Galatians 5:9 - On pursuing Jesus and yummy yeast rolls...

"A little leaven the whole lump is leavening."

-A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  A lot of people have heard this phrase, no doubt.  But what does it mean, exactly?  Well, leaven is yeast, and you only need to add a little bit of yeast to get the whole loaf of bread to rise.  The thing about leaven is that it does make a more desirable loaf of bread, and it does only take a little, but it also takes special conditions and some extra time in order for the dough to rise once the leaven has been added.  The relevance is perhaps somewhat lost on modern Gentiledom, and honestly was probably lost at least to a certain extent on this mostly Gentile assembly, but leaven was a significant part of Jewish culture, since unleavened bread played an important role in their religious observances.  It refers back to the time of the Exodus, when the nation Israel had to leave Egypt in haste and did not have time even for their daily bread to rise, and so they made unleavened bread.  This then was later memorialized in the feast of Passover, where the Lord instructed them to eat unleavened bread for an entire week as they remembered how He had delivered them from their slavery in Egypt. During that week in fact they were to clean out all leaven from their homes and not to let any even be found anywhere in their territory.

-Onto this foundation of the historical significance of leaven, Jesus Himself added another layer when He described the (false) teaching and hypocrisy of the Pharisees as leaven.  In this He was capturing the idea that it only takes a little bit of false teaching, just a little bad information, a little hypocrisy, to spoil the entire batch.  And truth be told, given a choice between unleavened bread and leavened, most people will indeed choose the latter (those yeast rolls you get at places like Golden Corral and Texas Roadhouse are hard to resist!).  It may make a message or teaching sound more appealing, more desirable, easier to swallow and digest, but the reality is that no amount of bad information is a good thing.  Not ever.  Even a little bit can (and will) ruin the whole thing.  The teaching of these Judaizers was leavened, what with their emphasis on works and circumcision and on keeping the Law.  That bit of bad info ruined the entire batch.  So may your dinner rolls be full of yeast and yummy goodness, but for your intake of Bible teaching, go unleavened.  When it comes to teaching which impacts our pursuit of Jesus, that which has eternal implications, we need to be doubly diligent to clean out every last tiny bit of leaveny bad information and not let any be found anywhere near our home or our assembly.  Our (eternal) life - and that of our family and friends - very likely depends on it.

Galatians 5:8 - The True Source of Truth

"The persuasion [is] not out of the [One] calling you."

-The Galatians are being hindered. They are following Jesus, running (to win - at least that's the idea, cf 1Corinthians 9.24) the spiritual race of faith - trying to at least - and somebody is giving them bad info, information which is hurting their running.  This bad information, this would-be 'persuasion', as Paul calls it, comes from the same word that gives us the word 'faith'.  It is any amount of information in which you might put your faith or trust.  It is something you are persuaded to believe.  You are certain.  Never mind that you could be certainly wrong.  But you are certain.  Ultimately, however, what matters more than being certain or persuaded about something, more than simply having faith, is the quality as well as the source of your information.  If the information I believe is wrong, it doesn't matter how persuaded or sincere I am that it is true.  I will be sincerely wrong.  Certainty and sincerity matter, don't get me wrong, but what matters more is veracity.  Vigilant eagle-eyed truth-checkers - that's what we are (or should be).  Which of course begins with diligent study of the Truth.  Know it well, so you can more easily sort a counterfeit.

-And so we have this somebody who believes something about how to follow Jesus, they are so sincere, so strongly persuaded about it and they are doing their darnedest to try and persuade these Galatians about it.  To which Paul simply says, in no un-certain terms, that, as certain as they are about what they are saying, they have bad information.  It is wrong information, because it is not from the right Source.  You gotta check the source, and you then need to check to make sure the info is consistent with what one would expect from that source, as well as from any other reliable sources.  Paul knows for sure that these Judaizers did not get their information from the True Source of truth, because it is not consistent with everything else this One Who calls us to follow Him has said about how to follow Him.  Always check your sources, and don't let anything slow you down in your race towards the Prize...

Galatians 5:7 - A glorious finish...?

"You [all] were running beautifully.  Who hindered you by [the] truth to not being persuaded?"

-These Galatian believers were running well, Paul says.  The Christian life can indeed be compared to a foot race, but no sprint, this.  Ours is a distance race, a long obedience in the same direction, towards Jesus, our eyes focused on Him.  More akin to a marathon.  The New Testament writers are rather fond of employing this metaphor when talking about faith and following Jesus.  We are - or should be - in a spiritual marathon race, running to win (1Corinthians 9.24), keeping our eyes fixed on the prize (Hebrews 12.1-2), surrounded by a multitude of spectators, angels and saints who've gone before us, cheering and urging us on to glory.  A glorious finish!

