Galatians 1:6-10

The Background of Galatians and the Problem of Apostolic Authority

Through an introduction to the book of Galatians, to Paul's epistle to the churches, plural, of Galatia. We, at that time, discussed a little bit about which churches these were. We discussed the North and South Galatian theory and things such as this.

And we worked through the first five verses, the introduction to the book. We noted, when we looked at those verses, that, from the text, we could derive the fact that, in the churches in Galatia, there was some sort of attack upon the authority of the apostle Paul as an apostle.

We saw this in verse 1, when he immediately says, Paul an apostle, not from man, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. There is an immediate assertion that Paul's apostleship is not an apostleship that is based simply upon human ordination, simply based upon a connection with some human group.

But his is an apostleship that comes directly through Jesus Christ. And we mentioned, then, that this might refer to Paul's encounter with the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. We also noted that the opening to the book of Galatians is extremely short in comparison to all other books that Paul wrote.

Normally, in a Pauline epistle, you will have a fairly extensive greeting that will have everything we have here in the first five verses, plus much more. The concept of grace and peace is frequently expanded out.

And then, after this salutation, in all of Paul's letters except for this one, you will have some sort of commendation of the church to which he's writing. Your faith is being spoken of throughout the whole world.

Or even when he speaks to the Corinthians, when he writes 1 Corinthians, and the Corinthian church is in an uproar. It is full of sin, and strife, and division, and everything else. Even in that situation, Paul commends their faith.

He speaks about how the Spirit is operational amongst them, et cetera, et cetera. But only in this letter do you have the salutation, no commendation, no positive word whatsoever to them. And immediately moves into verses 6 through 9, which obviously is, when we get down into verses 10, 11, we're going to see even Paul recognizes are harsh, strong words.

Immediately after he salutes them, he greets them, he moves directly into this passage. And so we looked at these things. We saw some of the theology of Paul in the first five verses. And then we stopped there, because verses 6 through 9, I think, are extremely important for our understanding of the importance of the Gospel, how God views the Gospel, and how the church should view the Gospel today as well.

I think these verses are, for all practical intent and purpose, missing from the vast majority of Bibles in our land. It is like they are not there. If they are read, it is with blinders on that keeps a person from recognizing the incredible seriousness with which Paul addresses this issue.

And so I want to spend some time on these verses, not because I particularly enjoy spending time on verses that are extremely harsh, but because of the fact that these verses, what is said here about the Gospel, is almost a charter for my own ministry.

If these verses were not a part of Scripture, our ministry would probably have a different character. But they are there. And I personally, as I shared with you last time, have struggled with the concept of liberalism and the teaching of liberalism.

And this passage, this book, and especially this passage, has always been the guardrail that has kept me from moving out of a strong allegiance to the Gospel and kept me from moving into a position of compromise where one can simply say, well, we've got a lot of different views.

OK, the Mormons have this view, and the Witnesses have this view, and the Roman Catholics have this view, and then there's this view, and this view, and this view, and we don't have to worry about any of those things as long as we're all a bunch of nice folks and we're sincere in what we're saying, then everything's cool.

If a person can read these verses, these four verses, and say, that is what Paul taught, then I don't know what language they're reading. I don't know what kind of thinking process is theirs. Because these verses, I think, are very, very, very straightforward.

Paul's Amazement at the Galatians

So with those things in mind, I want to look at verses six through nine. I've provided you with my own translation in the notes, which, as I mentioned before, should follow pretty closely to something like the New American Standard or something along those lines.

Let's look at verses six through nine, which I have subtitled Paul's Amazement at the Galatians. He begins by saying, I am amazed that you are so quickly being moved from the one who called you by the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is really not another, except there are those who are troubling you and are wishing to change the gospel of Christ.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, were to preach to you a gospel other than that which we preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, I say now again, if anyone is preaching a gospel other than that which you received, let him be anathema.

So Paul starts out by expressing his utter amazement with the Galatian believers. He is amazed. The Greek term thaumazo is to marvel, to wonder at something. Sometimes it's used of just being amazed about a miracle, for example.

People marveled at Jesus and the good works and the miracles that he did. That's a positive marveling. But here, Paul is marveling at the fact that the Galatian believers could be so quickly moved from the one who called them by the grace of Christ.

Now, the phrase to be quickly moved, the word quickly, can mean one of two things, as I point out to you in the commentary. It could refer, first of all, in the normal meaning, quickly, in a short period of time.

