FAKE NEWS

Galatians 1:1-10

(Sunday, September 2, 2018)

Headlines scream FAKE NEWS! We’ve heard Russians and other countries may try to influence our fall elections by passing along scandalous information that someone made up. We know that Americans on one political party can attack candidates of the other party by making up stories and passing them along. Who started this stuff?

Fake news was a problem in the first century. Fake news was a problem in the early Christian Church. Jesus’s 12 apostles went out telling His story. So did more believers who they trained. But behind them came still others with distorted stories, untrue, and spiritually dangerous - and thus fake news.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians attempts to smack down the efforts of teachers who followed him in Galatia and began teaching false doctrine, teachings different from what Paul taught. When he got the news, he was totally astonished that they would fall for that stuff so soon after he had been there.

Another gospel? THERE IS NO OTHER GOSPEL! Paul boomed back at them. Hey! Even if it were ME or an angel from heaven trying to tell you different, it would still be a lie, and the liar teaching it will be headed for Hell.

In the first century several heresies were taught competing with the truth about Jesus. The main fake news we will be dealing with in Galatians comes from the “Judaizers.” These people may have become Christians, but kept observing the Jewish law just as they had before. That might have been ok, but they went a step too far. They insisted that to become a Christian, you had first to become a Jew, or at least live like an orthodox Jew, keeping the law of Moses. They were teaching that more than faith was required to be saved. They said you did need faith in Christ, but you also needed to keep the works of the Mosaic Law.

At first, this might cause few problems because most of the first crop of Christians were Jews and used to keeping the Law. But then the gospel began to reach people on the border of the Gentile world who kept the law - or most of it - but were not Jews. See the book of Acts and watch the expansion from Jerusalem into the wide open Gentile world.

But Peter and Paul and that first wave of missionaries saw with their own eyes what believing in Christ could do. They saw the Spirit descend. They saw lives change. They saw God at work! And having seen all that, there was no way they were going to let someone cut off the opportunity for others - any others - to believe and be saved.

>TODAY? Take a mental picture of the next word: “CAT.” What color cat did you see? Was it a domestic cat, or did someone think of a wildcat? I’ve even had a road worker tell me he thought of a Caterpillar tractor! If as simple a word as “cat” brings so many different pictures, what about religious words like grace, faith, works, and love? I have a friend who was a college Bible teacher who claimed he always had trouble with the idea of God as “Father,” because he could never get along with his father. So let’s make sure we define our words as we go along and understand each other.

So when Paul heard about the seduction in Galatia, he fired off this letter to deal with it. Galatians presents Paul’s best theological thinking and some of his strongest language. Now let’s “back up” to the beginning - Verse 1!

PAUL - I like the way letters of his day began. Like our email, the name of the writer came up first. But wait a second! Don’t brush past this. It’s easy to skip, but you do so at great risk. Because we need to remember with every verse of his writing, Paul wrote this. Paul was the most converted man in history. He did a 180 degree turn from persecuting the church to planting new churches. He changed from a legalistic, hostile man to a warm and loving man, accused of ignoring the law. He was thoroughly Christian and thoroughly loving. If you don’t believe me, open your Bible to any random page of Paul’s letters. I guarantee wherever your eyes fall, not far off you can find both of these phrases (not together): “in love,” and “in Christ.”

Review chapter 11 of 2nd Corinthians to remind yourself of all the persecutions and other trials he experienced for Christ. And he came out victorious! Compare with Philippians 4:11 I have learned whatever condition befalls me to live content with it. He had graduated from the school of “hard knocks,” harder by far than most. So whenever you are wrestling to determine what he meant, remember the characteristics of the man writing!

Apostle - Paul insists that God Himself had commissioned him as an apostle, a divine messenger. He took a backseat to no one. He had met and could testify to the risen Christ every bit as much as Peter or James. On the Damascus Road, the Risen Christ met him and commissioned him as a missionary.  

Again in 2 Corinthians we find him countering the charges of heretics trying to sway a church away from the truth. His authority was always at stake. So he strongly and repeatedly detailed his qualifications, as he does here in Galatians. Remember he is not building himself up from pride. He is struggling to have the church accept the true Gospel of Christ.

Verse 4 - Note we are not only saved from sin, but from “this present evil age.” Does that sound up to date? How many times have you heard people recount all the immorality, greed, hostility around us? “What is this world coming to?” The Bible says it’s coming to Jesus Christ, although right now it doesn’t seem close to that day. God has a plan, a will for His creation, and He will bring it to pass. That vision, that Kingdom, was breaking into this world through the work of Jesus, whose story the apostles were spreading.

Verse 5 - a doxology. Praise hymns are common in the NT, and Paul’s writings are no exception. Scholars at times will discuss, even argue, whether a particular passage is the author’s creation or could he be quoting an early hymn. This line is probably from such a hymn: to whom be glory for ever and ever. (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus here!)

Verse 6 - Turning back so soon… How soon? We don’t know, but Paul is speaking as if the intruders followed close on his heels. Notice also he used the word calling (or name). They turned back from the one calling them. As Paul said early in 1 Corinthians, they are supposed to be following Jesus, not Paul nor anyone else. They began all right, but now they’re headed in another direction. I once had a dog that loved to go with me to the woods. He never got lost, but he would take off regardless of my calling him and would come back as he chose! I’m not sure that’s what Christ expects of us.

Another gospel - fake news! There IS no other gospel. Regardless of how good it sounds or how well it fits our previous ideas, the good news is that God came in Jesus to call the world back to Him. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and God raised Him from the dead. In Him is the way, the truth, the life, and the only way to the Father. No other story can do. Any other is fake news, a fake gospel, and a Satanic deception.

Verses 7-8 - Paul calls down a curse on anyone preaching such a mistelling of the gospel. The heart of this heresy will soon turn out to be a Judaizing philosophy that insists one must believe in the gospel story above, but must also keep the Jewish law, including circumcision, keeping kosher, etc. Paul aims a very strong word at them - anathema. That means they should be cursed, not verbally, but kicked out of the church and turned over to Satan. He is implying God will judge them and send them to hell.

Verse 9 repeats it: I said it before and I’ll say it again. If anyone perverts the gospel, he’s facing the judgment of God!

Verse 10 - Were the heretics, the one preaching opposite to Paul, accusing him of trying to please Gentiles by making faith too easy? I don’t know, but Paul makes clear here that God is the only one he seeks to please. He could not be faithful to God and try to make everyone happy. There is a strong streak of independence in the Christian faith. Faith and obedience is between an individual and his God.

Walden is one of my favorite all-time books. At one point Thoreau goes to his tailor for a new suit of clothes. He tells the man how he wants the outfit to look. “They are not making them like that now,” replied the tailor. Thoreau pauses and mentally asks himself who “they” are and what right do they have to design his clothing. He finally replies, “It is true that before they did not make them that way, but now they do.” He got his clothes his way. Don’t let the world shape you into yet another pagan. Rather, let the gospel of Christ fill you with forgiveness and love. And His Spirit will shape you into the person God designed you to be!