-Like any marathon runner, to run and finish this race of faith we need copious amounts of fuel as well as fortitude - endurance, perseverance, the ability to push the body and mind to the outer limits and beyond.  The thing about running, tho, is that there are so many factors which can affect the outcome, so many things which can be an encumbrance, a hindrance.  Food, sleep, weather, shoes, health, injury, training schedule, motivation...  These and other factors can play into one's ability to run in a marathon, not to mention finish it. Anything can happen.  It is not at all uncommon to have done everything necessary to gain entrance into the race, you actually make it to the starting line and the gun goes off and you are running well enough when something happens, something begins to develop which hinders you from running well.  And that is precisely what happened in this assembly in Galatia.  Something happened.  Or rather, someone.  Paul apparently doesn't know who exactly, but some nameless Judaizer had come along and had disrupted their race.  I imagine that Paul would have some choice words for them, but for now, he has these divinely-inspired words for these believers, and for us.  Read on...

Galatians 5:6 - Bona fide verified faith

"For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision has a certain strength nor [does] uncircumcision but rather faith through love working."

-In Christ Jesus. There is no other place to be, to be found. No need to look elsewhere - there is nothing for you there. These are in fact the droids you are looking for.  In Christ Jesus.  This is right where you want to be.  And in Him, in His economy of grace, works are not meritorious.  Works earn you no favor, no leg up on the competition.  It matters not whether you are circumcised or uncircumcised, Paul says.  God is not partial to either condition.  He doesn't look at the physical condition of any body part - He looks at the heart.  He is looking for faith, and that is what matters most.  Actually it is the only thing that matters - real, working faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  He's looking for bona fide verified faith, faith working, demonstrating itself through love.  In other words, it is not simply head belief or an empty profession, but it is accompanied (and verified) by real displays of lovingkindness.

-Where is the love?  Where is the love?  That is the multi-billion-dollar question.  If I have faith to move mountains but do not have love, I am spiritually bankrupt (1Corinthians 13.2). There is no real faith if I do not have real love working itself out through my life (1Timothy 1.5).  If I AM in Christ, having truly trusted in Him, then I will have love.  Not just a general niceness and politeness and a propensity to smile.  We're talking about a demonstrated readiness to lay my life down for another.  To go out of my way and to sacrifice for them.  Like Jesus.  Living like Jesus - that's always a good example to follow!  :)  But what propelled God the Son towards sacrificial acts of love was not the fact that He was circumcised or that He had been baptized.  It was not some external ritual.  It was the reality of the divine nature within Him.  Thus it is for us - we're talking about the divine nature being planted and germinating IN us, then being released THRU us and manifested to a broken and dying world around us.  The world doesn't need a ritual.  It doesn’t need creeds and head knowledge and once-a-week meetings which make no difference in my life or in the world around me.  It needs the love of God.  It needs us to live into that heavenly mindset of others-first, others better, just like Jesus. Which is precisely the point...

Galatians 5:5 - Waiting for glory...

"For we ourselves, by [the] Spirit out of faith, [for the] hope of righteousness are waiting."

-Our right standing with God is not to be found in doing the law.  No, no, no.  Our righteousness comes out of faith.  We’re waiting, hoping for it, that which will be the final installment.

-The hope of righteousness. The prospect of one day being able to present ourselves face to face with our thrice-holy heavenly Father and hear Him say, "Well done".  To be able to simply stand in His presence and NOT hear those fateful words, "Depart from Me, cursed ones, I never knew you."  Being able to stand there because we are righteous.  In His eyes, in other words, we will have done everything right.  Everything.  Right.  That's right.  That's what righteousness is.  In this life, saddled as we are till death do us part with a fallen fleshy propensity to choose what is not right, the state of being fully right is an anticipated future reality, real enough now in the eyes of the One with Whom we have to do, but still anticipated and hoped for by those whose hope, whose faith is in the One Who alone is righteous, Jesus Christ.  Our heavenly Father sees us in Christ right now, thru faith, having done everything right (exhale a long sigh of relief for THAT truth!), but for now, the substance is something hoped for (cf Hebrews 11.1).  

-This of course has been the recurring message of Paul's letter, that righteousness comes thru faith.  Faith alone (tho not thru faith which is alone...). Which is exactly what he says again here.  We, those who have put their faith and trust in what Jesus did on the cross, are eagerly and patiently (which actually means long-suffering) waiting (for Him, on Him) for THIS day - for His provision of glorious grace and hope and all that we need even-and-especially-in-the-midst-of-suffering-if-necessary today - AND for THAT day, the day of future glory.

-And do not miss the mention here of the Spirit, the vital role of the Holy Spirit by Whom we began this journey, this waltz with Jesus - through faith - and Who not only encourages and fills our hearts with hope and glimpses of glory each day but gives us the grace and power to progress and persevere towards THAT glorious day, that day above all other days when that which is true of us in the heavenlies will become reality.  We will be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye.  We will jettison our old dying (or dead) tents and be clothed from head-to-toe with breathtaking goodness, a glorious new heavenly dwelling, one which will never die and which is unable to sin.  Completely unable to choose anything other than what God wants.  Perfect and full of glory - like Him (cf 1John 3.2)!  In this life, through faith and through the Help of His Spirit we are constantly progressing towards this goal.  In Christ and by His Spirit we begin our journey from the place where we are unable to NOT sin (the way we WERE) to being ABLE to not sin, to choose what God wants.  But we are not yet perfect.  We have not yet arrived.  In this life we still stumble and fall into sin along the way.  We have a long long way to go, many miles to go before we awake in that heavenly city of light, full of glory, not a blemish in sight.  And so we wait...