If that is the way that we should take it, then this would basically be saying that, well, Paul has evangelized the churches in Galatia, and it has been a short period of time since he was there that he is now writing this letter, and there has been a very quick defection from the gospel that he preached.

And if we take it that way, then that would bear somewhat on when we date this letter. It would date it much earlier. Another way to take it, however, is not quickly in the sense of an amount of time, but instead the ease with which they were being moved away from the gospel, that they were really putting no resistance up to these teachers who had come in.

And I think this is a little more consistent with Paul's usage. For example, over in Ephesians, he talks about, let us no longer be children who are tossed about by every wind of doctrine, the picture being someone who, one day, they listen to one person, wow, that really sounds good.

Yeah, I agree with you, brother, 100%. And then the next day, they come over here, and somebody is talking to them about something that's 180 degrees opposite of what they were hearing the day before.

That's great. That's wonderful. Oh, I think that's superb. I'm reminded of, again, it sounds like I'm just a terrible, nasty person when it comes to some of these individuals, but I've listened to certain Christian television hosts who will have one person on one day who's saying something fairly decent, and oh, amen, praise the Lord, that's wonderful.

And then the next day, you'll turn it on. There's somebody sitting there. I remember this one instance where this guy who's sitting there, and he's saying that the Mishnah, which is Jewish writings written about 200 years after Christ, should be a part of the King James Version of the Bible.

It should be a part of canon scripture for Christians. And the same host is sitting there going, oh, praise the Lord. That's wonderful. That's great. It just tosses back and forth to and fro, no foundation, seemingly not ever aware of the fact that what this person is saying is utterly contradictory to what that person is saying.

And that person isn't even in the ball field. But everybody, oh, praise the Lord, thank goodness. That's just wonderful. No resistance to any false teaching. And so I think this would be in line with what is causing Paul's amazement, is that these individuals are so easily being moved away from the one who called them by the grace of Christ.

They're not hardly putting up any resistance whatsoever. Notice he says that they are being moved from the one who called them. Now, we are going to see that what is said here is that they are being moved away from him, and they are being moved unto another gospel, which is not another.

And so what he's saying is, I've preached a message to you. I have preached the euangelium, the gospel to you. Now they are being moved away from that. But notice what he says. Yes, they're being moved away from the gospel, but that's not exactly what the text says.

The text says that you are being moved away from the one who called you by the grace of Christ. So a defection from the gospel, being moved from the gospel, is being moved away from God himself. In Paul's mind, it is not, well, you're being deceived by some false doctrine here, but I know you love God a lot, and so it really doesn't matter to him.

For Paul, being moved away from the gospel is being moved away from the one who called them by the grace of Christ. Now the term moved away from, some of your translations might have that you are moving away from, or that you are going away from, or something along these lines.

In other words, where the individuals themselves are doing the action. The verb itself can be taken in one of two ways. It is either a middle or a passive form. And if we translate as a middle, it would be that you are removing yourselves so quickly, that they were the ones doing that.

And many translations take that. I have rendered it as a passive, and the reason I am doing that, that I have done it in my translation, is because Paul is going to specifically identify the fact that there are those that are troubling the believers.

There are those that are teaching the false doctrine. And Paul is addressing believers in the book of Galatians. He never, ever addresses the false teachers. He speaks of them in the third person. He talks about them out there.

They do this. They do that. I wish they would emasculate themselves, he says in chapter five. But he never says, now you false teachers. He talks to the Galatians, and he says, you foolish Galatians. And here he says, I'm amazed that you are so quickly being moved.

But I think it is consistent to translate being moved. In other words, they are allowing themselves to be moved away by this false teaching, moved away from the one who called them by the grace of Christ.

So notice how he identifies God. He identifies God as the one who called you by the grace of Christ. God is identified as the source of their salvation. This is not unusual for Paul to simply use, almost as a name for God, ha kalesantas, the one who calls, the one who draws.

He is the one who has drawn them how? By the grace of Christ. By the grace of Christ. This is the only way in which God draws an individual. God has chosen, through Jesus Christ, to bring about salvation.

He does not draw a person through Buddha, or Muhammad, or Krishna, or anyone else. When God calls a person, he calls that person by the grace of Christ. Now, I note in the commentary that the term grace of Christ and the grace of God for Paul is interchangeable, utterly interchangeable.

The grace of Christ, the grace of God, there is no difference for him, just as there is no difference between spirit of Christ and spirit of God. For example, in Romans 8, 9, you have spirit of Christ, spirit of God used in the same verse, speaking of the same spirit.

