By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
Every pastor I know will agree with me that it is frustrating to see people come Sunday after Sunday and listen to the sermon and seemingly agree with the teaching, then go and live exactly the opposite. The only thing that keeps us from tearing our hair out is the realization that we are not much different.
I’m studying in Galatians in order to teach it in Sunday School in August at my church. As I read it, I can almost see the steam coming out of Paul’s ears.
Here’s a people who listened to him tell them about the freedom found in Christ. And by accepting Jesus as their savior from their sin burden, they would become full privileged members of heaven, totally and completely redeemed.
And they got it! They must have shouted Alleluia and jumped for joy at the Good News because Paul moved on to other areas to share the same Gospel.
Then he heard through the proverbial grapevine that they had been told by others to first live by the Law to justify their relationship with God first, then they could be saved by Christ’s death and Resurrection. (A complete falsehood.)
It seems some Jews from Jerusalem had come to the Galatians and begun to disparage Paul and his teaching. Calling him a false teacher and telling these non-Jewish people (we call them Gentiles) that the only way to be a Christian was to follow the Jewish Laws first which included such fun things as circumcision, Jewish dietary laws, and other things that Gentiles wanted little to do with.
In other words, these Jewish people were building stumbling blocks in front of the Gentiles to keep them from the freedom found in a relationship with Christ. When Paul found out, he reacted! Or maybe over-reacted would be a better description.
Was Paul angry at the Galatians? Yes. Gal 1:6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…”
His anger at the Galatians is more in the order of the frustration a pastor feels when he sees a member live way outside the calling for a Believer. It makes one want to shout “What are they thinking?!!!”
(Allow me a small rabbit trail here: I’ll point out that a pastor with good boundaries leaves it there. The old adage applies: “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” A pastor with not so good boundaries, takes it inside himself and questions “What did I do wrong?”
These are the pastors who burn out on ministry the fastest. This small aside is for everyone: we are not responsible for how another person chooses to live their life. )
But Paul was even angrier at the Judaizers for trying to destroy the Gospel the Galatians had heard and received. He’s more the Papa Bear with these guys.
He told the Galatians that these men and their false teachings should be damned. “But even if we or an angel from heaven
should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be eternally condemned!” (Gal 1:8-9)
Take note of those exclamation points. Paul was not fooling around. For a preacher who had spent his adult life trying to save people, pronouncing eternal damnation on someone was pretty extreme.
But that’s how angry he was. These jews were trying to steal the Good News from the Galatians and Paul was rabid about it.
It is not easy to remain faithful in today’s world. We live in a society that encourages acceptance and actively discourages anything that would challenge another’s beliefs.
Yet, how can a pastor or even a Believer stand by and watch the Truth be stolen from those we love and remain quiet? Paul couldn’t stand quietly by. What about you? Me?
Sure, we’re not perfect. We live with sin in our own life. So did Paul. He called himself the “chief among sinners”. Yet he loved the Galatians enough to challenge the heresy they had fallen for.
Who close to you needs to be gently and respectfully taken aside and reminded of the Truth? It might save them untold grief over the long run. Maybe it is time to step on some toes…in love
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.