Galatians 5:4 - On sights not to be seen...

"You all have been nullified from Christ, whoever in law is being justified, of the grace you all have fallen [away]."

-Fallen from grace.  Severed from Christ.  Strong words.  Serious situation.  What is Paul saying exactly?  The word translated as 'severed' in the Greek actually means 'to nullify', 'to make of no effect'.  You literally 'were nullified from Christ'.  Jesus Christ and His gift of grace was made of no effect in your life as soon as you began trying to earn God's unearnable favor by keeping the law.  You fell away from grace, in other words.  You were dancing with Jesus, a beautiful waltz of grace and divine undeserved favor, and then the law cut in (you let it!), and the result is something rather atrocious.  A sight NOT to be seen.  Truth is, you (and I) were nothing to look at to begin with.  A filthy mess of bloody rags, a lifeless corpse in fact, and Christ came along, He picked you out of the long line of spiritual wallflowers, offered this dance, and though you were dead, as you took hold of His outstretched, nail-scarred hand, He breathed into your soul of His Holy Spirit, covered you with His robe of righteousness and gave you a complete makeover, spiritual head to toe.  You (and I) deserved not one bit of it.  We were rescued from death as a totally free undeserved gift.  And we began to dance with Jesus, every step (and even our woeful missteps) bathed in the beauty of grace, this unearned divine favor.  But the moment you Galatians decided you needed to be circumcised, Paul says, you stepped away from all of that.  He is not saying that Christ stepped away from you.  On the contrary.  No, but you have stepped away from His grace, and by trying to earn His continued favor through self-effort you are for the time being nullifying His finished work of grace on the Cross on your behalf. Talk about 'no effect' - here we have the quintessential complete waste of time.  Also a sight not to be seen, this...

Galatians 5:3 - The Whole Shootin' Match

"But I am witnessing again to every man being circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law."

-Instead of making a (spiritual) profit, circumcision winds up being the way to take on a massive, non-repayable debt.  All kinds of indebtedness in this world - credit card debt, mortgage debt, school loan debt, car loan debt, back taxes, favors owed - for most of us, we can manage to pay off these and other debts if we simply scrimp and save and work hard enough for long enough.  The more materially wealthy in this world perhaps need not even worry about having to deal with debt, at least not in a financial sense.  But rest assured, the debt to which Paul refers here makes any earthly debt pale in comparison.  There is no way any individual can ever work hard enough to scrape together enough spiritual capital to pay off this debt, not in a million lifetimes.  Because as soon as you depart from the faith-approach to God through Jesus Christ and receive circumcision as a way to earn spiritual capital in heaven, you become indebted, obligated to the whole law.

-The whole law. The WHOLE Law.  Every jot and tittle, every last tiny little bit of it. If our approach to God, if the prospect of gaining or maintaining right standing with Him is dependent on keeping even just one of those 600+ commands, then it becomes necessary to keep all of them.  Every single one, the whole shootin' match.  That's what Paul here is saying.  The standard is absolute perfection, and there are no shortcuts.  No get out of jail free card.  No grading on a spiritual curve for good attendance.  No teacher's pets.  You keep it all, or not at all, short of the goal you do fall (James 2.10).  One must fulfill all of it if he would pass thru those pearly gates and enter paradise, that place of total perfection, the heavenly city where there is no darkness nor shadow of turning whatsoever lurking in some corner somewhere, no hint of leaven in heaven which would leaven the entire lump. There is no such thing as slightly imperfect in heaven. We may pay thousands of dollars in this realm for a diamond which is slightly imperfect, or nearly flawless, but nearly flawless doesn't cut it on this scale.  There cannot be even the smallest discoloration or inclusion.  That most beautifully sublime moral perfection cannot coexist with any whiff of imperfection.  No more than clean and dirt can coexist. Light and darkness. Innocence and guilt. Life and death. These opposites do NOT attract - they are antithetical.  One is in fact the complete absence of the other.  It is the same with absolute moral perfection.  It cannot coexist with any imperfection.  One misstep, and you are guilty.  The Divine Perfection which cannot even look at guilt nevertheless does not overlook it.  Better by far to approach His throne with hands and feet and heart washed clean and whiter than white (thru faith) by the crimson blood of the Lamb.  The cleanest that the best of us can get on our own, with our own feeble stabs at moral-law-keeping, is filthy rags.  I'll pass, thank you...

Galatians 5:2 - The USS Jesus

"Behold, I myself, Paul, am saying to you that if you all may be being circumcised, Christ not will profit you."