In Acts, you have the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of God. This concept that is Paul's of the union of the Godhead is all through his letters. And frequently, especially those of us that are involved in countercult ministry, and many of you are some of our volunteers that work with us in that way, we get so locked into a defensive mode in regards to the deity of Christ that we miss things like this.

I think I may have mentioned to you when we went through the beginning section here in verse 3, when it says, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope I mentioned to you there that here is an evidence of the deity of Christ, that the Father and the Son together are a unified source of the grace of God.

And here, you have the same thing. Here, God called them by the grace of Christ. So Paul says, I am amazed, I am flabbergasted, that you are so easily, so quickly being moved away from not simply the gospel, but here he says you are being moved away from the one who called you by the grace of Christ.

To move away from the gospel is to move away from God's calling, God's grace. God only calls in one way. God only draws in one way. He has chosen to do so through Christ Jesus. And so the first thing that Paul says is he emphasizes his amazement with the Galatian churches.

You are defecting. You are becoming traitors to God himself. Now, I want you for a moment to consider the historical situation in which these words would have been spoken. So often, we have a Bible. We got it at the local Christian bookstore.

It was in a box wrapped in paper. It's got nice gold edges, or maybe brighter edges like my Greek New Testament does, or something like that. And it's got a nice index up front, reference footnotes, maps in the back.

And we sort of get the idea that it's always been that way. But it wasn't. These letters were written in living situations. And there was a time, about 2 ,000 years ago, about 1 ,950 years ago, that this letter, these six chapters, were written on a piece of rough papyri in Greek letters, large Greek letters, as Paul will say at the end of his letter.

And they were wrapped up. And they were delivered to a person who stuck them in probably a not-so-clean leather bag and may have gotten on an old, leaky ship or rode on the back of a camel or walked along dusty roads into Asia Minor, into the area of Galatia.

Put yourself in his position. Put yourself in the position of the one who had to read this letter to the churches in Galatia. You arrive on Friday. And everyone's happy to see you. Oh, good. You've got a letter from Paul.

But the false teachers. You have a letter from whom? Oh, from Paul. That one, huh? The one whose apostleship is only from men? Well, he is instructed that this is to be read in the Sunday morning service.

So it's Sunday morning. The church is gathered around. Most of the people in here are quite enamored with their teachers, quite enamored with this teaching that, well, you need to be circumcised and you need to keep the law of Moses.

And this sounds all wonderful and good. And so the man stands up. The first five verses were pretty good, even though you could tell that an eyebrow shot up on a couple of false teachers in verse one.

Not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, so on and so on. Then you get to verse six. And now you're the Galatian people. I am amazed that you are so quickly being moved from the one who called you by the grace of Christ unto another gospel.

Think of what it must have been like. The guy who read it knew what it said. Would you have liked to have been him? That would have been a rather tough job. But we normally never think of those folks.

These words would have cut every single one of them to the quick, and we haven't gotten to the hard stuff yet. As I mentioned last time that we were together, this book is choppy. It is unusual for Paul in the sense that it moves quickly.

It's strongly worded. And I can't help but think that the false teachers would have been very, very quick to pick up on exactly what this letter was going to be about. If many of them survived all the way through the reading of it without getting up and storming out, I would be surprised.

He says you're moving away from God, the one who called you by the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, which is not another. Now here, the poverty of the English language strikes at us. And I have noted for you in the commentary on page five the differences between the Greek words used for another.

I have translated them both by the English word another. But in verse 6, it says, by the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, heteron. Heteron. And lexical form is heteros, which I think is what I put in the commentary.

But then he says, which is not aros, another. Now, on a basic level, heteros, you've already heard of it. Heterogeneous. You've heard of homogenized milk. That was the big thing back when I was a kid.

And they don't even put that on labels anymore. Homogenized milk, it was all mixed up. It was all homogeneous of one kind. But heterogeneous would be different kinds. So heteros means different, another of a different kind.

Whereas aros primarily means another of the same kind. But beyond this, aros also means another of a different identity. So these terms are used, for example, Paul will use them again in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 4, when he says to the Corinthians, you know, if someone came to you and proclaimed another Jesus and uses the word Allah, and that would mean another of the same kind, but different in identity.

Or someone proclaims to you another gospel or another spirit, and there he uses heteron, another of a different kind. Paul says to them, you might well bear with them. In other words, Paul had a little confidence problem that the Corinthians would be able to recognize false teachings.

