Transcript
A (0:00)
Hi, I'm Michael Barber, and this is my dear friend Jim Prothero, and we're both professors here at the Augustine Institute Graduate School. We're fascinated by St. Paul. I've written a book with my dear friend Brant Petrie and my other dear friend John Kincaid on Paul. And Jim Prothero has a new book coming out on Paul through Catholic University of America Press. So we thought we'd partner up and do a series on Galatians. This is session two, part two of that series on Paul's letter to the Galatians. Such a powerful letter. You know, every letter of Paul has its own sort of flavor. And this is the letter that I think Paul is the most passionate in, or at least he's the angriest in. Most of his letters have these long introductions, these sort of poetic introductions. Don't really see that as much in Galatians. Right. He just jumps right into the issues at hand, it seems.
B (0:57)
Yeah, that's right. Can see in a few places we looked at last time, Chapter one, verse six, where instead of what he usually does and saying, I thank God for all of you and your faith, and now I'm going to talk about some specific things that you need to know or need to fix, he just says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting God. In chapter five. We'll see this more today. But we mentioned last time, chapter five. He's talking about some of the false teachers who've come into Galatia who are trying to get people to be circumcised and telling them, the men, that if they're not circumcised, they won't be able to share the life of Jesus and be saved. And Paul says in chapter five, verse 12, I wish those who are bothering you would emasculate themselves. He's getting after it. Right. I wish they'd cut themselves off. And the end of the letter, you can still feel a little bit of his sort of solemnity, gravity, severity. At the end of the letter. Chapter six, verse 17, right before he says, grace, be with you, goodbye, he says, from now on, let no one cause me any more trouble about this.
A (2:09)
Whoa.
B (2:10)
But we have to remember, too, right, that Paul, knowing these people and also being far away from them and having a lot of other business, so he can't always come and see them. This is one of the only letters where he doesn't promise to come visit because he apparently can't. Right. He's doing other things. He's far off. He's writing this impassioned plea to win the Galatians back to his side. And if the other people are going to say mean things about Paul and the other people are going to try to sway them with soothing, sweet words, Paul is going to bring the hammer to tell them, I'm serious, please listen to me. And he gets pretty cranked.
A (2:49)
Well, he is very clear that the issues that he's addressing get right to the heart of the Gospel, right to the heart of the Gospel message. And so after his introduction and after talking about how he's so surprised that they're falling away, he goes on to explain that he's not trying to assert his own brilliance or his own insight or his own authority. He's. He's only trying to serve Christ. And this is his point in the verses we'll look at today. He goes on to say, for. For am I now seeking the approval of men or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Paul's not trying to be a people pleaser here, and he recognizes that the opponents that he's referring to have a message that is quite appealing. All right, he goes on, for I would have, you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. So Paul is going to be explaining this letter that Gentiles don't have to be circumcised. They don't have to undergo that, that surgery. And you can understand that that would be good news to a lot of Gentile men. Yes, I believe in the Gospel. Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. But then you have some people that are saying, yeah, but there's one more detail, right? So Paul's message is going to sound like it's very appealing to many people. And Paul's making the case, I'm not trying to just be a people pleaser here.