He Who Used to Persecute Us

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Good morning.
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Take out your Bibles, turn with me to Galatians chapter 1.
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And we're going to read, even though we've already studied it, we're going to read verse 11 down to the end of the chapter.
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And we're going to create a timeline today.
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Today's going to be a little bit more of a Bible study than a sermon-esque, you know, I mean, we do all kinds of learning.
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Today's going to be more of an outline of history.
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And we'll still make some moral applications, still look at how these things apply to us.
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But let's read and we'll follow through.
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We may even get some into chapter 2.
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For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.
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For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
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And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people.
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So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
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But when He who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by His grace was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.
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Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.
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But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, in what I'm writing to you.
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Before God I do not lie.
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Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.
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They only were hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith He once tried to destroy, and they glorified God because of me.
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Let's pray.
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Father, as we open the Word together this morning, as we consider all that it has to say, I pray first, Lord, that You would keep me from error.
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For I know, Lord, that I am a fallible man incapable of preaching error.
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I pray that You would hold my tongue, hold my mind, and fill me with Your Spirit, O God, that He might teach these men, and that He might instruct me as well.
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I pray, Lord, that You would open the hearts of those hearing, that the Word would not just stop in the ear or in the mind, but that it would go down into the heart and pierce the very soul.
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For those who are believers, Lord, that today might be a day where they are instructed in the Word, that they might come to understand better the ministry of the Apostle Paul and how that affects us as believers.
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And Lord, for those who do not know Christ, Father, that today would be a challenge to them, that they would see Christ high and lifted up, and that they would know that He is worthy to be followed, that He is worthy to be praised, that He is worthy to be exalted.
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Lord, may it be in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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Well, we've been in Galatians now for several weeks, and we've been looking at this first chapter, and we have noted that Paul is making a defense for his own message.
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There were those who wanted the Galatian churches to ignore Paul or to question the message that he had given.
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Paul had preached a simple gospel message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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And another group had come in after Paul and had taught that unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved.
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We have identified this group as the Judaizers, meaning that they believed that before a person could become a follower of Christ, he must first adopt the traditions and the laws of the Jews.
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He must be circumcised, he must follow the dietary restrictions, he must essentially become a Jew before he can become a Christian.
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And so Paul identifies that in verses 6-9 as a false gospel.
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He says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting Him who has called you in the grace of Christ, and you are turning to a different gospel.
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And he goes on to say it's not really a gospel at all, because there's only one gospel, but it's a false message, it's a false gospel, and I'm astonished that you are turning to it.
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And after this, he begins a relatively brief and yet still fairly intense explanation of his own apostleship.
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He wants to encourage the Galatians to understand that he is qualified to be giving the message that he's giving.
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He's not simply making anything up.
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He's not creating anything out of whole cloth.
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He is not the author of his message.
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He is simply the messenger of Christ.
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And so that's why he says, and we looked at this the last few weeks, in verse 11, I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.
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This is not from me.
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This is not something I created.
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This is not a gospel that I invented.
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This is not man's gospel.
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And then he goes on in verse 12 to say, I didn't receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it by direct revelation.
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And that was what we studied last week.
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How when Paul was on the road to Damascus, he had a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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A revelation is the word which means unveiling.
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Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus and spoke to him, and we read that scenario in Acts chapter 9.
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And Paul gives us that recounting here.
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I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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And then he goes on to say, you have heard of my former life in Judaism.
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Paul's former life in one sense was one that many would have respected.
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He was a Pharisee.
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He was a learned man.
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He had learned at the feet of Gamaliel who was the great teacher of Israel.
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He himself was a star student.
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He had made many advances among his fellow Jews.
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And he was a respected scholar.
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That's how he identifies himself.
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He says, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age.
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And he was extremely zealous.
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That means he was passionate about the traditions of his fathers.
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But, verse 15, when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by His grace was pleased to reveal His Son to me in order that I might preach unto the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone.
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Now this is where we're going to start today.
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We're going to look at a timeline that Paul gives us here.
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We're going to compare this with Acts.
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And we're going to look at what is happening.
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Because when Paul receives the Gospel message, Paul doesn't go and get teaching from the apostles.
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He doesn't go and receive instruction from Peter, James, and John, and the other apostles.
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You might think that that would be a good idea.
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He didn't walk with Christ.
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He had not heard Jesus speak.
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He was not one who was in the ministry of Christ during the life of Christ.
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Instead, the text tells us that he went away into Arabia for three years.
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It says in verse 18, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas.
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Actually, it doesn't say he was in Arabia three years.
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It says he went into Arabia and he returned to Damascus, but then after three years.
