Monthly Archives: October 2014

Persecutor Turned Preacher

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PERSECUTOR TURNED PREACHER

“Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing is no lie. Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted the church is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they praised God because of me.” Galatians 1:18-24.

Paul’s story takes some beating! How could this happen? “The man who formerly persecuted the church is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” It doesn’t happen every day. It’s like Hitler turning Jewish! And yet it did.

If ever there was a reason to believe that Paul had the right to defend the sufficiency of Jesus’ death for salvation, it was his own story. He had discovered for himself that all his efforts to satisfy the requirements of the law to gain access to God’s favour, were useless and futile. He spelled it out clearly in his letter to the Roman church. The harder he tried to change himself on the inside, the more he was sucked into his sinful ways. Trying to obey the law could not break the power of sin within him.

Paul knew what it was like to struggle with guilt, but he also knew the reality of God’s peace. Out of his own personal experience he could write:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1

“…and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7.

This peace was unknown to him until he came face to face with Jesus and received by faith and without lifting a finger, the righteousness he had tried so hard to earn. How could he ever go back to the old way and how could he sit by and say nothing when others were trying to persuade Gentiles to buy into a life of futile self-effort? He would fight the false teaching with every breath and with every ounce of energy in his body.

Paul was a man with a brilliant mind. He could think and argue like an astute lawyer. He was trained as a rabbi and a Pharisee under the best religious teachers of his day. Just as he once contended for Judaism, now he contended for the faith which he clearly understood from the Scriptures he knew so well. From the moment he met Jesus, everything he had learned as a rabbi fell into place. He did not invent a new faith. He preached with conviction what was already proclaimed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah.

He did not need Peter or the other disciples to teach him the truth. His three years in Arabia alone with the Holy Spirit, entrenched God’s Word which he had memorised from childhood and now understood. The truth became so deeply embedded in his spirit that he became God’s replacement for Judas, the betrayer. He paid a brief visit to Jerusalem to introduce himself to Peter and to reassure him that he, Paul, was no longer a persecutor but a preacher of the one he tried to destroy. He met none of the other apostles, only Jesus’ half-brother, James.

Then he returned to Damascus and back home to Cilicia. Paul did not record here that he became a danger to the church in Jerusalem because of his fiery preaching, so they shipped him back home to Tarsus (Acts 9:28-30). The church had rest for a while after he left until the next wave of persecution hit them when God opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

The outcome of Paul’s encounter with Jesus and his years of training in Arabia was a convinced and loyal apostle of Jesus and colleague of the men whom Jesus commissioned to take His message to the ends of the earth. After Peter’s initial visibility in the first few chapters of Acts, Paul took centre stage, and the rest of the book is his story. He became the champion of Jesus, not only in the work he did across the empire but, even more, in the legacy he left the church down the ages through his letters.

What an encouragement to know that, if God could change a vicious persecutor, He can change anyone!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

From God’s Perspective

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FROM GOD’S PERSPECTIVE

“But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult with human beings. 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.” Galatians 1:15-17.

Why was Paul giving such a detailed description of his life history? Somewhere along the line it was not only his gospel message that was being attacked but also his credentials as an apostle. After all, he was not one of the Twelve. Who gave him authority to preach what he preached and, what’s more, to call down a curse on anyone who preached anything different from his message?

And what a message! He was actually insisting that people abandon the Law of Moses as a way to be accepted by God, and embrace and worship a human being, and one who had been executed by the Roman authorities, as God because He claimed to be God. That did not sit well with the Jews. On top of that, he was inviting Gentiles to have a share in the covenant God made with Abraham, telling them that they were also Abraham’s offspring if they believed in Jesus.

From a Jewish point of view, what Paul was doing was outrageous. However, although he was a Jew, he had another perspective, one that overrode human opinion. What was God’s side of the story?

First of all, He had a plan. Paul’s early life as a fanatical Pharisee, far from being his chosen way of life, was only an interlude and a preparation for the destiny God had prepared for him before he was born. At the precise moment, Jesus broke into his life in a personal encounter which shook him loose from his presuppositions and set him on course for his life work – introducing the rest of humanity to the God who had already revealed Himself to one group of people.

He had gone about it the wrong way because he did not understand the truth but his encounter with Jesus put him right. God was not fazed by his foolish notions and bad behaviour. He was a product of his times, but He did not leave him to perish in his unbelief. Grace stepped in at the critical moment, opened his eyes and turned him around.

Paul had a lot of unlearning to do. Instead of getting it second-hand from the ones who had spent time with Jesus, he set off by himself to learn first-hand from the Master. Where better to be alone with Him than in the desert of Arabia, where his ancestors had had many an encounter with the pre-incarnate Son during their forty-year sojourn in the wilderness?

Paul spent three years – the same amount of time as the other disciples – learning to be a disciple; his own desert “Bible College”, person-to-person with Jesus. It’s no wonder he was so insistent that he had authority to preach what he preached! No one spends time alone with Jesus for that long without being transformed from the inside out, thoroughly purged of all the old wrong thinking. What you think, you become. Paul became an apostle, called and commissioned, for the rest of his life, to be an ambassador for the kingdom of God and for his King.