So he uses both terms there in a little different way. In John 14, 16, when Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, the other comforter, the word he uses is alas. So another of the same kind, the spirit is the same kind of comforter as Jesus was, but a different identity.

The spirit is not the son. The son is not the spirit. They are not one person. They share the one being that is God, but they're not the same person. And so these terms are used, and I think the main emphasis here in Galatians chapter 1 is he says, you are being moved unto another gospel which is not another of the same kind.

You're being moved unto another of a different kind of gospel which is not really a gospel at all, which is not another. So he immediately says that the teaching of these teachers in Galatia is not the gospel.

Now put yourself in the same situation again historically, because I think this is important for us to recognize. Here you are. You may even be a new believer. And there are men who have come into the church, and they may even claim to have a closer relationship with Jesus in the sense of knowing more fully and truly his teachings than Paul.

That seems to be one of the things that they claim. And they're saying, now Paul was right in the sense that he said that Jesus is the Messiah. He was the Messiah. His death brings about forgiveness of sin.

All that is fine. And yes, you must believe that Jesus is Messiah, that Jesus is son of God. You must believe this. But you see, that's not enough. That isn't the whole thing. You see, Paul teaches some things that aren't exactly right, and he doesn't teach everything that he should.

You see, because Paul has this idea that you're justified, you're made righteous by faith. In fact, the guy is so crazy, he teaches faith as a gift of God. I mean, this is really weird stuff. But he says that the false teachers say, that's not totally true.

Because if you really want to be right with God, you've got to believe in Jesus. But you've also got to be circumcised, keep the law of Moses, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I doubt that they were teaching you had to go to Jerusalem every few months or offer up all the sacrifices and things like that.

But there were certain things you had to observe. You had to observe the Sabbath day. You had to be circumcised, et cetera, et cetera. You have to keep the law of Moses. Faith in Christ is good, but then there's this over here.

Now, Paul says, that is not the gospel. That is not a gospel at all. And yet, when we look at it, all these people were saying was, faith in Christ, yes. But you need to add to your faith in Christ just a couple things.

Circumcision, maybe the observance of some Sabbath days, a few things like that. Well, where does Paul get off? I mean, Paul doesn't say, this is a gospel plus. Or Paul doesn't say, well, you know, those teachers, they're adding some unnecessary things.

It wasn't a matter of that they were just adding a few unnecessary things. They didn't need to. Paul said, the addition of those unnecessary things destroyed the gospel. It made what they were preaching no longer the gospel at all.

Now, when we think about this, in our modern situation, how can we take what he says here and not recognize that a vast majority of what is presented in our nation today under the guise of the gospel is not the gospel?

How many different denominations and groups can you think of that say one of two things? Either they say, yes, you're saved by believing in Jesus only, but then after you're saved, you've got to do this, this, this, and this.

Or others that say, before you can accept Jesus, you've got to do this, this, this, and this. Myriads of them. Myriads of them. In comparison to these teachers, and as we go through the book, we will be able to pull out more and more from what Paul says of exactly what it was they were saying.

But in comparison to what's being taught here, much of what is presented in our nation today goes far beyond it, goes far beyond it in being wrong. And yet Paul says that just simply by those additions to the gospel, they not only destroyed the gospel itself, but they were drawing men away from God.

In fact, he's going to go on to say, except there are those who are troubling you and are wishing to change, distort, pervert the gospel of Christ. And so we are again, and we will be faced with over and over again as we go through this book, we will be faced with the decision, what is my authority?

If my authority is the New Testament, if I am to follow this New Testament in regards to how I think of the world around me, then we must recognize that the purity of the gospel is of an utmost importance.

Now remember, what Paul is saying here was undoubtedly offensive to those who are preaching this false gospel. There is no question that not only were the false teachers offended, but you know who else is probably offended?

The Christians who are being deceived by this false teaching. No question about it. Put yourself in their shoes. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? I'm amazed that you can't put up any fight against false teaching.

What if you walked in the church Sunday morning and your pastor plunked into the pulpit and said that to you? Wouldn't you be offended? Probably would be. That's why Paul is going to say in Galatians chapter 4, because I told you the truth, have I become your enemy?

Paul recognized that telling people the truth is far more important than whether you offend them or not. The truth can be offensive. It can be. It frequently is. When someone tells you something about yourself that you happen to know is true, you may still be offended by it.

Paul knows that the truth is more important than whether someone is offended or not, as we will see as he continues on. So he says the gospel to which they have been moved by this false teaching is not really another gospel.

