Monthly Archives: August 2022

PAUL’S TRUMP CARD

Bible Study, ,

PAUL’S TRUMP CARD

“Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” Galatians 2:3-5.

What part does circumcision play in the life of a believer? This was a very live issue in the early church. On what grounds were Gentile believers permitted to be acceptable to God and to be part of the fellowship of the church?

The Bible relates two apparently contradictory scenarios. In Acts 16:1-3, Paul had Timothy, son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother, circumcised because of the unbelieving Jews. Yet in Galatians 2:3-5, he records that he did not compel Titus, a young Greek believer, to undergo circumcision. Was Paul being inconsistent?

David M Rogers (www.bibletruth.cc/gal2_1_10.htm – The Circumcision Controversy) wrote a thorough and compelling explanation for Paul’s action. (Read the article to get the full explanation).

To summarise, the circumstances for each situation were different. Timothy was half Jewish. And Paul had him circumcised for the sake of unbelieving Jews, because no uncircumcised person was permitted to participate in the Passover (Exodus 12:48, 49). This was a missionary motive, not to make Timothy Jewish but, because he was already half Jewish, to give him opportunity to reach unbelieving Jews.

“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew to win the Jews…” 1 Corinthians 9:20.

In Titus’ case, he was a Greek. He had no Jewish ancestry and no Jewish connections. He refused to be circumcised to satisfy the demands of false believers – those posing as believers but who were only out to get converts for their cause. Later in his letter, Paul makes their motives clear. The Judaisers were not interested in binding Jesus’ yoke on Gentile believers. They were teaching and trying to enforce their own yoke on people who had already received the message of Christ, so that they could collect “scalps” for themselves (Galatians 4:17) and avoid the offense of the cross (Galatians 6:12).

The issue for Paul was not that circumcision, in itself, was wrong but that the teaching that, for the Gentile, circumcision was necessary for acceptance with God was wrong. Circumcision does not guarantee that a person’s heart is pure. It was nothing more than an outward sign that a Jewish male belonged to the Jewish race and was recognised as belonging to the covenant people of God. But, even for him, it was not circumcision that made him a true Jew, but obedience to God. 

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” Deuteronomy 30:6.

“…Even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” Jeremiah 9:26.

Even in the Old Covenant era, God was more concerned about heart attitude than about a physical sign. Circumcision meant nothing without obedience to the teachings of God from the heart.

“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.” 1 Corinthians 7:19.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:6.

For Paul (Romans 13:8-10), and for Jesus (Matthew 22:36-40), loving God and loving others fulfilled all the commandments.

Was Titus circumcised? No. Why was Titus not circumcised? Because he refused to bow to the demands of false teachers who insisted that Gentiles had to become Jews first before they could be accepted into the fellowship of the church. What was the issue? Was the cross of Jesus sufficient for Gentiles to be saved? Yes, a thousand times, yes! How did the cross deal with the Law? Watch this space…!

Is this still an issue today? Yes, it is although it rears its head in many other subtle ways, if not in the matter of circumcision. What Paul taught in this letter deals with every way in which keeping the Law or parts of it is an issue today.

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.

NO LOOSE CANNONS

Bible Study, ,

NO LOOSE CANNONS

“Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure that I was not running and had not been running my race in vain…” Galatians 2:1, 2.

In Paul’s autobiographical sketch, he was insistent that at no time did he get permission from the leaders of the Jerusalem church to preach to the Gentiles, and he also did not learn what to preach from them. He was God-ordained, God-instructed and God-commissioned to go to the Gentiles.

There was another reason why he was sent by revelation to Jerusalem. It was important that the leaders of the early church were in complete harmony with one another in what they taught and what they did, especially as there were many false teachers who were undermining the unity of the church. There were to be no loose cannons acting independently of the Body of Christ, inventing doctrines of their own and setting up splinter groups wherever they went.

Throughout his life as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul kept in touch with the church in Jerusalem and the church in Syrian Antioch, the two main centres of Christianity at the time. He and Barnabas functioned as leaders at Antioch for years before they were commissioned by the Holy Spirit through the leaders of the church there to go to the rest of the empire with the gospel (Acts 13).

Paul’s brief visit to Jerusalem after his years in Arabia was just an introduction of the erstwhile persecutor to Peter to reassure him of Paul’s authenticity in case Peter thought that he was an infiltrator with another agenda.

“…As for those who were held in high esteem – whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism – they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognised that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.” Galatians 2:6-8

Paul’s visit to Jerusalem after his second missionary journey (Acts 18:22), achieved his purpose. The Jerusalem church leaders could have no doubts about him when they listened to his story. And what a story! He didn’t major on his achievements as much as on the things he suffered for the sake of the gospel; beatings, imprisonment and even stoning at Lystra and being left for dead. No fake apostle would ever endure experiences like that for a lie.

He would also have told them of the miracles God did for him and his companions; like Peter, a miraculous release from jail in Philippi through an earthquake, and the even more miraculous conversion of the jailor and his entire family; deliverance of a demon-possessed girl which landed him and Silas in prison; his survival of the stoning episode; his escape from the murderous intentions of fanatical Jews time and again, all told one story – God was with him and working though him.

He would also have related to them the leading of the Holy Spirit – how he and Barnabas were chosen and commissioned by the church leaders in Antioch after a season of prayer and fasting; how he was blocked for going further into Asia Minor and redirected, through a dream, to move westwards into Macedonia. How he was directed towards the Gentiles because of the hostile attitude of his fellow Jews.

Paul had to learn to read his circumstances because this was mostly the way that the Spirit led him. There were times when the Lord Himself encouraged and reassured him by a personal visit when he was at the end of his tether. Throughout all his experiences, good and bad, Paul was learning how to walk with the Lord and to be led by the Spirit.

There could be no doubt in the minds of Peter and his fellow leaders that Paul was a genuine apostle; that the message he preached was the same message they preached and that he was a God-ordained apostle to the Gentiles. They were united in heart and gladly endorsed Paul’s ministry.

“James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” Galatians 2:9, 10.

How much better it would have been for the witness of the church, had leaders down the ages followed the example of the apostles and worked hard to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There were and are too many loose cannons with agendas of their own, building their own kingdoms with teachings they invented instead of doing what Jesus commanded – “Follow me!”

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.

PERSECUTOR TURNED PREACHER

Bible Study, ,

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 happen.

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 in him 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 went 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 the Jesus way, 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

Bible Study, ,

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 as God, and one who had been executed by the Roman authorities 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, God 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.

Paul 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 encounters 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!

Bible Study, ,

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 consider 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 must 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 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.