-Paul invokes his Paul card here.  The Galatians know him, they know who he is.  He is for all intensive purposes the de facto leader of the Gentile church, THE apostle to the Gentiles, not to mention the one who (the Lord used to) planted their church in the first place.  Not some johnny-come-lately.  Not some charlatan or spiritual ne’er-do-well who cares only for another notch in his belt.  This is Paul, God’s hand-picked apostle to the Gentiles.  The Lord specifically sent Paul to these people ans(Acts 13.2), to help them begin to trust in Him for forgiveness and eternal life (Rom 1.4-5).  The ones who were pushing the law on these believers could make no such claim.

-But Paul here employs the language of capitalism.  Any good business owner could relate to it.  How do I make a profit?  That is the question. Would you want to be in a negative cash flow situation, running in the red, losing money?  Do you want to wind up being broke and bankrupt, spiritually?  Or, would you like to be turning a profit?  Positive cash flow, money in the bank?  Would you like to hit the spiritual jackpot?  Paul is here telling the Galatians that their proverbial ship has already come in, and it's name is the USS Jesus.  He alone is the One Who can save my soul. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

-The way to go spiritually bankrupt is to be receiving circumcision.  Circumcision in this instance was the focal-point of works-based righteousness.  If I am having placed my trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross, then the very moment I begin to place my trust in any work or self-effort as a way to earn favor or right standing with God, then Christ is no longer profiting me.  If any good work could somehow save me, then Christ died needlessly.  And if I am in that place, if I get to that place where I am trying to work my way to stay in favor with God - like these Galatians were in danger of going - then I am obligated to be keeping the entire law. Not just one command, but all 600+ of them.  Every.  Last.  One.

-So once they take the plunge to receive circumcision, the Galatians will in fact be moving to a place where Christ will not profit them.  While we know that there are things, good deeds in this life which contain some benefit (bodily discipline, for one - 1Timothy 4.7-8), there is only one thing which is profitable in all things, both in this life and in the life to come, only one which really matters.  Godliness.  God-likeness.  In other words, that character and comportment of heart and life which are like Him, the One Who made us in His image, the One Who died for us and is dying to remake us like unto Him.  And He alone holds the profit for the life to come, for eternity.  We put our faith, our trust, our spiritual security in Christ. 

Galatians 5:1 - We were made for THIS

"To freedom us Christ freed.  Be standing firm therefore and not again by a yoke of slavery be held in."

-Freedom.  Freedom.  It is one of our worship words.  On the surface we think it means that I get to choose.  I get to do what(ever it is) I want.  No hindrance or restraint whatsoever.  No shackles, no chains on me, not even one.  So steeped are those of us in the west in this notion of freedom that we really have no concept of what it would be like to NOT be free.  We threw off the king and every other form of despotism, we threw out slavery (for the most part) - we have lived for centuries and for so long without the kind of subservience which was so prevalent in Paul’s day that we take it for granted.  We have no concept of what it might be like to not be free.  Most of us anyway.  There are the reasonable restraints enforced by a democratic and civil polity, and other natural restrictions placed on children and minors and the lot.  And there are modern forms of slavery, to be sure, and various kinds of spiritual and emotional bondage, but for most we are talking about a shriveled anachronism.  Freedom is the norm, it is accepted - and we take it for granted.  It is our heritage, our birthright.  It is the air we breathe - we don’t even think about it.  And in fact, we are so steeped in it and so expect and insist on it, that we have almost become enslaved to freedom, to the freedom of choice - to do what(ever) I want, when(ever) I want, unable for the most part to say no or to deny myself (or my friends) the slightest thing in any way, soul anarchy (which, my friends, is another discussion entirely).

-What we do need actually is to reframe the terms of the discussion, to tweak the definition of freedom, to understand it in a different light.  Because true freedom is not simply total absence of restriction or restraint.  True freedom of soul is found in finding and living fully into who I really am, who I was created to be (and we begin to fall short of this the very moment we begin to dismiss the concept of a Creator)(Romans 1.20-25).  Truly, I was fashioned and formed in the womb with wonderful, beautiful, glorious purpose (Psalm 139.13-16).  True freedom is found when I find myself in that rarified air where I can declare, "I was made for this!"

-Paul says that Christ freed us - from the law, from the penalty and power of sin - in order that we could enjoy this true soul freedom, this liberation of self.  So that we could find our sweet spot.  Not to become manifestly selfish, no.  But rather to become who I was always meant to be.  To become the best, most heavenly version of me, living into fulfilling world-changing purpose and overflowing with uncontainable joy and love and power, a true glimpse of glory.

-Now what if my freedom were taken away?  What do you mean, I can’t do what I want?  What do you mean, no?  Obviously we would have quite an uproar, a rebellion even.  But imagine if you can a situation where I am suddenly handcuffed or straight-jacketed or shackled such that now I am no longer free to do what(ever) I want.  No longer free to choose.  This is what happens to my soul under the law, when I am in bondage the law of works and trying (and forever failing) to earn God’s acceptance thru my own feeble efforts, to make myself clean in His eyes with so much filthy rags.  The law is worse than King George, a despot, a harsh, unforgiving taskmaster - and under him my soul will never know freedom.