Except, he says, there are certain ones who are troubling you. Like I said, he will never talk to them. He will never address them. There are certain ones, they know who they are. There are certain ones who are troubling you.

And the word troubling, that's not really a very strong translation of the Greek term that refers to, they're shaking you. They're violently shaking you. And I'm sure that the people in Galatia, they hadn't felt any shaking.

Things looked just great to them. But while they were half asleep, the foundations of the entire gospel were being destroyed beneath them. I mentioned in the commentary that very rarely, when Christians know what's coming, when Christians know what the threat is, can they be dissuaded from the truth?

There aren't too many Christians who are concerned that they're going to become a Satanist. I mean, they recognize that. That's directly opposite to what I believe. I'm not going to be persuaded by that.

But that's not what happened here. These people came under the guise of apostles. They came under the guise of Christian teachers. And they said, ha, well, we just want to give you a little more, a little bit beyond what Paul actually has already taught you.

There are certain ones who are troubling you and are wishing to distort the gospel of Christ. Notice what he says about them. They are wishing to distort the gospel. It was purposeful. It was the desire of their heart.

When Paul, in the next couple of verses, is going to call down the very curse of God upon these teachers, he does not call that strong curse upon simply those who have been deceived. He calls it upon those who have volitionally desired to pervert the gospel of Christ.

It was their intention to do so. They desired to distort, to change the gospel of Christ. Now, I know that somewhere in here, I mentioned in the commentary, and I'm looking for it. Here it is. It's on page 7.

That the term change frequently is used to refer to changing something into its opposite, into something else. And so these individuals specifically wish to change the gospel of Christ. Now, I don't know how Paul knew all about these individuals.

Obviously, he had sources of information. He had encountered some of these individuals, we find out in Galatians chapter 2, in the Jerusalem council. And it's recorded in Acts 15. And he calls them pseudo-Adelphoi, false brethren.

False brethren. These individuals acted like brethren. Oh yes, we're believers, we're Christians. Bless you, brother, bless you. Shall we see you at the potluck this afternoon? Yes, brother, yes. And yet, they were pseudo-Adelphoi.

They were not true brethren. And Paul speaks elsewhere of the fact that he has faced dangers both from without the church, as well as from within the church. And frequently, those are the most dangerous places.

I'm going to hold off on getting into what Paul says here in regards to the gospel of Christ. I note on page 7 that I give you some information about the use of his term. But I want to just cover verse 8 and then come back to it.

Verse 8 says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema. Verses 8 and 9 almost sound like they're repetitions of the same thing, but they're not.

In the Greek language, the situation you have in verse 8 is Paul presents what is called a third-class conditional. A third-class conditional sentence where the condition, a conditional sentence is if then.

If I had enough money, then I would buy a cue card. But the if clause in a third-class conditional is assumed to be unfulfilled, but it does have a prospect of being fulfilled. But it's doubtful, which would sort of fit in with what I just said.

So what he's saying here is he's basically putting up a hypothetical situation. Hypothetically, even if we were to come back to you and proclaim something different to you, to say, well, we blew it the first time.

We've changed our mind. There were a few other things needed to add. Or even if an angel from heaven were to come down and preach to them something other than that which they had preached to them the first time, let him be anathema.

Now what he's saying is it doesn't matter who the messenger is. The messenger is unimportant. It's the message. Even if we came back to you with another message, we'd be anathema under the curse of God.

And if an angel did it, not that's very likely, under the curse of God. The term anathema comes from the Hebrew, where there is a specific term that referred to something that was placed under the ban.

It was something that was devoted, basically, to the destruction of God. For example, when the Israelites took Jericho, everything was under the ban. Everything was kerim. Remember what happened? Achan took some of the things that were kerim.

And since something would basically be put under the ban and it would be devoted to destruction, which would make it hateful in God's sight, is basically how it worked out in the Old Testament. So Achan took some of it.

Achan paid. And his family paid for what he did, if you recall the incident. So the term means the curse of God experiencing the wrath of God. It is the strongest curse that one could place upon someone.

And Paul says, if anyone should preach to you, we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than what we preach to you, let him be anathema. Let him be under the most severe curse of God.

That is incredibly strong language. If you said to someone, let you be anathema, you couldn't say anything stronger to them. We, in our language, jokingly frequently say, go to hell. And most people don't believe hell exists, so it really doesn't mean much to them.

