Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Understanding the Authentic Message of Jesus | New Testament | Galatians 1

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Join Patrick as he takes a break from Acts to dive into the book of Galatians, where Paul calls the Galatian church back to the good news of King Jesus for all people. Discover how Paul's encounter with Jesus transformed him into the apostle to the Gentiles. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Galatians 1

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. If you've been going through the New Testament with us, you'll know that we've spent the last few weeks in the early chapters of the book of acts. Now, in those chapters, we read the earliest stories of the church and its growth, especially around the areas of Jerusalem. Peter and John, they're out there boldly proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the son of God, that he's the king who was promised by the prophet, who would announce the forgiveness of sins and who would welcome in those who repent. And of course, Jesus didn't just announce the forgiveness of sins. He laid down his own life to make it possible.

In his flesh on the cross, Jesus bore the penalty for sin. The powers of sin, spiritual darkness, and death. They did their worst on Jesus, and he died. But remarkably, at least is what Peter and John say, God the Father raised him from the dead, announcing that all who pledged their allegiance to Jesus would not only be forgiven, but also become inheritors of his own resurrection. They taught that one day he would return

and all of his people would be resurrected to enjoy life with him in a renewed creation. But as the story goes on, things start getting challenging. Peter and John, they're beaten, they're imprisoned, and they're committed to stop announcing this good news. Later on, a Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus begins a widespread persecution of Christians in the region. There's another early church leader.

His name is Stephen, and he becomes the target of Saul's persecutions, and eventually he's stoned to death in Jerusalem. But before Stephen dies, he looks up into heaven and he has a vision of King Jesus standing on his throne. And then Stephen turns to his persecutors, and he repeats the words of Jesus, calling on God to forgive those who persecute him. And then Stephen dies. But this doesn't stop Saul. He goes on a rampage, and as a result, the church is scattered from Jerusalem, and it begins to spread outside of Judea into Samaria and Syria and lands beyond. And one day, Saul was on a journey to Damascus.

This would have been in the region of Syria. And he's got documents with him from the Jerusalem Temple leadership, giving him authority to imprison anybody who is following Jesus. But on that journey, Saul of Tarsus sees exactly what Stephen saw. He sees Jesus standing in the throne room of heaven, and Jesus is asking Saul, why are you persecuting me? This moment turned Saul's life upside down. He was like a lot of Jews in his day.

He wanted to experience a vision of God's glory just like the prophets did. But when that vision came, it wasn't the God he expected. Well, actually, it's kind of wrong. It was the God he expected. It was Yahweh incarnate. He just never anticipated that this was the true identity of Jesus. Saul became Paul, the Apostle Paul, who most of us have probably heard about. And this is how his lifelong service to Jesus began.

He became the apostle to the Gentiles, people who weren't Jewish, He announced to the Gentiles the good news of Jesus' kingdom. And he said that people who weren't Jews, the Gentiles, that they were welcomed into Jesus' kingdom. He was the one who was inviting those Gentiles to be grafted into the family of Abraham. And so now, I want to press pause on our little series on Acts. We're still going through the New Testament. Don't worry.

But I want to look at a letter which the Apostle Paul wrote around the time of Acts 14, which is the chapter we just looked at yesterday. You see, it was around the time of Acts 14 that Paul, wrote a letter to a young church in a region called Galatia. Now, a little bit of background on Galatia. Galicia was a Roman province in the center of modern day Turkey. And the church that Paul wrote to was in the southern portion of that region. And now, while the book of Acts doesn't give us all the details, it seems as though Paul was the one who planted that Galatian church. And he probably planted it around the time covered in Acts 11, which we looked at last Friday. But as the years

passed between Acts 11 and Acts 14, a lot of scholars say each chapter is almost equivalent to year. That doesn't quite work out that way, but it seems to be the case here. Anyways, as the years passed, the Galatians lost their way. The church was being divided by ethnic tribalism. The Jews were on one side of the church, and the Gentiles were on the other. And the Jews were the most prominent leaders in the Galatian church. And according to Paul, they were preaching a gospel, which was a false gospel. And so now, around the time of Acts 14, Paul decides that he needs to write a letter to the church that he planted to call them back to the good news of King Jesus. He's doing this because he knows the gospel is for all people, not just Jewish people. It's for all people who put their faith in Jesus,

not just Jews who abide by purity laws and are circumcised and follow the food laws and a lot more. Paul opens up his letter by reminding the Galatians of who he is and above all else where he got his gospel from. We pick up in Galatians 1, verse 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, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse. As we have already said, so I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what

you accepted originally, let them be under God's curse. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Paul goes on to detail the story of his conversion, which we covered at the beginning of this podcast. And as he tells it, he emphasizes what he said at the end of the section we just read a moment ago, that he did not receive his gospel from humans, but from the very mouth of Jesus. Let's keep reading in verse 15. But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and

called me was pleased to reveal his son in me, he's talking about his conversion when he saw Jesus so that I might preach him amongst the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went to Arabia, and later I returned to Damascus. So why does all this matter? Well, Paul is trying to tell the Galatians and us the same fundamental truth. The true gospel is not from humans. The true gospel is from Jesus. But in a lot of ways, I think we have some similarities with Paul before his conversion. You see, before his conversion, he had only a human understanding of God based on his reason, his logic, and the outlook and views of his community

around him. But then Jesus appeared, and he received a gospel, not from human origins, but from God himself. And this makes me think of a phrase that's very common amongst Christians. It says, people will talk about making my faith my own. Now, on the one hand, I think there's something really good about this. If this is what you mean by it, I can't rely on my parents' faith or my spouse's faith or my friend's faith to be my own faith. Yeah, that's a true statement. But on the other hand, if what we mean by that is that my faith is based on my own opinions, my own commitments, my own understanding of Jesus, well, I think that's a mistake. The gospel is not subjective.

The gospel is an objective reality that comes from outside of us and shapes us from the outside in. The gospel is a confrontation from the outside of us to which we either pledge allegiance or we deny it. It never really is my own personal faith that's, you know, subjective. no different than someone's faith in Allah or Buddha or whatever. No, true Christian faith, true faith in the gospel is faith in an objective historical event. That's true whether or not I believe it. Paul's gospel is not a human matter, invented by humans or made real by human faith. It is a true historical reality that changed everything about history, everything about Paul and everything

about you too. So let's pledge our allegiance to that truth. Let's pledge our allegiance to the good news that Jesus really is our forgiving king who died for our sins and rose to give us resurrection life with him and a renewed creation. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.