's wheel, it may be more agonizing for those who desire to see Christ formed in us, especially when we disobey God.  

That's what Paul is saying in these verses.  He poured his life into the Galatians during separate two visits on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:14-14:23).  

And now these new believers have apparently ditched the Gospel of grace for a counterfeit message peddled by a group of smooth talking spiritual hucksters (Gal 1:6; 2:4; 4:17).  

The apostle aches over what is happening in the churches of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.  He loves these people and it kills him to see what they've been sucked into.

Paul begins by calling them "my little children" (v19).  He clearly wants to reassure them that despite everything that's happened, he still cares deeply for them.  They might be fools (Gal 3:1, 3), but they're his fools.  

While “children" is one of the Apostle John's favorite terms (Gr. τεκνιον/teknion), this is the one and only time Paul uses it.  He wants them to have no doubt about his love for them.

That's the good news.  The bad news is watching their sanctification is is driving him crazy.  "For whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!" (v19).  First we see that this isn't the first time.  It's happening AGAIN!  

This is a reminder that we must be patient and encouraging to those we're discipling.  As the old saying goes, "Be patient, God isn't finished with me yet."  In his famous love chapter, Paul tells us that "love is patient" (1Cor 13:4).  

I love Ruth Bell Graham's humble attitude about her own sanctification.  Driving through a road construction zone, she saw a sign that summed it up.  

She loved it so much that she asked that it be her epitaph.  Her grave marker reads, "End of construction--thank you for your patience.”  

While we need to continue to encourage, we must all remember that each one of us is an active construction zone on this side of eternity.  Let's be patient.

Paul describes what it is like to be a spiritual father to these Galatian kids.  It's "the anguish of childbirth” (v19).  This English phrase is expressed by a single Greek term: ωδινω/odino.  It means to feel those dreadful labor pains of childbirth.  

I realize that the apostle is on a slippery slope as a man talking about the pain of childbirth.  Carol Burnett says that the best way for a man to understand the severity of the pain is for him to take his upper lip and then stretch over the top of his head.

The bottom line is that Paul says waiting and watching the Galatians to be in God's process is like giving birth to a snow tire.  It's just as painful for the apostle (if not more!) as it is for these new believers.

Paul longs for the day when "Christ is formed in you" (v19).  This is the goal of God's work in each of our lives.  He has predestined every believer "to be conformed to the image of HIs Son" (Rom 8:29).  

One day we we be mature, "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13).  God promises to finish the project that He's started in each of us (Phil 1:6).  The apostle longs for that divine graduation day when he "may present everyone mature in Christ" (Col 1:28).  

We need to remember that while we are IN the process, this is GOD'S process.  He's the one sanctifying.  He's the one forming.  He's the one at work.  

What role do we play?  Tullian Tchividjian says that our part in our sanctification is to simply remember our justification daily.  

When we understand each and everyday of what Jesus did for us that we could never do, that's when God can do His greatest work in our lives.

We're reminded of that through the grammar of this phrase "until Christ is formed in you" (v19).  The Greek verb here is μορφοω/morpho'o.  It's the idea of morphing into something we're not.  Completely transforming from the inside out.  

But the verb here is passive.  We don't do the morphing.  We are the "morphee."  We're the ones being morphed.  Again, this is God's process.

Paul reminds us here that watching and waiting for that to happen in ones we love is like giving birth to a snow tire.

©2012

Jay Jennings

Don't Let the Smooth Talk Fool You

Who doesn't love it when someone makes a big fuss over them?  We all love to be told we're the greatest.  We all love to have our ego stroked.  We all love to have our itch scratched.  

That's exactly the tactic the Judaizers used on the new Christ followers in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.  Their flattery has indeed gotten them somewhere.  

But like that famous scene in the movie "Moonstruck," Paul uses this letter to slap the Galatians across the face and say, "Snap out of it!!"

Don't let the smooth talk fool you.

