This is personal... Galatians 1
This is the first week of the Blogged Bible Study. We are going chapter by chapter through Paul’s letter to the Church of Galatia. To read the other posts on chapter 1 of Galatians check out the Blogged Bible Study page. 11-12 I want you to know, brothers that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
As I have read the other entries for the blogged bible study, the common thread is Christ and his message. Each one of us has approached it in a different way, but the message is clear. The Gospel of Christ Jesus is the only Gospel that can be preached with complete confidence.
Nathans post yesterday pointed out that Paul wanted to make clear from whose authority he was speaking. Paul in this first chapter is saying. “These are not my words, they are Christ’s words given directly to me.”
Allow me if you will to fill the shoes of Paul for a second. (I think he is a size 12 to my 10, but I will do my best… HA!! ) I have a picture of Paul writing this letter as a bit disturbed and upset at the Church of Galatia. The first chapter to me is Paul is thinking while he is writing.
If this comes across a bit personal, I am sorry, but it is time for you people to wake up, and it is time for the followers of the True Christ and His Word to stand up and say enough. Don’t you get it…He is the only way. He is the one who gave his life. He is the one that sacrificed and bleed so that you may be forgiven. He is the one that rose from the dead to conquer the grave so that you can live. Christ and only Christ. Not a distorted gospel that is no gospel, that man has made up to try and fool you into following man instead of Christ.
Paul was not going tolerate the preaching of anything other than the Truth of Christ he was going to make sure the message of the true Gospel was preached.
13 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. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
Paul new the stakes of preaching this Gospel, he had killed people for preaching the words coming out of his mouth. As I said at Debs this week:
Seems he would be in position to know what harassment is… This is also Saul who put Christians to death…
If I was him I would be thinking as he is writing.. “Don’t they know what I used to do before I hear the true Gospel? So why would they turn from it, and harass new converts? ”
He has no tolerance because he knows His past so to speak…
He also knows what the people preaching the Gospel of Christ would be up against.
Paul was presented the Gospel of Christ in a direct revelation from God.
15-17 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man,
Paul was watching as the people in Galatia turned the True Gospel that was directly revealed to him upside down. Today the world distorts the Gospel of Christ that is revealed through the complete Word of God, by distortion that is only brought on by corrupt hearts intent on turning their backs on Christ. By turning their backs on the one who willingly lay on his back up against a tree as He was nailed there for you and me.
So if this has come across as a bit personal. I am sorry but it is time for this world to wake up….
