The little churches in Galatia were facing a serious issue—and they didn’t know what to do about it. It may seem surprising, but their problem revolved around the fact that they were growing. And the new people (there seemed to be more and more of them all the time!) just weren’t fitting in. It wasn’t just that they dressed a little differently (which they did). Or even that when they sat down to eat they preferred different types of food (which they did). In fact, when it came down to it, they weren’t familiar with any of the time-honoured traditions of the Galatian believers, which many of them regarded as sacred and unchangeable. Worse still, they didn’t see any reason why they should be required to conform to them.
A good many among the old guard were adamant that the newcomers should just be made to toe the line. Some of them were almost getting to the point where they were ready to say, “Play the game by our rules or pick up your marbles and take them somewhere else.” Yet there were others who took a more charitable attitude. They were equally insistent that God was calling their little community to welcome people of every sort and description into full participation their fellowship on the basis of faith and faith alone.
The problem (if we can call it that) was the result of the explosive growth of the Christian faith through much of the eastern Roman Empire. Two maps illustrate what was happening in the mid-first century. The first, from the perspective of around 45 AD, shows a Christian presence along the eastern Mediterranean coast, from Jerusalem in the south to Damascus in the north. Then there are three other little clusters around Antioch (in northwestern Syria), Tarsus (in southeastern Turkey) and Rome.
The second, from the perspective of just twenty or so years later, shows large swaths of Christian communities, stretching all up and down the eastern Mediterranean coast and throughout half of Turkey. In addition to that, they had spread to the two islands of Cyprus and Crete, right across the whole of modern-day Greece, and all along the southwest coast of Italy.
It was a remarkable transformation. And we need to ask ourselves, what was it that happened over that short span of less than a generation to cause such explosive growth? Well, it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that from a human perspective the answer can largely be summarized in just one word—or more accurately, one man: Paul.
It began with a meeting he had had with Peter, James and John and the other leading apostles in Jerusalem. Much of that meeting revolved around the same issue that was causing such a kerfuffle among the believers in Galatia. And it was this: Was the church to be limited to Jews and those who conformed to Jewish ritual observances (the chief among them being circumcision)? Or was it God’s intention that its doors be thrown open more widely—indeed to the whole vast swath of humanity, to all who would open their hearts to Christ in faith? We can praise God that their argument had been met with nods of affirmation from around the room.
Yet as I stand here in this pulpit this morning, I wonder if Paul and Peter and the others could ever have imagined it—that their meeting and the decision that arose out of it would set the agenda for the church for the next twenty centuries, right down to our own. So let’s take the next few moments to see how it began to outwork itself in the first. And for that we turn to the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
The gospel is permanent (1-5)
There Paul lays out for us three critical principles. The first is that the core message of the gospel does not change. It is permanent and undeviating. Looking back at that meeting with Peter and the other apostles, Paul could proudly and sincerely claim that the truth of the gospel had been preserved. And as a result of their decision the same message that transformed the lives of James and Peter and Titus and Barnabas (not to mention all those cantankerous believers to whom Paul was addressing this letter!) has touched and changed and continues to transform countless millions, if not billions, of lives right down to our present day.
Yet throughout the course of history there has always been pressure to tinker with it, to adjust it, to make it more exclusive in some cases, or to make it more palatable, supposedly to keep up with the times. And in every instance those changes have served not to strengthen its message but to dilute and weaken it and sometimes even to nullify it altogether.
Not many years later, Paul’s fellow apostle Jude would write to appeal to his readers “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). In Galatia the problem centred in those we might call the Judaizers. In the next generation, there would be the influence of a movement that went broadly under the title of Gnosticism, which sought to blend the Christian message with eastern mystical beliefs. Then there were the Docetists, who argued that Jesus was not fully human but only appeared to be so. In a later century there would be the Arians, who maintained that Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father, but a created being.
We could go on and on with a list of the heresies and false teachings that have afflicted the church and carried sincere Christians away from the faith right down to the present century, when there are those who question whether there even was a historical Jesus at all. And this is only to draw attention to a few of the dozens, if not hundreds, of heresies and deviations from the gospel that have continuously afflicted the church down through the generations.
The tragedy is that there have been sincere Christians who have been led astray by them. In doing so they unwittingly rob themselves of the freedom, the joy, the assurance, the newness of life and the genuine communion with the Father that the true gospel alone can bring.
