Additional Thoughts on Galatians 5:6

I was reading today in The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World and read something that Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, wrote about displaying our love for our community. I tried to articulate these thoughts in my posting on March 27th but he does a much better job. Here is the question he poses:

"Are we the kind of church of which the world says: We don't share a lot of their beliefs, but I shudder to think of this city without them. They are such an important part of the community. They give so much! If they left we'd have to raise taxes because others won't give of themselves like those people do."

"...though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God..."

Thoughts on Galatians 5:10

“I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine...”

In whom did Paul’s confidence rest? In Jesus. This verse speaks to so many areas of the Christian life. Today, in particular, it speaks to me about missions and evangelism. I think Christians today, generally speaking, put their confidence in the wrong places. In terms of evangelism we tend to put our confidence in programs and activities, in music, in a cool building, or in an engaging preacher. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that we place our confidence in ourselves and what we are able to accomplish instead of placing our confidence in the Lord. If we take the emphasis off of us and place it on Jesus it will drastically change the way we think about missions and evangelism.

If we place our confidence in ourselves then we force ourselves to “sell” Christianity to others. If the emphasis is on us then we feel the pressure to “sell” the Gospel by making it sound eloquent or relevant in hopes that the person we are speaking to will “buy into” Christianity. We think “maybe if the music is good enough or if we have a coffee shop it will convince people to come back to church and they will believe in Jesus.” I’m not saying it’s bad to have an eloquent, relevant message or that it’s bad to have good music and a coffee shop. I am saying those things are bad if they are what we rely on to get people to know Jesus. When we use anything other than Jesus to get people to Jesus we are placing our confidence in the wrong place. We ultimately end up selling a product, hoping we can make it sound good enough to convince people to buy. If we try to sell Christianity we are turning Jesus into a product and Church into a marketplace. We already know what Jesus thinks of that: “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.”

Instead we should follow Paul’s example and place our “confidence in the Lord.” Think about how this would change things. We would no longer be relying on ourselves to sell anything. We wouldn’t be selling Jesus to anyone. Instead we would be presenting the Gospel unedited knowing that through the proclamation of the word of God all whom the Father has appointed will come to know His son Jesus. Paul experienced this himself in the book of Acts. After preaching the Gospel “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Those who believed that day were not convinced by Paul that they should believe. They were appointed by God to believe. All Paul did was tell them the truth about Jesus. He didn’t feel the need to sell them anything. Many of us get nervous when we talk to people about Jesus. We are unsure of ourselves or don’t think we know enough to share or don’t think we are eloquent speakers. If we understand this truth, none of that matters and the pressure goes away because we know that it is not up to us to convince anyone to become a Christian. When we understand that it is God who calls people to believe and our responsibility is not to convince them of anything but to share the Gospel faithfully with them it will transform the way we look at missions and evangelism.

I am blessed to be a part of a church, Church of the Cross, that understands this truth. On Sunday I saw a flyer for our Easter service. The flyer simply said:
“No Fireworks. No Skits. Just Jesus.” Amen.

Thoughts on Galatians 5:7-9

“John Calvin comments, ‘Satan’s stratagem is, that he does not attempt an avowed destruction of the whole gospel, but he taints its purity by introducing false and corrupt opinions.’ The blatant heresy endorsed in many churches today did not come out of nowhere. Only through the slow erosion of truth do the visible churches of Christ come to the point where they deny Jesus.” (Sproul)

There are two ways in which we can keep this leaven, or false doctrine, from permeating the church today. The first and most important is to appeal to Scripture. For every belief or doctrinal stance we hold we should be able to back up our belief in Scripture. If you cannot find support for your belief in the Bible then you cannot claim it as doctrine. Often times someone will tell me a belief or opinion they hold to as doctrine but upon questioning they are unable to back up their stance with Scripture. My point is that if you hold a belief then make certain that belief is grounded in Scripture. In this case we should follow the example of the Berean’s in the book of Acts: “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” The Berean’s did not take what they believed for granted. They were always “examining the Scriptures” to ensure they were not being led astray. Practically this means that if your friend, your spouse, your mentor, or even your pastor makes a claim or statement that he or she declares as Biblical truth, it is our duty to compare the statements made to our ultimate authority, our sola scriptura, the Bible.

