Day 258

Isaiah 19:1–21:17; Galatians 2:1-16; Psalm 59:1-17; Proverbs 23:13-14

IN OUR READING from Galatians today, Paul continued to tell the story of how he arrived at his convictions and the subsequent disagreements that had arisen in the early church over the initiation of a believer.

According to Paul, by the time Galatians was written, he had been living into his faith for more than seventeen years. Paul’s claim was that he had not received the truth of the gospel from any person. In fact, he’d only met Peter once, and that had been fourteen years prior. The only other apostle he’d ever met was Jesus’ brother James. According to Paul, the gospel he preached had been given to him by direct revelation from Jesus Himself.

Meanwhile, the church that had formed and grown out of Jesus’ original followers were wrestling over how to view Gentiles who were coming to faith in Jesus —a ministry for which Paul was the champion.

Not everyone was on the same page, and Paul reported this in today’s reading:

They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.

It’s fair to acknowledge the tension. And it’s fair to acknowledge its validity. On one hand, Jesus was Jewish and operated in a Jewish context. Jewish believers couldn’t conceive of abandoning their religious convictions surrounding the Mosaic law —especially since Jesus had lived in the same environment. But Gentiles had never known about Moses or any of the rules and rituals associated with being a Jew. It was difficult to imagine how these brothers and sisters would ever be able to live up to the law’s requirements when the Jews, who had been raised in them, couldn’t keep them.

In addition to the religious tensions, some of the additional Jew-Gentile problems were social and cultural. For example, Jews did not fraternize with Gentiles —especially when they viewed them as their oppressors. Romans (Gentiles) often marginalized and segregated the Jews. This would make it difficult for Jewish and Gentile believers to have any sort of meaningful fellowship with one another, due to inherent prejudice and fear of reprisals from their communities.

We got a glimpse of this sort of tension in today’s reading when Paul told of a time that he had to directly confront Peter for acting one way among Gentile believers and a different way among the Jews (Galatians 2:11-16).

So what was Paul ultimately fighting so vigorously for in many of his letters (including Galatians)?

Freedom.

For Paul, the Mosaic law had been fulfilled in Jesus. There was no longer any need to attempt to live up to it. Jesus’ death had made things right with God, and through Jesus we are reconciled to God. It was faith that mattered to Paul, not adherence to the Mosaic law. The ethnic separation between Jew and Gentile needed to end, because we are all the same in Christ. This conviction put Paul in a tough spot, because his view made Judaism obsolete in many ways. He suffered great opposition over this belief.

As we move forward in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Paul will explain that we are justified by faith in Christ alone, and that this offers us true freedom that a set of rules could never provide. But understanding the context from which Paul taught is very helpful in allowing us to fully understand and embrace the freedom described in Galatians —and found in Jesus.

WORSHIP:

But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress. . . . You, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love.