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The Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast
GAL126 - Thanks for Flipping Your Hat Around and Straddling the Chair, Paul; It Was Very Helpful
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Hey, my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour podcast, and we're in the middle of just a delightful little passage here in the middle of Galatians 3 that I don't think I've ever understood as well as I'm understanding it right now as we're going through it together. I'm telling you, you being here makes such a difference, because if you weren't here, I'd be like, yeah, you should read the Bible. God's on the other side of it. It's important. I would read it and I would get to things that are hard. And even though I'd like to imagine that I'm this intrepid Bible explorer filled with courage, and I do what to understand what the Bible says, I wouldn't, because I am also lazy. And I think maybe sometimes I get to hard stuff when I'm on my own. I'm like, yep, that's hard. And it'll make sense later. But, I mean, we're just going to pretend like we get it and we're going to move on, which makes sense. And it's kind of biblical. I mean, Peter himself said about the book we're reading right now probably said about Paul's writings. It's hard sometimes. It's hard to understand. Paul talks about really complicated things, but Peter also said that it's scripture. Peter himself affirmed that this is from God. It's important. So having you around to process out this passage has been really meaningful. Thank you. We left it in suspended animation from our last conversation where we are working through this passage where Paul has kind of metaphorically flipped the hat around backwards and he's straddling the chair and he's like, hey, let's just take this down a notch and make it make sense. Let's take an example from everyday life, like just how contracts are or how a covenant is. And it really is making a ton of sense. We've just got a little ways to go to land the plane on this block of thought, so you can go and catch the last episode or two if you want to, or we can just move forward together now right after Jeffrey plays some music. Thanks, Jeff. So nobody in the original audience would have been like, well, God just threw out all the promises to ABRAHAM when he, 430 years later made promises to Moses. Huh? No. Not only does he not throw it out, it's not even augmented. He didn't change the deal at all. The deal's still on again. You and I looked at that for ourselves. So we got a conditional covenant with Moses. That's the law. But what Paul refers to as the promise, that which was made to Abraham and is transferable, it goes right on down the line. That's God's redemptive plan. That's not gone. That's still in place. And thank goodness it's not gone. Paul goes on, still flipped around with his hat backwards. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise. But God in his grace, gave it to Abraham through a promise. Okay, I jumped ahead. I shouldn't have done that the way I did it, because I basically just said what Paul said right there in that verse, but I just did it worse. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise, but God in His grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. Okay, we're tracking with that. Right. Just a simplified expression of the terms of the deal, of the contract, of the covenant. There were no terms to that initial promise. I'm God, I'm going to redeem. My redemptive plan just happens to include you. And Abraham's like, I believe that. And God is like, I credit that to you as righteousness. So that's it. The inheritance, the promise of the covenant, the contract, the deal to Abraham, it doesn't depend on anything. There's not even a law at that point to obey. Even if Abraham was like, let me do something for you, though. Let me obey every single elaborate detail of the law that you have revealed. Well, I haven't done that yet. Oh, Even if Abraham wanted to be like, hey, I'd like to give something back to you. Let me do all the things that you want. I guess God's response would be kind of like, it was with David and Solomon, where David was like, let me build you a great big temple. And God was like, yeah, yeah. And your descendants, we'll get to that. But right now, for you, I've just got this promise. That's what he did when David wanted to build him something with Abraham. The same thing. If Abraham had wanted to give God something back, I think God's answer is no. This is just a promise. That's what we're setting up right now. The whole law thing will happen later. For if the inheritance depends on the law, which Paul is saying it doesn't, then it no longer depends on a promise. Perish the thought, says Paul. Everybody in Paul's audience, the Galatians, the Judaizers, me, you, all of us, we know that, and we want and need the whole thing about right standing with God and God's redemptive plan going to plan to hinge on a promise because that is God doing the heavy lift. We don't want it to depend on our ability to hold up the law because that's us doing the heavy lift. And we have this much. Can you hear it Old Testament sample size to be like that ain't going to work. And then after that and just pretend like this other book is a history book that covers all the history from then until now, then after that, listen to all that history so much. We have all of that sample size to say that after the New Testament we don't really get things right in terms of our own ability to self discipline, solve everything and obey the rules and honor God by our own volition as well. All of history in the Bible and outside of the Bible says we do not want the success or failure of God's redemptive plan and the fate of our souls to depend on our ability to do the right thing by our own will and decision making every single time. We want the fate of our souls and the success of the redemptive plan to hinge on the character and power of God. This is an infinitely better deal. It is a deal that has already been established with Abraham through a promise. And Paul and full disclosure here, I'm right with him on this are saying let's lean into the promise that was made to Abraham and and let's lean into the whole right standing with God by his grace through faith thing. That's sustainable. That will work. So Paul in Galatians 3, 1518 is just tapping into an example from everyday life that we can all relate to. We've all made a contract. We've all been in good ones, we've all been in bad ones. We can all imagine a contract with great terms that are transferable and that just go on and on and on and on and on into forever. And even if some other rule came along down the line, we would not want to swap contracts there. But even if we did, something that happens later doesn't rewrite a contract that we already have. And that's when we're talking about doing business with other people where, you know, it can get a little bit slimy and skeezy and stuff. Here we're talking about the promise of God. No, God did not pitch his promise to Abraham when he gave the law to Moses. These are two different things. Apples and Velcro, they're doing two different things, serving two different functions. And Paul has done a great job just in terms of pacing and communication, of realizing his audience is getting brain tired. It's a lot of difficult theology. He's done a great job of just going back to something very practical that we can all get to be like. Picture the Altel contract. You get it? Even if something happened later, the contract is still binding. Picture the fate of all of those descendants of Abraham who came and went over the course of 400 ish years. Even if the law is how people get right standing with God, they didn't even have one to obey. Abraham didn't even have one to obey. Must have been faith. And most importantly, that. And to your seed about whom God made that promise to Abraham, Paul says, is a reference to Christ, meaning that Christ is the fulfillment and the completion of the law, but that Christ is also the fulfillment and the completion and the richness of what the promise initially made to Abraham 430 years before the law ever even happened. Christ is the fulfillment and the completion and the full richness of this. That promise, that promise is realized in Christ. Pretty good stuff, Paul. You're really good at this Bible thing. I needed a little bit of a brain break. I needed simpler fider and you have given me that. Also, I think it's worth noting that you and I just covered three whole verses of Galatians chapter three in what? What are we at? Two days. Three days. That's remarkably efficient for us. Paul flipping his hat around backwards and straddling the chair and leaning in using bro talk. That really was. It was well timed. Hit upped our efficiency rating quite a bit. All right, we're on to the next chunk of Galatians 3 next time around. It's breakneck speed. Man, this is crazy. When you settle down a little bit. Galatians 3. 19. Move forward next time around. I appreciate you. I'm Matt. This is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon. Sam.