The second way to keep false doctrine from invading the church is to appeal to apostolic tradition. Of course this is always subordinate to our appeal to Scripture but is nevertheless a useful tool in examining truth claims. “Arianism and Pelagianism – both of which would be condemned as heretical, although for very different reasons – appealed to an impressive array of Biblical texts in support of their teachings. Their opponents, however, argued that their interpretation of these texts was incorrect. It was not enough simply to quote the Bible; it was necessary to interpret it in an orthodox manner.” (McGrath) Almost anyone can pull a sentence from the Bible and make it mean whatever they want it to mean. This was as much a problem in the early days of the church as it is today. The way that some of the early church fathers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian dealt with this problem was through an appeal to apostolic tradition. They asked the question “does this interpretation line up with the what the earliest church fathers understood this particular text to mean?” They argued that “Scripture could not be allowed to be interpreted in any arbitrary or random way: it had to be interpreted within the context of the historical continuity of the Christian church.” (McGrath) The closer we can trace any given doctrinal stance to Jesus himself, the less chance we have of any human influence on that particular issue. Because of the tendency for humans to twist a text to mean what they want it to, a simple appeal to Scripture is sometimes not good enough. Whenever a difference in interpretation arises we should appeal to the earliest church fathers and see how they understood the issue at hand.

The point is this: in order to keep ourselves from being led astray by the dangers of false doctrine we must always appeal to the inerrant word of God and look to see how the earliest Christians interpreted that particular text.

Watch the Satan Debate Online

You can watch the Satan debate online now in two parts:

Part 1:



Part 2:

Thoughts on Galatians 5:6

For those who are Christians, the things we do, the words we say, the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, or the movies we watch count for nothing in terms of our righteousness. That’s what Paul is telling the Galatians here when he says “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything”. So whether you wear a three piece suit or jeans with holes in them, it doesn’t count for anything. It doesn’t matter. The man wearing the nice suit will not, in any way, be seen by God as more righteous than the man with holes in his jeans. As humans, because of tradition and other factors we sinfully perceive the man dressed nicely to be more righteous. Paul tells us here that we are wrong when we make those judgments.

So what then counts toward our righteousness? Paul tells us that “only faith working through love counts for anything”. So nothing we do is credited to us as righteous in the eyes of God. It is only by faith in Jesus that we are seen as righteous. But notice that it doesn’t stop at faith. Paul tells us that it is our faith that is credited as righteousness and that faith will work itself out through love. This is not an issue of faith vs. works. Let me be clear: we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone, not by works. That whole concept of faith vs. works is ridiculous anyway. That concept puts faith at odds with works as if they are enemies or opponents. Faith and works are allies, they go hand in hand and where we see faith we should also see works. I love the way Paul puts it because they are so intertwined that they cannot be separated. Look at it: “faith working through love.” Faith uses love as the vehicle in which it manifests itself in our lives. Faith and works go hand in hand, they are married to each other. James puts it perfectly in his letter: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James then goes on to address an objector who argues that faith and works are indeed separable, and James responds that faith can be shown only through righteous deeds: “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” He ends the section on faith and works with this: “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

Can everyone see this? We are saved by faith alone in Christ alone and that faith manifests itself in loving works aimed at those around us who are in need. As Christians our faith should be working itself out in the community so that if we disappeared from our community we would be dearly missed. Ask yourself this question: If I were to die today would my presence be missed by those around me because of the love and compassion I have showed to them?

What’s your answer?

Thoughts on Galatians 5:2

Paul is calling on the Galatians to make a choice. Either you accept that you are a sinner to your core and can do NOTHING to merit God’s grace, or you decide that maybe there is enough good in you that you can earn righteousness by your works. If you choose the former then you will be able to fully understand and accept what Jesus did for you on the cross. If you choose the latter, Jesus has nothing to offer you and you should go join a false religion like Mormonism or Islam where salvation by works is at the core of their beliefs. Paul is drawing another proverbial line in the sand. It is only when we understand how terminally ill we are that we see our need for a Savior. When we think we are healthy enough to play some part in our salvation, that we are able to live lives good enough to merit heaven, we see no need for someone to save us. We see salvation to be gained by our own effort or will when we just learned from John 1:13 that our spiritual rebirth is “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” IT IS OF GOD! IT IS NOT OF THE WILL OF MAN!