Notice how he said, “to reveal His Son in me”. The years in Arabia were much more than a time of changing the way Paul thought. They were also a time for changing his attitudes and responses so that he became a completely new man. He spent three years “contemplating the Lord’s glory.” Jesus did not sit down on a rock beside him and teach him his spiritual ABC. By His Holy Spirit He was in him, revealing and leading him into all truth, making real and becoming to him “Christ in me, the hope of glory.”

When Paul left the “sacred halls of learning”, not in a classroom or lecture hall in an esteemed institution, but under the wide open sky, he carried with him much more than knowledge. He carried in him the presence of the Son of God, both his tutor and his model. It’s no wonder that he was so adamant about the truth of his gospel. The author was resident within him, guiding him and speaking through him so that it was always and only truth that he presented to anyone who would listen.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Right About Turn

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RIGHT ABOUT TURN!

“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.

“I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached 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. 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. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” Galatians 1:10-14.

How much zeal and energy Paul poured into this letter! He knew he was in a life-and- death struggle for the souls of the believers in Galatia. He would use every possible means to persuade them that they had been fooled.

Perhaps he had been accused of being a people-pleaser. But it was quite the opposite. Preaching the cross of Christ was offensive to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Who would want to follow a fellow who had been crucified by the Romans? He must have been a lawbreaker. How could He be a god worthy of worship? It was unthinkable that God’s Messiah could have been put to death like a common criminal. After all, He was supposed to be their king and deliverer.

Paul had been hounded from city to city by the Jews for daring to invite Gentiles to believe in their God. Gentiles were dogs and scum and Jews did not associate with them. That Gentiles were included in God’s covenant with Abraham was unthinkable. Paul not only taught that but he also went as far as teaching that Gentiles who believed in Jesus were spiritual children of Abraham while Jews who did not receive Jesus as their Messiah were excluded from the covenant. How was that for being a people-pleaser!

Paul’s history also made it impossible to think that he had invented the gospel he preached. He had been a vicious persecutor of those who followed Jesus. He was determined to stamp out this new religion, even if it meant exterminating every follower, one by one. He went to every city and town where they were, arresting and dragging them off to Jerusalem to be tried by the Sanhedrin.

He had not reckoned on Jesus or His purpose for him. Jesus was not fazed by Paul’s zeal for the tradition of his fathers; not for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, mind you! Had he been zealous for their faith, he might have acted differently. In typical Pharisee style, his hatred for followers of Jesus did not take into account that he was not acting like the patriarchs who loved and trusted God rather than murdering those who did believe as they did! Just like his fellow Pharisees who were children of the devil, according to Jesus, Paul had been a murderer and the followers of Jesus were his target.

How did Saul, hater and murderer of Christians become Paul, loyal follower of Jesus and preacher of the good news about the cross and resurrection of the very one he had persecuted? Only God could do that! And only Jesus could explain it to Paul by revelation so clearly that he could write the kind of things he wrote without qualms. He did not sit at the feet of Peter or get the message from John. He got it from Jesus Himself in the years he spent in solitude in Arabia.

No one as zealous or fanatical as Paul can make a right-about turn by himself. It has to be a work of God and a revelation of grace. From one who pumped the law the way Paul did to one who preached the sufficiency of Christ’s work which actually cancelled and did away with the law, took a powerful and life-changing encounter with the one he had rejected and refused to believe.

Paul had a very strong case for the source of his gospel. Unlike the Judaizers who were building on tradition, and defending their position with the might of the Jewish hierarchy behind them, Paul based his case on the authority given to him by God and the revelation of the truth from Jesus Himself. How could they argue against the transformation of the messenger of this good news?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Confused!

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CONFUSED!

“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 preached to you, let him be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be under God’s curse!” Galatians 1:6-9.

Euangellion! Gospel! Good news! What was the good news that Paul brought to the people of the province of Galatia – and everywhere else he went, and why was it good news?

The pagan world worshipped many gods, all of them capricious, unpredictable and malevolent. To the Gentiles Paul announced that the one true God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, because of His great love, sent His one and only Son, Jesus, into the world. Jesus lived as a perfect human being and was put to death as a sinner to pay the debt of sin and to redeem mankind from the penalty of sin and to reconcile them to God.

To the Jew Paul preached that Jesus was the Messiah whose coming and life were foretold in detail by the prophets. He came to fulfil the Law of Moses, which God’s people failed to obey and incurred an unpayable debt. Jesus paid the debt in full, redeeming them from the curse of the broken law and restoring them to fellowship with God.

Good news! Of course it was good news because both Jew and Gentile were no longer bound by a multitude of laws, rituals and prohibitions. Instead they were enabled by the Holy Spirit to love God and their fellow men which completely fulfilled the Law. Their standing with God did not depend on their performance but on God’s grace which came to them through Christ.

Paul must surely have enlightened his hearers of the grace of God that released them from a self-help religion that did not work anyway, and called them into rest in the finished work of Jesus. How on earth, then, did these Galatian believers become entangled in a system that insisted that they keep the Jewish Law in order to be accepted by God?