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So it could be saying he was in Arabia for three years, or it could be saying he was in Damascus for three years.
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It depends on how you read it.
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In either way, it doesn't matter.
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The point is this.
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He didn't go and visit the apostles until three years after he had received the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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You say, well, what's the significance of that? How long...
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And again, this is my own understanding and this is an idea that I'm sharing with you.
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I'm not dogmatic, but I just want to point this out.
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How long did the disciples spend in ministry with Jesus? Three years.
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How long was it between the time Paul received his revelation to the time he went to the apostles? Three years.
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And so what was Paul doing in that three years? I tend to believe that Paul was being ministered to directly by Christ and learning from the Master directly.
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Because Paul never identifies himself as having received the Gospel from other people.
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In fact, the opposite is true.
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He says, I received it directly as a revelation from Christ.
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And so, again, I can't prove it.
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This is a little bit of speculation and I'm using a little bit of what I call sanctified imagination.
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I can imagine that during that three years, Paul is receiving instruction in what he's going to teach.
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Paul becomes...
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keep this in mind.
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Paul becomes the preeminent theologian of the ancient church.
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No one in their writings has more influence than the Apostle Paul when it comes to the theology of Christianity.
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In fact, if you look at the New Testament and you break the New Testament into sections, the first five books of the New Testament are history.
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You have the four books of the Gospels which are the history of Jesus' life.
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And then you have the book of Acts which is the history of the Apostles' ministry right after the death of Christ up until the final chapter of Acts which leads into what is just fixing to be the death of the Apostle Paul.
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So we have the books of the Gospels which basically carry you from about 4-5 B.C.
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up to around 30 A.D.
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So if you look at a timeline, you're looking at the first 33 years of history of the modern era.
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Then Acts takes us from that point up until the death of the Apostle Paul which we believe happened before A.D.
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70.
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So it would have been another 40 years.
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So Acts spans about a 40 year time frame.
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So you've got about a 70 year time frame there.
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All of that history is then explained as to its significance and theological relevance in the writings called the Epistles.
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You know what the Epistles are? The letters.
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No, they're the wives of the Apostles.
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That's the Epistles.
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Bad joke.
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I'm allowed a bad one every once in a while.
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So we have the Epistles which are the letters Paul writes his Epistles.
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And then you have the Epistles of Peter.
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You have the Epistles of John.
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You have the one Epistle of James.
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Jude.
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And then you have the one that we call Hebrews which we do not know who wrote it.
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But we know that it was one of the letters or the Epistles.
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So what is the purpose of the Epistles? The purpose of the Epistles is to interpret and explain what happened in the history of the life of Christ and the ministry of the Apostles.
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The Epistles are the explanation of what was happening.
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So Jesus preached many things and did many wonderful things and then you have the Apostles that come along and say this is the significance of what He did.
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You know, Romans 5.1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is Paul explaining what Jesus did.
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He goes through and explains the cross.
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He explains the suffering.
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He explains the death, burial, and resurrection.
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It's an explanation.
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It's a theological explanation of a historical event.
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So Matthew through Acts gives us the history.
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Romans all the way down to Jude gives us the explanation of that historical event.
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Now there are other things in the Epistles, but I'm just making general things, saying general things.
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The general purpose of the Epistles is to help us understand.
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So Paul writes the majority of that.
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So Paul is the theologian of the ancient church.
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The primary theologian of the ancient church.
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He wrote our explanation.
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The reason why we understand as much as we do about the work of Christ, about the purpose of the cross, about the significance of the death, burial, and resurrection is because of the Apostle Paul.
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The most significant contribution to our theology outside of the teaching of Jesus Himself is the writings of the Apostle Paul.
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Where did he get this information? Well, he spent his life becoming a theologian of the Jewish variety.
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But then he spent this three years becoming a theologian of Christ.
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Christ, I believe, took Paul and expanded what he did on the road to Emmaus.
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You remember what Jesus did in Luke 24 to those two that were on the way to Emmaus? It said Jesus came up beside them and began talking to them, but they couldn't see that it was Him.
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They didn't recognize Him.
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And as they were walking, it says He explained to them Himself starting with Moses and all the Scriptures.
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He showed how they pointed to Him.
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The Old Testament is a Christian book because the Old Testament points to Jesus.
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Now those men had one afternoon.
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They had one long walk to Emmaus to hear from Jesus.
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Paul had three years.
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Imagine the education.
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Paul is receiving a doctorate in theology from the Master Himself.
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He is receiving his education from Jesus about his theology.
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And thus, he comes out of that as a man who has been changed.