-Which is why Paul is pleading with these Galatians to stand firm.  Stay strong and resist the pull of worldly peer pressure and of the fleshy instinct to take on works of law as a means to maintain right standing with God.  Don’t go back there, there is nothing for you there.  Nothing but bondage.  Slavery.  Frustration and vain striving and atrophy of the soul.  You and I, our souls were meant to soar on the wings of heaven.  We were made for THIS.  Stand firm, and keep walking in the true soul freedom of the children of God.

Galatians 4:21-31 - Hagar vs Sarah

"Be telling me, the [ones] under law wanting to be, the law are you not hearing?  For it has been written that Abraham had two sons, one out of the maid-servant and one out of the free.  But rather on the one hand the [one] out of the maidservant out of flesh has been begotten, but on the other hand the [one] out of the free through a promise...which it is speaking allegorically.  For these are two covenants, on the one hand one from Mount Sinai begetting unto slavery, which is Hagar.  But Hagar [is] the Mount Sinai it is in the Arabia.  But it is corresponding to the now Jerusalem,  For she is slave-serving with her children.  But on the other hand, the above Jerusalem is free, which is our mother.  For it has been written, ‘Be rejoiced, barren woman the [one] not having children, burst out and cry out, the [one] not being in labor, since many [are] the children of the desolate more than the [one] having a husband.’  But you [all], brothers, according to Isaac children of promise you are.  But rather just as then the [one] being born according to flesh was persecuting the [one] according to Spirit, thus also now.   But rather what is the Scripture saying?  'Throw out the maidservant and her son.  For not in no way will the son of the maidservant inherit with the son of the promise.'  Therefore, brothers, we are not sons of [the] maidservant but rather of the free."

-A lengthy passage this, but best taken in its entirety.

-This entire letter Paul has been contrasting the two approaches to God, the newer approach of faith in His Son Jesus, and the more traditional Jewish approach of obeying the law to the best of one’s ability, the exact same approach which the Judaizers were foisting upon these young Galatian believers.  So Paul here points out that the very law to which these believers are now beginning to listen in fact tells them that, even before the law was given, before Israel was born, there were two approaches, two very different polar-opposite approaches to God.

-Father Abraham has (had) two sons, issuing forth from two mothers - one mother was a slave, and the other was free.  This is Hagar vs Sarah - a real live spiritual smackdown.  These two mothers give us two sons, metaphors for the two bases of approach, two modes, two fountains, if you will (flesh and faith), which are tied to two covenants (the law, fully delivered later at Mt Sinai, and the promise, made to Abraham and Isaac).  And there are two corresponding Jerusalems as well (old and new).  One wife/son/covenant/jerusalem combo - the first one, corresponding to Hagar and Ishmael - is in bondage.  Servitude.  Slavery.  All who are born under law, or who are living under it by their own free will, are slaves.  Like Abra(ha)m with Hagar, their approach to God is based on the flesh, on fleshy effort, and on slavish obligation to observe the law in order to try and find favor with Him.  The other approach, corresponding to Sarah and Isaac, is freedom.  The freedom of full forgiveness.  The freedom of grace and of righteousness fulfilled, of in God’s eyes having done everything right.  It is freedom to enjoy relationship and acceptance and favor instead of having to constantly try and earn it.  It is the joyous freedom of faith, of enjoying the fruits of promise made by the original Promise Keeper.  The law itself, the teachings of the Torah, teaches this truth - listen and pay attention, he says.  Which approach would you rather have, slavery or freedom?  Whose child would you rather be, Hagar or Sarah?

-Paul then points out that just as that first child of the free woman was mocked and mistreated by the child of the slave, so also the spiritual children of the slave were continuing to mistreat the spiritual children of the free woman in Paul’s day, as they do still today.  Judaizers, legalists, those enslaved to works of law in various forms - the default position of man, of the world, is that of trying to work one’s way to God, working to try and earn His favor and acceptance, and that of falling short.  The Good News of forgiveness thru faith alone in Christ alone is a game-changer, game-changing good news to some, a pleasing fragrant aroma, but to many others it is a death-dealing drug, a rancid stench in their nostrils (2Corinthians 2.14-16).  It is too far askew from their works orientation, from their religious understanding and tradition.  Even tho their rusty old bucket of bolts can’t get off the ground, they are remiss to throw it off for this newfangled teaching.  Their approach may not work (and of this fact they are most likely ignorant), but it’s all they know.  It’s what their parents taught them.  It’s how they grew up.  And their response is to reject this new Message along with the messenger (don’t take it personally!), to ostracize or mistreat him or her, to convince and coerce even the messenger somehow to get (back) under the law, into their religious tradition, and, really, into bondage.  But in the end, they have no inheritance with the children of the promise.  Cast them out, Paul says.  Cast their teaching out of mind.  If they are willing to come to Jesus, by all means, bring them in, but why would children of the free woman ever consider becoming slaves?  Paul says, we are not slaves.  We are not children of a slave woman.  We are children of promise, justified and made right with God by grace through faith.  We are sons and daughters of Sarah - and Abraham.  Through faith - not through any works.  Never forget this!  Live into this!  Next verse...