We can be grateful for heroes of the faith like Athanasius. In his day the Arian heresy had captivated so many in the church that he entitled his argument against it, Athanasius Contra Mundum—“Athanasius Against the World”. In a later century there would be Martin Luther and his fellow Reformers, who called for a return to the simple message of the Bible and to the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ, rather than works, as the basis of entering a relationship with God.
For the believers in Galatia it would be Paul, who with his series of pleas and reprimands that we find in this letter would remind them and draw them back to the message that had brought them new life and hope and freedom in Jesus Christ.
The gospel is for all people (6-9)
The difficulty was that the Galatians had fallen under the impression that you had to be Jewish to be a real follower of Jesus—or at least that you had to conform to the laws and traditions of Judaism, if you truly wanted to be accepted into their fellowship. And that would have been a rather painful proposition for the men! Not to mention all the dietary and other restrictions that would have been involved.
However, the decision of the Jerusalem council had been clear. Paul had been given their full blessing to pursue his mission to the Gentiles, while the other apostles continued to evangelize among their Jewish brothers and sisters. A generation had elapsed since Jesus had entrusted his disciples with the commission to go and make disciples of all nations. The apostles in Jerusalem had confirmed it. And now it had taken an individual with the unique gifts and personality of the apostle Paul to put it into action. And he was not going to allow that divine commission to be compromised. He was determined that Jesus’ purpose for his church not be thwarted—to draw in men and women and children of every description, of every ethnicity and nationality, into his new humanity.
The sad thing is that in successive generations we have not always been very good at it. It has long been a well-known observation that 11 o’clock Sunday morning is the “most segregated hour in America.” . And we should be careful not to point our fingers at the nation to the south. In Whitney Pier you can find a little white clapboard building called St Philip’s African Orthodox Church. It was founded just over a century ago in part because black people were regarded as second-class citizens by members of the predominantly white congregations. And I can point to similar examples here in Halifax as well.
On the bright side, I want to say (and I think I have said it before) that one of the factors that drew Karen and me to this church five years ago was when one Sunday someone asked the question how many nationalities were represented on the congregation that morning—and it turned out that there were eleven!
How vitally important it is, if we are serious about being true to the gospel and to Jesus’ purpose for his church, that we strive to maintain and encourage that kind of diversity, not only of nationality and race, but also of old and young, rich and poor, single and married, professionals and tradespeople and unemployed, university graduates and high school dropouts—and the list could go on and on. I can put it no better than words I first came across more than twenty years ago and that have stuck with me ever since:
The church appears as the first fruits of a new humankind, still in process of becoming … seeking to embrace, in express communion with the Creator God, the immense variety of what is human, their variety reconciled. Differences, then, far from being a source of conflict, would be an invitation to exchange and complementariness. Such is the dream of the living God.
And this was Paul’s dream for the church too (not to mention the other apostles and Jesus himself!).
The gospel is practical (10)
But we would be remiss if we didn’t take a hard look at the apostles’ final request—to remember the poor. And we might note that the word translated “poor” here and elsewhere throughout the New Testament does not refer just to a person who is a little hard up or short of cash. It means someone who is utterly penniless, destitute, reduced to begging for a living.
I don’t believe that this instruction to remember the poor was just an afterthought, a kind of last-minute addendum. Quite the opposite: I am convinced that this was at the top of the apostles’ priority list from the outset of their ministry. Why? Because it reflects the very heart of God from the beginning of human history.
You can find it embedded in the Law God gave to Moses as the nation of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land: “And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:10). We find it numerous times in the book of Proverbs:
Whoever despises their neighbour is a sinner,
but blessed is the one who is generous to the poor.
Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.
Rich and poor have this in common:
The LORD is the Maker of them all.
Those who give to the poor will lack nothing,
but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.
(Proverbs 14:21,31; 22:2; 28:27)
When we turn to the New Testament, we find that Jesus’ first recorded words at the outset of his public ministry in Luke’s gospel were these:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Luke 4:18-19)
And do you remember his words to the rich young ruler who asked him what he needed to do if he was to inherit eternal life? “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 19:21)
But surely Jesus’ most dramatic words about the poor come in the unforgettable parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew’s gospel. There he commends the “sheep”, those who are given the place of honour at his right hand with these words:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was ill and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and go to visit you?”
The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 16:34-40)
Is there anything more that needs to be said?