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He knows Christ and he knows the truth.
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He's telling the Galatians this because there are people who are questioning whether or not he knows the truth.
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And he's saying, look, I didn't receive this from man.
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I wasn't taught this by men.
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And I didn't come up with this on my own.
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This came to me as a direct revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So there we have that takes us through verse 17.
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And now, I'm going to begin a timeline.
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I'm actually going to write on the board.
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I actually created a timeline, drew it up and all.
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And I just want to give you the outline of Paul's life as we have it in Galatians compared to Acts and show you sort of how his life...
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when you compare those two books.
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Can I erase this? Alright.
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Alright.
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And again, if you like to take notes, this might be something you want to write down.
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But if you don't, you can just watch.
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I know this border creates a problem.
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Hopefully, you gentlemen in the back will still be able to see.
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So we have, and I'm going to hold my sheets so I don't have to keep turning around.
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We have Paul's conversion.
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We don't know exactly when this happened.
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But we can speculate that this would have happened around 33 A.D.
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approximately.
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And I'll put approximately there.
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This we know from Acts 9.
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And he explains it to us again in Galatians 1, 12-17.
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So there is his initial conversion.
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Following this, we have a three-year window.
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And I'm just putting window there as a three-year time period where he was either in, as we just said, he was either in Arabia or Damascus or a combination of both.
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We know there was a three-year period which this is actually Galatians 1, 18 is where we get that.
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And in Acts, I think this is...
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It doesn't say in Acts that he went and had this three-year period.
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But we know he did because he says it in Galatians, so we have to find a place to put it.
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In my interpretation, I think it's between Acts 9, 25, and 26.
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There's a scenario in there where I think there could have been a window of time that's just not accounted for, and I think that's a three-year period.
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The writer of Acts is not interested in telling us about that three-year period.
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Paul, in defending his apostleship, tells us about that three-year period.
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Alright, at the end of this three-year period, we have his first trip to Jerusalem.
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We have the first trip to Jerusalem.
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This is found in Acts 9, 26-30.
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And he talks about it in Galatians 1, 18-24.
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After this...
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Oh, I can't count, so let me erase that 3 and put a 4 there.
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After this time period, we have a 14-year window.
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You say, where do you get that? Well, let's go back and read real quick because I want to show this to you.
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This is in the text.
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Let's read verse 18.
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It says, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, remained with him 15 days.
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Now, we're going to go back and look at this more in a minute, but jump down for a second to chapter 2 and verse 1.
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In Galatians 2, 1, it says, then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem.
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So that's where I'm getting that 14-year period.
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So this is Galatians 2, 1.
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It tells us there was a 14-year period.
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So, we're going to do a little math in a minute and figure out the years of what's happening here.
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But for now, we're just building a timeline.
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All right, so we have the 14-year period.
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Then we have the second visit.
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We have the second Jerusalem visit.
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All right, so we have the second visit to Jerusalem.
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This is found in Acts 11.
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I'm going to run out of board.
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Acts 11, 27-30.
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And in Galatians 2, 1-10.
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Oh, you guys are fine.
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I'll be right here.
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So we have...
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In the weeks to come, we're going to study chapter 2.
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I'm just giving you the outline.
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We'll look at these more in depth later.
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Now, I believe it is after this second trip to Jerusalem that Paul plants the Galatian churches.
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Where do we find that information? Paul planting the Galatian churches is in Acts 13 and 14.
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If you read, go back, read Acts 13 and 14.
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You read him going to Lystra, Derbe.
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Iconium and those places.
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That is him planting those churches in the southern Galatian region.
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That's happening in Acts 13 and 14.
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All right.
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I'm sorry, I'm in everybody's way.
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I feel like I'm a bobber.
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I'm just kind of going back and forth like a bobber in the water.
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Now, there is a time where Paul confronts Peter.
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I'm going to put that here.
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Again, we're going to study these later.
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Paul confronts Peter.
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But this is not in Jerusalem.
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Paul confronts Peter in Antioch because Peter had come there.
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And so this is later.
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This is happening.
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And we see this in Galatians 2, 11-14.
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And I think that this is what is happening in Acts 14 is the same scenario.
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Now, it's after all this that Paul writes Galatians.
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You say, well, how do you know he writes Galatians after all this? Because he talks about all this.
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So he can't write it if it didn't happen.
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So all of this had to happen before we get the book.
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It's just a natural.
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He wasn't a fortune teller.
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He wasn't going to say what was happening.
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So the book comes after all this.
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Then we have the last thing.
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I'm out of room anyway.
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The Jerusalem Council.