Galatians 4:20 - F2F vs FB, and God's chosen preposition?

"...but I was wanting to be present toward you now and to change the voice of me.  I am at a loss in you."

-F2F.  Face-to-face.  Ministry is always done best in person, life-on-life.  It is all about relationships, and relationships always function best when you are together with the other person(s).  Immediacy, proximity - these are the secret sauce in a modern electronic age where advances in technology and the advent of things like first the telephone and then email and now text messaging and social media now conspire to make face-to-face practically obsolete.  F2F has always been somewhat impractical, but now there is so much communication which can happen from a distance.  In abstentia, in other words.  It can be good for business - faster, more convenient.  But consider the potential impact on relationships which would go deep and be meaningful and built on trust and understanding.  So much of communication is non-verbal, and there are back stories and context and lines-to-color-in, warmth and passion and emotion to convey - these are things which cannot be imparted thru the cold vacuum of digital distance.  They are always served up best face-to-face.  And let’s be honest - face-to-face still is less convenient and far messier (at least it can appear that way).  Way easier today to just shoot off a text or an email.  You can even break up with someone on Facebook instead of having the difficult conversation face-to-face.  But who are we kidding - meaningful relationship cannot happen in 140 characters or less.  F2F vs FB?  F2F wins hands down - if your goal is transformational relationship.

-So Paul wanted to be WITH them, these Galatian believers.  He had questions for them, things to tell them, instructions and warnings and corrections to give, he wanted to be able to hear their side of things and have meaningful dialogue, to be able to carefully observe and lead by example and monitor progress.  This is what you do with ones who have been entrusted to your care and tutelage.  This is what you do with disciples.  You spend time WITH them.  This is the way of the Master, Emmanuel, God WITH us, the consummate Discipler of disciple-making disciples Himself.  He chose people first that they would be WITH Him (Mark 3.14).  Turns out this most-powerful life-changing little preposition is God's plan for saving the world.  And let’s be honest, is this not the divine design of things (cf Luke 23.43; John 14.16-17, 17.24; Matthew 28.20; Psalm 36.9, 65.4)?  Isn’t there no better place to be than WITH the Lord and with His people (Psalm 16.11, 27.4, 84.10, 133.1)?  Is it not safe to suggest that absence in fact is not God’s plan A?  Let's state that again for the record - absence is not God's plan A.  Separation and isolation and alienation and hiding and distance (not to mention death, and goodbyes even?) - these all came in as a result of the fall (cf Genesis 3.8, 4.16, Jeremiah 2.13).  We were designed and built for relationship, for community and fellowship, for sharing and meeting needs and building up one another - and in Christ we have been redesigned and are being rebuilt for abundantly more of the very same (Hebrews 10.24-25, Romans 14.19, Ephesians 4.12, 1Thessalonians 5.11).  Doing good and sharing always go hand in hand with physical presence (Hebrews 13.16, 1Timothy 6.18, Ephesians 4.28) - this is our calling, truly this is God’s plan A.  F2F.  To be face to face with people.  Doing life together, messy, dirty, trying and exasperating one another yes, but being real, exposing (and eliminating) our junk, encouraging and sharpening and building up one another into glorious temples of the Lord, wondrous shining manifestations of His breathtaking goodness helping a world adrift in a sea of darkness to find their way home to Him, to be with Him forever, just as He always intended.  This was Paul’s heart for the Galatian believers, and he wanted, he knew he needed to be with them, face to face.

Galatians 4:19 - Paul vs Alien

"My children, whom again I am suffering birth pains until which Christ should be formed in you..."

-Paul had given birth!  Spiritual birth, that is - to these believers in Galatia.  He had helped them be born into eternal life through trusting in Christ and in His finished work on the cross.  And that process was incredibly laborious, it was akin to giving birth, labor pains and all.  Not to say that he had literal physical pain comparable to what a woman experiences during labor and delivery.  Altho he was certainly persecuted and beaten and stoned (Acts 13.50, 14.5-6, 14.19).  And he also worked long and hard and struggled at various points even while with them to help them understand and follow the true path of faith (Acts 13.43, 13.45, 14.3, 14.19, 14.21-23)(cf 2Corinthians 11.23-29).  In a spiritual sense he is very much both mother and father to them (cf 1Thessalonians 2.11, 2.7).