Paul expressed surprise and astonishment that they were so fickle that they turned from the gospel he had preached to them to “another gospel” which was actually bad news. How could having to keep the law be good news? It was a step backwards from freedom to bondage, from God’s grace that brought rest to self-effort when they would never know if they had done enough.

They were not abandoning a belief system as much as deserting the very Person who had bought their forgiveness of sin and set them free from guilt, shame and fear. The good news is about Jesus. In Him is bound up everything we need to be true sons and daughters of God. When God gave us His Son, He gave us everything; forgiveness, salvation, righteousness, life, hope, love, joy, peace, meaning, purpose, a new nature, and a new standing in God. Abandon Jesus for “another gospel” and you lose everything including the hope of eternal life.

“What were you thinking?” Paul demanded to know. “Were these so-called “teachers” so persuasive that you fell for their ploy?” Paul was so adamant that the gospel he preached was the real good news that he even invoked the name of God in his curse on the perpetrators of this false teaching. Not once but twice he denounced them and called down a curse on them for what they were doing – eternal damnation for spreading lies. Now that’s pretty strong, isn’t it?

This was much more than a belief system to which Paul called people to subscribe. This was a matter of life and death – determining the eternal destiny of the people who had been persuaded to heed the false teaching and who had turned from Christ to follow their way. It was imperative that Paul explain the implications of what they had done and call them back to Jesus Christ who was their only hope.

Belief is much more than giving assent to information about God – it involves entrusting oneself to Him and submitting to His way. To “believe” in Jesus without embracing Him as Lord is worthless and futile. Faith in Him gives access to everything He is and does and reproduces His life in the believer. Only He and His way gives us access to the Father.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Hot Under The Collar

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HOT UNDER THE COLLAR

“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 – and all the brothers and sisters with me. To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”  Galatians 1:1-5.

Paul had every reason to be hot under the collar! There were men called Judaizers on his trail who were so zealous for the Law that they were trying to undo everything he had done to teach the Gentiles the truth and lead them to freedom in Christ.

Paul was a Jew, a died-in-the wool Pharisee who had, in his pre-conversion days, contended so vigorously for the Law that he was willing to kill for his beliefs. His compatriots had killed Jesus and he was determined to kill His followers and stamp out this rival, anti-God religion, so he thought. That was until he met Jesus in a face-to-face encounter that opened his eyes and shook him to the core.

He discovered that what was called “The Way” was no corruption of his faith but the completion of what he had learned and taught with vigour and zeal as a Pharisee. This Jesus, whom he was unwittingly persecuting, was the Messiah he and his fellow Jews had yearned for and yet rejected when He came because He was not the person they expected.

What’s more, he discovered that in this one person, Jesus, God had fulfilled every promise and that He was a sufficient Saviour from everything that the Law demanded but could not provide. Paul knew what it was like to fail, Pharisee though he was, and to suffer the pangs of guilt for breaking God’s Law with no hope of ever satisfying His righteous requirements.

He also knew what it was like to experience the freedom from guilt that the forgiveness of sins had brought him. Peace with God! The peace of God! These were so real to him that he was willing to lay down his life to make this Jesus known. Only in Him could the sinner be reconciled to God. Jesus plus nothing was the revelation he had received and Jesus plus nothing was what he contended for and would to his last breath.

These Judaizers were false teachers who were insisting that, to be acceptable to God, Gentiles had to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses as well as believing in Jesus. Paul was incensed because his beloved Galatians had swallowed this lie and veered off course, not realising the implications of their actions. They had to be informed and quickly before they disqualified themselves from receiving God’s grace.

Even Paul’s introductory statements reveal his concern about what was going on in the Galatian church. No friendly greeting, no commendation or prayer, just the bold declaration of who he was – an apostle of God and of Jesus Christ, in case they had any doubts about his authority. He not only represented the triune God, but also his fellow believers who stood with him in what he taught and what they believed.

Even his benediction – grace and peace – has a ring of sternness about it. Don’t you Galatians understand that the grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ come at a price? It cost the Son His life-blood to rescue you from the corruption in the world and of your own hearts. How can you ever think that you can add to what He did to effect your rescue and restoration to God as His children?

Paul would contend vigorously for one thing – do you want to be slaves or sons? If you go back to the Law, you will be going back to slavery, cancelling out God’s grace and putting you back under the curse of trying to do it yourself. It didn’t work for the Jews and it won’t work for you.

This subtle error rears its head in many ways in the church today. There are those who still contend for the Law in such things as Sabbath worship, health laws, dress codes, even the use of musical instruments in public worship. What about the current teaching about “spiritual warfare” as though it is still the church’s job to fight against principalities and powers before people will believe the gospel?

Again and again we have to ask the question: Did Jesus say or did He not say, “It is finished”? Was His life, death and resurrection enough to satisfy God’s justice? Did He or did He not defeat the devil? We must let the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, answer these questions.

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ, He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Colossians 2:13-15.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.