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This is in Acts 15.
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The purpose of the Jerusalem Council was to identify whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised.
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What's the big question in the book of Galatians? Whether or not Gentiles have to be circumcised, right? Whether or not you have to be circumcised to be a Christian.
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If the Jerusalem Council had already happened, the book of Galatians would be superfluous.
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It would be unnecessary.
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So the book of Galatians precedes the Jerusalem Council, but they're both dealing with the same issue.
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The issue of whether or not a person has to become a Jew before he can become a Christian.
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Now we're going to do a little math.
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Okay? Because we have to do some addition here.
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If we start in 33 A.D.
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I'm going to create a box just so we don't get confused.
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If we start in 33 A.D.
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And Paul, at that point, spends three years in wherever it is.
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Either in Arabia or Damascus.
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We have 36 years.
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Now, if we add the 14 years to that, that pushes us to 50, right? However, I don't think, and I know it's dangerous for me to tell you what I think, but I'm going to tell you what I think.
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Because I have a reason for this.
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I don't think Paul is saying 14 years plus three years.
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I think he's saying 14 years from the time that he was converted.
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Because if we put 14 here, that takes us to 50, and the Jerusalem Council would have been before this, because the Jerusalem Council was around 49.
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I think that this 14 is not in addition to the three, but it's 14 from the year, which would have put, what's 14 plus 33? 47, one year or a year and a half prior to the Jerusalem Council.
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So I'm taking this 14 years as cumulative, not additive.
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It's not adding to it.
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It's including that three years.
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It's 14 years.
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Therefore, it puts Paul's writing of Galatians, number one, it's his earliest book, and we've already talked about this.
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That means that Paul wrote Galatians before he wrote Romans, or 1 Corinthians, or any of those other books.
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This would have been his earliest book.
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It also puts it before the Jerusalem Council, which makes sense logically, because if the Council came first, there'd be no reason for the book.
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The book is addressing the same things that once the Council has spoken, there's really no issue.
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And he nowhere mentions the Council in the book.
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Which again, if it had happened, if the Council had already occurred, he could have then said, well, hey guys, there's no reason to debate about this.
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It's already been decided.
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There's no reason to discuss this.
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The apostles have already ruled, and this decision has been made.
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And since he doesn't do that, that lends me to believe that it had not happened.
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Alright, so there's the Foskey timeline of how I believe we get from Paul's conversion to the Jerusalem Council.
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If you want to try to write it down now, you can.
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Or if you want to wait until after we're done, you can.
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Like I said, today's more of a Bible study.
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The reason why I thought this was important though, is because this is Paul's explanation of why his apostleship is confirmed.
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He says, one, I saw Jesus.
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Two, I spent three years where I didn't get anything from anyone.
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Except of course, my interpretation, he got it from Jesus.
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But he didn't get it from any man.
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Then he takes and makes his first trip to Jerusalem.
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And that's what we're going to look at now, verses 18-24.
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This is his first trip.
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So where we are in the timeline, we are right here.
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This is right after he has had three years with Christ.
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Looking at verse 18 now.
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Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days.
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But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, and what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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Now stop right there.
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Why would Paul...
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Yes? I'm sorry.
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I was getting ready to ask what you were going to ask.
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Why would he say, I don't lie? No, I was talking about James.
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James would have had to have been the Jerusalem council.
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Did you say the church in Jerusalem? Yeah, and we see that in Acts.
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He is the one who gets up and gives the final statement.
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Yeah, and so this is not that.
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This is not the Jerusalem council here.
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This is Paul's first trip to Jerusalem.
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And James, by the way, just for the important information, when we studied the book of James last time, remember that was our last book? We went verse by verse through James.
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When we studied the book of James, I said that's not James, the brother of John.
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Because we often think Peter, James, and John.
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John and James are brothers.
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James is the brother of Jesus.
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And we know that from this passage.
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And also, the other James was beheaded very early.
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He was beheaded too early to have written the book of James.
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This is why we believe that the one who wrote the book of James is the brother of Jesus.
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He's the preacher of the church of Jerusalem.
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He's named here as an apostle.
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Not one of the twelve originals, but like Paul, a secondary type of apostle.
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One who was taken on as a sent one afterward.
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And he is identified as Jesus' brother.
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Now we know that means half-brother.
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Because they had different daddies.
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Jesus had God as His father.
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And James would have had Joseph as His father.
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But he says, I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
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And then he says, in what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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Why would Paul say that? Why would Paul say, I'm not lying to you? Because he's being accused of being a false teacher.
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He's being accused of being someone who has given a false gospel.
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I don't know if you've ever been accused of lying.