-But here’s the point - because he is their parent in Christ, he naturally cares and always will care - deeply - for them.  He wants to help them grow up and stand on two feet and be able to take care of themselves.  Make wise decisions.  Become more like their Savior.  And now that they are in fact straying from the path (or are being encouraged to do so), Paul is again burdened for them.  What parent’s heart does not go out after and yearn after their prodigal child?  He is agonizing over them, praying for them, and exhorting them to return to the way of grace (cf 1Corinthians 4.14).  "Christ-in-you" needs for them (and for us all) to become more than simply positional truth, more than just some propositional pie-in-the-sky mumbo jumbo - it needs to become reality.  The verb in the Greek is "morph" - we are literally talking about morphing into Jesus.  This is Alien, but instead of Sigourney Weaver trying to stop an alien life form being planted in John Hurt's belly and busting out and killing him and everyone else, we have Paul trying to encourage the process of this heavenly Life being planted and forming in these Galatians and busting out to produce abundant eternal life not only in them but to the ends of the earth.  Christ in me.  He needs to become real - in and through me.  I need to get real with Jesus, and let Him show up for real, do His thing, take over.  I need to stay on target, focused on him, laying hold of Him and letting Him lay hold of them.  More of Him, and less of me.  He must increase, I must decrease.  This is the journey of faith, of following our Savior, where He thru His Spirit lives in our hearts, taking up residence, making Himself a(t) home and rolling out the ultimate spiritual makeover, such that it is truly no longer I who lives but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2.20).  Visibly, tangibly, manifestly so.  Palpable.  Unmistakably divine.  That is my life if I am I in Christ.  That was Paul’s vision and burden for these (and all) believers, and the goal toward which he tirelessly applied himself on their behalf.

Galatians 4:18 - Beautifully zesty

"But beautiful [it is] to be zealous-ing in beautiful always, and not only in the to be present me with you."

-Zeal can be a beautiful thing, Paul says.  The legalizers were "zealous-ing" the Galatians, but not beautifully.  They had those ugly ulterior motives.  But no, there is nothing at all wrong with zeal.  It means to boil, be hot or heated up over something.  Nothing wrong with the heat itself - it is the object of the heat, and how you direct the heat.  If do right, no can defense.  Today many would suggest that zeal is not good.  Extremism.  Fanaticism.  Foolish freakism.  Don’t want those, right?  Don’t wanna overdo it, go overboard or something crazy.  All things in moderation, right?  Actually, to avoid such extremes, such as cold or hot, renders one lukewarm, which state was roundly criticized by Christ Himself.  "Because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3.15)  A foul taste in the mouth of the Lord is a lukewarm heart - when such ‘moderation’ is directed at Him.  Ambivalent.  Equivocal.  On the fence.  Vacillating.  Wavering.  Both feet firmly planted in middair - because you are on the fence and they can’t reach the ground!  About Him, we must have no equivocation...!

-This Greek word for zeal also gives us our English word "zest" - great enthusiasm and energy.  God-forbid that we should so ‘moderate in all things’ that the zest goes out of our lives.  Enthusiasms.  Enthusiasms.  Surely we all have them.  Those things which get us excited and towards which we direct our energy?  The point is, there are some things which deserve zesty, zealous enthusiasm.  In some quarters, we must go all in and all out, we must go to extremes.  The person, the stakes, the cause is too great for moderation, for ambivalence, for just a little dab’ll-do-ya.  Jesus is one of those.  Our Savior, our Lord, our King, the King of Kings wants and deserves nothing less than all of us, all in and all out.

-There are a few different interpretations of this verse, apparently.  If the verb is taken as passive, then Paul is pointing out that it is always beautiful to have someone be zealous over you (to be zealous-ed) in a beautiful way.  Which the legalizers were not, trying as they were to enslave these believers to works.  Paul's zeal for the Galatians WAS beautiful, however he was not with them, and therein lay part of the problem, in that he was not there to zealously shepherd them and protect them from wiley wooly wolves and other charlatans.  If however the verb is taken in the middle voice, Paul would be saying that zeal (zealous-ing) can be beautiful, and the Galatians really need to redirect themselves to be beautifully zesty, on fire and zealous for Jesus (Revelation 3.19) and for the true Gospel of grace in Christ.  Zealous for what is good (1Peter 3.13), for good deeds (Titus 2.14), for love and spiritual gifts (1Corinthians 14.1).  And they need to learn to do so even when Paul is absent.  May we each find a similar grace and zest...

Galatians 4:17 - On savage lupine suitors in wool suits...

"They are jealous of you not beautifully, but rather they are wanting to exclude you, in order that you should be seeking them."

-Ulterior motives.  We all have them.  We approach another person and are relating to them, we are extra nice and generous to them, paying extra attention to them, but we want something from them.  We have a hidden agenda.  We want them to give or do for us something, or we want them to like us or agree with us in some regard.  And, truth be told, when we’re on the receiving end of such attention we all know how good it feels to be pursued, how nice it is to be treated nicely, to be wanted by someone else, that they want you on their team.  Cuz no one wants to go unrecruited, unpicked, the last one standing there when teams are chosen.  No one wants to go to the prom alone.  Sadly, the interest being shown in these Galatians by the Judaizers was not at all sincere.  It was tainted, the entire lump leavened with self-serving me-first.  They wanted to shut these believers out and exclude them from the blessings of the freedom of being fully loved and accepted children of God, from that which was theirs in Christ through faith.