The apostle has clearly gotten the word about not only the "what" of this situation (legalism and salvation by works; Gal 2:21; 3:2-4) but the "how" as well.  

These false teachers rolled into the Galatian churches telling these new believers EXACTLY what they wanted to hear.  "They make much of you" (v17).  

The Judaizers clearly poured it on thick and slathered on the flattery.  You're the best.  You're the greatest.  

These false teachers had simply baited the hook with the most tempting lure imaginable.  "It's all about me."  It's a subtle and deadly deception.  It's the same lie a satanic snake used in a garden.  

We are consistently seduced by the person in the mirror.  Even the most devout follower of Jesus can get sucked into Christian narcissism.  

"How am I doing?  How's my walk with Jesus?  How's the progress of my sanctification?"  And just like Peter walking on the stormy water, we take our eyes off Jesus.  

It's impossible for me to fix my eyes on "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2) when I'm staring at my own navel.  As Tullian Tchvidjian says, "The Gospel frees us to realize that while we matter, we're not the point."

Don't let the smooth talk fool you.

But these spiritual snake oil salesmen had an ulterior motive.  They had a hidden agenda.  An undisclosed plan.  A covert intention.  

Paul makes it clear that they did this "for no good purpose."  And reveals the Judaizers secret intention to their unknowing victims: "They want to shut you out, that you make much of them" (v17).  

In other words, the false teachers want to cut off these Galatian churches from the rest of God's people and redirect their worship.  They'll dupe them with flattery and attention, and before they know it, they're shut off from everyone else.

This is the same tactic used by cults today.  They find someone who is vulnerable and then pour on the praise and attention.  

"No one cares about you like me."  And then WHAM!  The trap closes shut and the victim doesn't even realize it.  The door of their prison is locked from the inside.

When he writes "they want to shut you out," Paul uses the Greek verb εκκλειω/ekkleio.  It simply means to exclude from something.  To shut out.  To cut off.  

The term was used to describe shutting a door and leaving something outside.  In this case, it's divide and conquer.  The Judaizers were cutting the Galatians off from truth so that they could feed them lies.  

Paul delivers a VERY similar warning in his letter to the Romans.  "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.  For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive" (Rom 16:17-18).  

That's EXACTLY what's going on in the Galatian churches.  The Judaizers are dividing them from the rest of God's people.  

They are putting up obstacles to the Gospel through legalism and rule keeping.  And they did it by buttering up these new believers.

Don't let the smooth talk fool you.

Their end game was to be the object of Galatian praise, "that you may make much of them" (v17).  The false teachers didn't just want these new believers to ditch their newfound faith in Jesus.  

They wanted to be on the pole position.  They wanted the attention.  They wanted the praise.  They wanted the adulation and applause.  

This wasn't about following the truth at all.  They had duped the Galatians into believing they alone had the answers to salvation.  That way, the Judaizers would be seen as lofty men of God.

Let's back up a minute and realize what has happened.  Paul has told them the truth.  The HARD truth.  We're sinners.  We need a Savior.  Trusting in what Jesus has done on our behalf is the ONLY way.  

These false teachers have tickled Galatian ears with smooth talk.  "You're not sinners.  You're good.  Paul doesn't know you like we know you.  He doesn’t love you like we love you.”  

That would explain why the apostle wrote, "Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?" (Gal 4:16).  People who truly love us say what we NEED to hear, not just what we WANT to hear.

Don't let the smooth talk fool you.

Let's be clear about one thing.  It's not a bad thing when someone pays you attention.  That's what people with compassion do.  

It's a wonderful thing to do when someone truly has the best interest of their friend in mine.  "It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose" (v18).  

But that includes so much more than flattery.  We need to hear difficult truth.  As Mark Driscoll says, "Soft words make for hard people.  Hard words make for soft people."  Difficult truth softens our hearts and makes us more compassionate.

In other words, don't let the smooth talk fool you.

©2012

Jay Jennings