Berean Community Church Galatians Wednesday Bible Study 9.13.2023

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. And then let's go into "And Grace Will Lead Me Home." And I've heard this grace, I've found it's so sweet. And grace will lead me home, the Lord has promised good times. And grace will lead me home, the Lord has promised good times.

Let's go back to the-- So let me-- Cool.

It's a piano-- you can't copy. And then come to that D. Oh, I can do that. I definitely can do that. I mean, I see. Also-- I don't understand. I can't tell you. But we'll come back at like 7 o'clock. OK. Thanks, man.

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All right, everyone. Could we start making our way to our seats? Get ready for Bible study.

OK. Let's pray real quick. Father, we just thank you so much for just even this opportunity to just be here at Bible study to give you praise and to study your word. We just thank you, Lord, that every week we're reminded that it is absolutely 100% your grace and your grace alone, and that we have absolutely no part in what you've done for us. And God, I just pray as we go into this short time of worship, even though it's short, that it would just be sincere, Lord, that these songs that we sing will be a joyful noise. It would be a sweet sound to you, God, and above all, that you would just be glorified and magnified throughout this time, Lord. So in Christ's name, we pray. Amen. All right.

Come, thou fount. And come, thou fount of every blessing, to my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues upon. Praise the mount affixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise my Ebenezer. Hither by thy help I've come. And I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood. And I owe to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. I let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Here's my-- here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear. They are my first relief.

Through many, through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. 'Tis grace, 'tis grace that brought me safe thus far. And grace will lead me home. Grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me. His words my hope secure.

He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

When we-- when we've been there 1,000 years, as shiny as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first began. Amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. All right.

Well, good evening, everybody. I just wanted to start with just a reading of the passage. And then I'm going to post up some of the questions that I'm hoping that you guys will discuss amongst yourselves. All right. If you guys can see this, just follow along. If not, you can just follow along with your ear. For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but I received it through revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and try to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.

But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me, so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus. Amen. So these are the three questions that I would like you guys to discuss amongst yourself for the next hour. First, you're going to be sharing your questions and observations from this inductive process. Hopefully you prepared something. If you haven't prepared, I encourage you to listen more than you do speak. The second question in the process of this I would like you guys to discuss is, what was Paul's life like before he met Christ?

What was a driving force behind his hatred and persecution of the church? That's an important thing to think about. And third, what was Paul's calling? And is Paul's being set apart and his being called the same thing or not? So you're going to take about 55 minutes, but let me pray for us. And then we'll reconvene at 8 to 10 on the dot. OK? Let me pray. Father, we're so thankful that you've given us an opportunity to gather together as your family, to study your word, to feed off of it. And Lord, we're coming to the table with varying needs. We're coming with varying appetites. And I pray, Lord, for the hungry that you would feed us and that you would help us to leave here rejuvenated and recharged.

And I pray, Father God, for just the lost and the hurting. Lord, you would minister to your hurting people so that they would know, Lord, that no one is beyond the saving reaches of the gospel of Christ. And I pray, Lord God, for the complacent, that the truths of your gospel really would hit the core of our hearts so that every single person that's in here would leave here today longing to know more of you. And Lord, to apply your truth appropriately in our lives. So would you protect this time, and would you guard our hearts, and would you feed us? And we lift this time into your hands, and we pray this in Jesus' name. I will see you guys at 810 on the dot.

All right, if I can ask you guys to join me in a quick word of prayer.

Let me pray for us.

Father, thank you for just allowing us to share in a time of discussion and observation. And with a meaty passage like this, it's difficult to know exactly what to target, what to hit, what to go over. So I pray, Father, for every single one of us, that you would cause us to leave here just wanting to study your word more. And I pray simply that whatever we talk about in the next several moments, it would just whet our appetites. And I pray, Father, that you would help me just communicate and articulate clearly. And so we pray for your help just to be eager learners and eager students of the word. And pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Just by way of review, this is what we've covered so far.

Okay. Why are we saved? Faith, works, beliefs, my family, my religion, my tradition, my outward obedience. That's not what saves us. It's 100% by the grace of God. And that's what we looked at over the last two weeks, right? Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, he writes, "I am a Christian solely and entirely because of the grace of God, and not because of anything that I have thought or said or done." So his quote is pretty much the graphs here, just in a verbal form. Okay. In the next five sessions, in the next, almost to November 1st, we're looking at just these two chapters. Okay. The meaty theology is going to be, you're going to see it in chapter 3 and 4, but this is all setting up for it.

And there's going to be a lot of questions that are in your minds. So here's the thesis in verse 11 to 12. Paul's main point in all of this is, "The gospel is not of man, it is completely of God." And that's something just to kind of regularly remember as we're getting into the thick of all of the details. The main thrust of this is going to be, "The gospel is not of man, it is completely of God." And today we're looking at just God converting Paul from persecutor of the church to the preacher of the gospel. So he gives that account. In two weeks, we're going to be looking at Paul's first encounters with the apostles of Christ's church. And then we're going to spend two weeks in verses 1 through 10, where he actually meets with the apostles, and has a summit.

And then 11 to 21, it can be pretty confusing. You're like, "What is going on here?" Right? Paul confronts Cephas to his face, and actually uses the word, "He stood condemned." That's pretty strong words to the apostle upon whom the church has been built. Right? So this is what we're going to be looking through over the next five sessions up until November 1st. And I want to take a look at the thesis first. Galatians 1, 11 to 12, "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." And here are going to be some overarching, uncomfortable questions that we're going to have a hard time answering, that we're going to be wrestling with over the next two chapters.