But it would be similar to the same thing, but meaning it. I hope that you spend eternity under the most horrendous punishment of almighty God that you could ever experience. That is the deep-seated desire of my heart that you experience that.

Pretty strong language. And Paul says, anyone who preaches another gospel is anathema. They are putting themselves in that position. Now, what is another gospel? Well, he's already said, well, whatever's being preached here is.

And there is some debate and discussion about the little preposition that is used when it says, other than what we have preached to you. Because that word can mean two different things. The term is para, it's used with the accusative here, and it can mean either other in the sense of beyond what we have preached to you, which would fit, or other in the sense of opposed to what we've preached to you, which would also fit.

Because anything beyond the finished work of Christ will necessarily have to be opposed to the sufficiency and completedness of the work of Christ. So it's not like we have to make some absolute final decision as to whether para means beyond or something like that.

Though, for your information, it may be interesting to you, that has been a point of debate between Catholic and Protestant for the past 400 years. Because if it's para as in beyond, it might be relevant to the concept of divine tradition, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The Catholic position, of course, is contrary to, because their claim is that, well, what we teach is not contrary to the gospel. And the Protestant says, but it's beyond the gospel and contrary to. But anyway, that's just a little bit of information for you.

Here we have this statement on the part of Paul. He says, if anyone should preach a gospel other than the one that they had preached to the Galatians, that they are under the curse of God. What does that mean?

Why in the world would he say that? Why is it that you don't hear that anymore? I mean, if we're really brutally honest, in much of what is called Christendom today, there is a deep-seated concept that if you say, that teaching is wrong, wow, that's offensive.

You're being rather nasty there, brother, when you go on Christian television. They tell you before you get on. Don't offend anybody. Don't mention anybody by name. We don't want to offend anyone. We want to win them to Christ.

You think that's not what Paul wanted to do? And he recognized, win them to Christ, you've got to offend them if they've been deceived. Why is it? Why is it that today there is generally a fear to stand up and say, well, for example, someone this evening gave me a little card of Bible references.

The Bible references, I could tell by looking at the first one. The title was Apostasy, and it said, A Son of God Can Die, Romans 8, 11 and 12. So I knew immediately they were saying, there's no such thing as security of the believer or anything like that.

Turned over on the back, oh, guess what? Well, before I did that, I looked at baptism, Purpose of Baptism Acts 2 .38. You've already figured out who this was. The Church of Christ. Church of Christ groups.

Church of Christ believes in baptismal regeneration. That you must be baptized to be born again. By immersion. And a number of other things you need to do, too. But that's the primary thing. You must be baptized by immersion in the Church of Christ to be born again.

Now, there aren't too many people who will simply say, you see that teaching? Those who willfully teach that are placing themselves in danger of being under the anathema of God. The Judaizers were saying, you must be circumcised.

Church of Christ says, you must be baptized. It's doing something, adding to the finished work of Christ. Why don't we do that? Well, there are a number of reasons, of course. I think the Church has been deeply influenced, invaded by humanistic concepts of relativism.

Well, you know, they've got their truth. And they've got their right to believe that. And we sort of take our good old American way, which says everybody has a right to worship any way you want to. And somehow, instead of just keeping that in the political realm of saying, that's right.

If the Mormons want to build a church over there, that's their business. If the Witnesses want to do it over there, that's their business. And the Church of Christ over there, fine, that's great. No prejudice against them or anything like that.

And we carry that over into our theology, for some strange and silly reason. That's probably a lot of it. But you know, I think there is a more subtle and I think much more dangerous reason. One that I think ends up absolutely sucking the power out of the Church.

Here's what it is. Well, you know, Paul claims, as we saw last time, and actually as we'll see even further, maybe tonight, probably not, but in this study. Paul claims to have received the Gospel by a direct revelation of Jesus Christ.

But we are dependent upon the written record. And so, Paul may have had, Paul may have been able to define the Gospel in such a way as to be able to say, this is the Gospel and this is not. But we can't.

We can't really be sure. I mean, we might be wrong. I mean, we could be off about this business about God being the one who calls by the grace of Christ. We might be off about justification a little bit.

Maybe you do need to be baptized. You know, there's this passage here, there's that passage there, you know. And so, Paul maybe, that's why he was so strong about it. He had a sure word about it. But we need to be a little more careful because, you know, you might make a mistake and then you defend folks.

So let's not be quite as strong about this. And it's true in the sense that we can make mistakes. We can be wrong about things. We can be very deeply influenced by our traditions, how we've been raised.