-But even moreso these Judaizers simply wanted another notch in their belt, another trophy in their case.  They wanted the Galatians to switch teams and join them, which would of course serve to reinforce their own legalistic position.  They were savage ravenous wolves wearing wool, dressed in sheep’s clothing, right?  Both Jesus and Paul here, being good shepherds, instinctively spot and know to warn against such creatures.  (cf Matthew 7.15, John 10.11-13, Acts 20.27-31)  You hate to be cynical, but honestly we all owe it to ourselves to do all due diligence when it comes to vetting potential suitors, those who begin to pursue us in any arena.  So many have an angle - not all, but many who come-a-calling do not have our own best interests in mind.  They are not prepared to lay down their life for us - they just want something from us, they want us for their own purposes.  Salesmen, pitchmen, would-be boyfriends, preachers - the list of those who line up to land our hearts (or our vote)(or our bank accounts) can be quite long.  You've got something they want, and some of them are savage lupine suitors in wool suits.  So, let's guard our heart, and do our homework, and while we're at it do our best to listen to what the Lord might be trying to tell us by His Spirit and through those who know us well.  Lord knows, you're worth it.

Galatians 4:16 - Paul's trusty Hammer

"Thus, your enemy have I become, telling truth to you?"

-Cold is in actuality the absence of heat.  You can have a lot of heat, white-hot heat, medium or low heat, or no heat (which is absolute zero, and which would of course feel unimaginably cold, but in the end is still not a negative opposite but rather the absence of that which is the positive).  Whenever you describe yourself as feeling 'cold', what you are actually experiencing is the relative lack of heat. Similarly, darkness is in fact absence of light. It is not a thing, but more accurately the state where the positive energy is less than fully present (or has been hidden or removed).  Could it be that falsehood then is that situation where the Truth is less than fully present?  Of course here we are dealing not with physical energies but rather we have journeyed now into the realm of the mind and spirit.  Of metaphysical realities.  Unprovable by any quote-unquote conventional scientific method.  Unseen, untouchable, but nonetheless quite real.  Immaterial, but at the same time not that way at all.  Just as relevant (if not more so) to life and eternity as any material thing.  And as truth goes missing, that which is called the lie begins to encroach.  Half-truths.  Hyperbole.  Exaggeration.  In its sub-zero, darker manifestations, we descend in falsehood, deception, out-and-out bold-faced lies.  And the enemy of our souls, the one who would and does oppose the Truth (not to mention the One Who authors it), is aptly known as the father of lies.  He is hell-bent indeed on hiding, twisting, obscuring, snatching away the Truth.  The lie is a thought or statement which is relatively devoid of truth, is it not?  It is of course more than simply a non-truth, inasmuch as sandwiched between those two dark slices lurks a rebellious desire to intentionally avoid the Truth.  And here we arrive at the core of man's full-of-sin-yet-abysmally-empty heart - the evil desire to avoid the Truth (and the One Who IS Truth).

-Truth is...real, timeless, unchanging, incontrovertible fact. It is bedrock, sure foundation. Bankable, trustworthy. Uncompromising, unrelenting. Absolute. Certain(ty). Assurance, conviction - and it brings conviction. No uncertain terms. Generally (and ultimately), truth prevails, because God is truth, and He always prevails.  Truth is a ruthless dictator, a majority of one - there are no elections, no voting or polling, no democratic rule, this.  Truth is metaphysical light, illuminating hearts and deeds.  Truth is a measuring rod, a plumb bob - a sure indication of how straight is my heart and life.  Truth is a black and white sharpie, but way more permanent - completely so.  Truth is a hammer, sometimes shoring up families and friendships but sometimes driving wedges between them, a no-holds-barred fork in the road.  It makes enemies of brothers, and brothers of enemies.

-But yes, God is truth.  All truth originates in and flows from Him.  And His Word is truth.  Because He spoke it, of course, and in Him there is no hint of hiding or twisting the truth.  No deception.  No lying.  No shadowy darkness whatsoever.  All those are manifestations of fallen, broken responses to Truth.  Yes, the world follows that great deceiver in rebelling against the Truth (and the One Who authored it), exchanging the Truth for a lie, and living into that in separation from God.  The way I respond to truth in my life and heart and in any given circumstance is ultimately inseparable from my pilgrimage home to (or away from) One Who is both the Author of truth and the Author of my soul.

-And here we find where the Galatians were getting sideways with Paul.  It was because they had gotten sideways with the Lord, and were ultimately channeling that part of them which had been born-the-first-time hell-bent on avoiding the Truth (and the Author thereof).  They were embracing a lie, beginning to try and earn favor with God and maintain right standing with Him though self-effort, embarking on a path apart from the One Who is the Truth, the one-and-only Way.  And despite having embraced this lie, having journeyed some distance away from truth in their lives, they thankfully have a faithful friend in Paul, a devoted shepherd who is willing to point this out to them, to put the hammer down, to bring truth to bear on their waywardness.  Paul was committed by the grace of God to the Truth, to Him and to declaring Truth, to speaking the truth in love.  When someone speaks truth into your life, you can respond in one of two ways.  You can respond in humility, and face and embrace and acknowledge the Truth (and thus the One Who authors it), or you can respond in pride, bowing up against it as well as against the one who delivered it.  Apparently the Galatians were choosing the latter...