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Maybe you were lying.
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I don't know.
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I've had times where I have told the absolute truth and someone look at you and say, you're a lying dog.
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And what's your response? I'm not lying.
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I tell you before God and man, I am telling you the truth.
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So, knowing that, think of what Paul is saying here.
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In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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Even if the Judaizers have said, I am a liar.
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Why? Even if these men from Jerusalem have said, I am lying to you, I am here to tell you, I am telling you the truth.
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And so, this lends credibility to what I've been saying is that this is a defense.
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Paul is providing what we call a polemic or an argument.
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He's arguing for his own authority.
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He's arguing for his own truthfulness.
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He's saying, I am not a liar.
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Verse 21, Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.
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Why was Paul unknown? Because even though he'd been saved for three years, he hadn't been ministering.
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He had done some ministry.
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If we go back to Acts 9, we see he did some ministry very early, but then almost immediately was expelled and ran out of town.
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And so, not a lot of people have seen his face.
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Not a lot of people know who he is.
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He says, I was unknown in person, meaning I was unknown face to face.
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But, verse 23, they were only hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy, and they glorified God because of me.
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Isn't that amazing? Their response is welcoming rather than rejecting Paul's conversion.
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Let me ask you a question.
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If you knew somebody who was a hater of the church, and they were constantly persecuting the church, and they were trying to get Christians arrested, they were trying to get Christians imprisoned, they were trying to get Christians executed, and then you heard that person became a Christian, you might think twice before you let him come and sidle up to you and become your friend.
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Because you might think that this is a trick, or maybe this is some kind of a ruse to pull the bag over your head or pull the wool over your eyes, as it were to say.
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And yet it says here, they glorified God.
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I don't really have an explanation as to why.
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I do think early on there was suspicion, and I think that that suspicion is possibly what led the Galatian heresy to rise up because the people said, y'all know that Paul, he used to persecute us.
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You shouldn't listen to him.
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You should listen to us.
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We're from Jerusalem.
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We have learned from Peter and James and John.
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We have learned from the super apostles.
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We have learned the truth.
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Paul is nothing.
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He is an ex-murderer.
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He is an ex-persecutor.
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Don't listen to him.
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Listen to us.
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And Paul's pointing out here, he's saying I was unknown in person to the churches of Jerusalem, but they still glorified God because of me.
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All they knew about me was I used to hate them.
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All they knew about me was I used to persecute them.
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All they knew about me is I used to try to take their husbands away from the wives and the wives' husbands away from their children.
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All they knew about me is I used to put them into prison, and now they glorify God because of me.
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Why? Because they believed Christ could really change a life.
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They believed that Christ could really change the direction of a man's life.
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Look again at this timeline.
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The timeline up until the first line that we have here is Paul advancing in Judaism.
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From birth to AD 33, it's Paul advancing as a Jew.
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He's becoming a better and better and better Pharisee.
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He's becoming a better and better and better scholar.
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He's becoming everything he should be, and he's hating the church because he sees the church as opposed to what he's being taught.
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And then boom! Christ changes his life.
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And from number one until his death by beheading under Emperor Nero, Paul lived every day for the Lord Jesus Christ.
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His timeline changed because Christ changed him.
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His life changed in a moment because Christ changed him in a moment.
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And everything changed.
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He went from being one that the church was afraid of to being one that the church glorified God because of.
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The amazing truth of that, and again, really this is what I want to say and I'm going to draw to a close in a prayer.
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That's the power of God in the life of a man.
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God can go into a man's life and He can change the timeline of a man's life.
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A man's life can be going down and down and down and down, and in a moment, God can change the direction of your life through His Son Jesus Christ.
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And He can turn you into one that opposes Him, into one who loves Him, into one that violently fights against Him, to one that graciously embraces Him.
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Christ can change your life.
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And He will.
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The Bible says if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved and your life will change.
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In Christ, you will be made new.
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The Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
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Old things have passed away.
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Behold, all things become new.
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There's no greater example than that, than that of the Apostle Paul.
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Paul was a man whose old things passed away and in whom all things became new.
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And Christ can do that for all of us if we trust in Him.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for this time of study.
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I thank You for getting to look at the life of Paul and how You changed his life.
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Lord, Your Word shows us Your power to take a man from death to life, to take him from spiritual darkness into spiritual light.
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And I pray for the men here.
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I pray that You will continue to work on those men who You have saved and draw them closer to You.
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And Lord, for those who are still rebelling against You, I pray that You would bring them down to their knees at the foot of the cross, that they would cry out to Christ and they would know that there is only one who can change their life and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.