There is no in between when it comes to salvation. It is either all God or all man and you must make a choice in whom you will rely on for salvation. This verse reminds me of that ridiculous bumper sticker I see every once in a while that says “Jesus is my co-pilot”. Can I just say I hate that saying! That is really so ridiculous. It connotes that for the most part we are in control of our lives but every once in a while we reach some rough weather and we need Jesus, our co-pilot, to come and give us a hand. What a joke! Let me give you a clearer picture of what the cockpit really looks like: We are sitting in the pilot’s seat with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. There is blood and brain matter splattered all over the controls because of the carnage that our sin produces. Because of our own sin we are DEAD! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!! Ephesians 2:1 tells us of our condition: “And you were DEAD in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” With a dead guy at the helm the plane is in a complete nose dive headed for certain destruction. Depending on our situation we may be in the plane alone or we may have our wife and kids with us who, as men, we are responsible for. Then, for some of us, Jesus shows up, picks us up out of the pilots seat and takes the helm, pulling the plane out of the nose dive while ripping out our black, cancered, calloused, rock hard heart and replacing it with a new heart that would desire him. Can you picture it? It’s AWESOME!!! Jesus comes in like a superhero, flies the plane and performs a heart transplant at the same time! I want us to notice that we never called a mayday and asked Jesus to come save us or that we never got up out of the pilot’s seat and allowed Jesus to take over for us. WE WERE DEAD! WE DID NOTHING! We didn’t have the capability to ask Jesus for help or do anything that would have helped Jesus in saving us because we were lifeless, incapable of doing ANYTHING.

So goes the situation with our lives. People, it is of the utmost importance that we understand that we are spiritually dead. We are incapable of doing anything that would lead to our salvation. Salvation is, from beginning to end, a work of God, not of man. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Christian Liberty (Romans 14)

I recently had an experience with some life-long Christians whom I doubt ever read this chapter. The overarching theme of this chapter is Christian liberty. Paul is writing to a church that is having numerous quarrels among its members. They are arguing about things like whether or not is was ok to eat this or that, drink this or that, or whether or not a certain day is holy. Paul clearly sides with the theologically “strong”, who did not feel compelled to follow Jewish laws. He then encourages them not to enter into arguments with those who have a weaker faith. But Paul was just getting started. Most of us would probably expect Paul to say something like “try and come to a compromise where everyone can be happy.” But Paul, in his wisdom, does the exact opposite! He doesn’t tell them to compromise. He says “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.” Paul is telling them that God is glorified in both abstaining and partaking. I love this. But notice the first part of what Paul says: “each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” What does that require of us? It requires that we diligently read and study our Bibles and let the Holy Spirit lead us into understanding.

Another theme to this chapter is tolerance. I realize this can be a dirty word but understand I’m not talking about tolerance of sin or departure from Scripture. The issues that the Roman church was dealing with were secondary issues. Mark Driscoll illustrates this to his church using an open hand and a closed hand. In the closed hand are all the theological issues that are a non-negotiable for him and those that join Mars Hill. In the open hand are those issues on which there can be disagreement and debate while still having unity in association. The Roman church was dealing with open hand issues. Paul is telling the Roman church to be fully convinced about what they believe and to be tolerant of what others in the church believed. Today we see this manifested in issues like clothing, music and even some theological issues. God is honored just as much by the guy with holes in his jeans as he is by the guy with slacks and a tie on as long as both are honoring the Lord in word and deed. God can be honored in hymns as much as he can in rock, as long as the object of worship remains God. No church this side of heaven will ever offer everything we want and desire in a church. We are called to be tolerant of the things we don’t like and understand that the church is not there to serve us and that God can be glorified even in the things we disagree with. Obviously there are issues that are major enough that would cause us to seek worship somewhere else but in general they should not be over secondary, open handed issues.

Paul then goes on to tell us that although we have liberty and freedom in many areas we should never do anything that would be a hindrance to a fellow Christian. Paul says “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. It is not good to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.” If your Christian brother is an alcoholic Paul is saying don’t invite him over for beers. Although drinking beer is not a sin it would cause your brother to stumble so you shouldn’t do it in front of him.