Okay? The first one is, "What makes Paul's direct revelations credible?" Why isn't like a Joseph Smith's revelation that he got directly from God, why is that not credible? Like, is Paul going rogue here? Is he Lone Ranger? Is that okay? Okay? And is he acting alone? Or is he actually going to Jerusalem to confer? But then what's going on? So that's a weird, uncomfortable question that's going to be a little bit challenging to articulate an answer for. Secondly, "Did Paul really need no confirmation or affirmation from the other apostles?" Paul uses some strong language. "Those men added nothing." Jeez. So he's pretty like brazen. Okay? And then in verse 11, he starts out by saying, "I opposed Cephas to his face.

He stood condemned." What is that? So these are going to be uncomfortable questions that I probably will not satisfactorily be able to answer for you, but that's going to be kind of percolating and just bothering you. So it's okay. So when I get to this chapter, or this passage, the first thing I try to do with this is just memorize it and just let it go through my head. Okay? And then after I memorize it, I actually will map it out. Okay? So this is how I mapped out this section. So anything that was related to the gospel, I had a lot more in the previous Bible studies, I would do it in blue. And there's this duality of the agency of man, the agency of God, and whatever is touched upon whenever Paul touches upon one of those two things, I just highlighted it in the green.

Okay? Hopefully you guys can kind of see that. And then anything related to Judaism, circumcision, Israel, I did this, I tried to do this for the whole, all six chapters. Okay? I would just highlight it in yellow. Things related to election, salvation, or calling in the gray.

And then important grammatical words or like trigger words, I highlighted that in the red. So the first part, the "for I would have you know," that's almost like Paul saying, "Let me make something very, very clear to you." That's kind of a figure of speech. So I highlighted that in the red. And then after this entire like testimony of who Paul was, he says, "But when God." So that's actually pretty important. Because you're seeing a changed man. Okay? And then Jesus reveals, or God reveals his son to Paul, "So that." The word "so that" in the Bible is very important. Because that always gives you a reason why something was done. Would you guys, do you guys understand that? So "so that" is super important.

He didn't just save Paul. He didn't just reveal Jesus and Paul. He did it for a specific purpose. And then the significant places, I just underlined it, Jerusalem, Arabia, and Damascus. And that's how I map it out. And I brought out to the very front, I received it, I did not consult. Okay? Because that's going to be kind of an important overarching theme. So that's how I map it out. This is not like an exact science. Whatever helps you just figure out just flow, follow through the flow of thought. This is an exercise that I would encourage you to do. So the first thing I want to talk about today is going to be the former manner of life in Judaism. And then I'm going to be looking at the "but when God."

Okay? And so this might be the only time I actually go into Paul's former way of life with you guys, since this is the first of this section. So the first thing I actually did was, I copied and pasted Paul's autobiographical little accounts of himself. Okay? I mean, you don't need to be able to read it. I'm just showing it to you. So Philippians 3, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Timothy 1, these are the things that Paul said about his former way of life. And then I highlighted things that were not in Galatians. Okay? And then I went through all of the Acts accounts that talked about Paul. So he talks about himself when it comes to, he's talking to King Arigarpa, he's giving little accounts of himself.

So I copied and pasted those, and I just highlighted as much as I could. Okay? And what I discovered is, some of the stuff don't line up. The timing of certain things don't line up. It doesn't mean that's not true. It doesn't mean it's a contradiction. It's just hard to synchronize it. And that's okay. Okay? And so our temptation is to try to piece everything into these little sections, but you don't need to do that. There's a lot of questions that cannot be answered. All right? So I do this on my notes, and then I'll highlight for you certain things that Paul talks about in his former way of life that were not written in Galatians. He's circumcised on the eighth day. He goes by the book. He's a man of the Gentiles.

He's a man of the Gentiles. Right? He thought he was in the right. He called himself acting in ignorance, acting in unbelief. But when he was actually ravaging the church, he would not have said that he was acting in unbelief. He would not have said he was acting in ignorance. Right? So I just kind of highlighted that and read for you. And then if I look through the book of Acts, there were certain things that I discovered about Paul that is helpful for me. One, he had authority to imprison and sometimes even oversee execution. Okay, whatever that means. Okay?

And that happened a lot. He ravaged the church. That's a very strong word, to ravage a church. But that's what he did. He spoke and he understood Hebrew. Okay? That's significant because it actually gets brought up. And then he heard a voice in Hebrew. And then Paul spoke to the people in the Hebrew dialect. And they're like, "Oh!" Right? So he speaks and understands Hebrew. He is born and raised in Cilicia. If you look at Galatians next week's passage, later, "Then I returned to the regions of Syria and Cilicia." He goes home where he celebrated. So I go, "Huh, that might be of interest." He's educated under Gamaliel from the youth up. He has a zeal for God. And he's an outstanding Pharisee.

So these are things that you guys have already probably intuitively gathered in terms of info. But it helps to just put it all out on a piece of paper. Right? "For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, "how I used to persecute the church of God "beyond measure and try to destroy it." The first thought I had is, would he have called it the church of God when he was persecuting them? Probably not. Paul was acting in zeal, in passion, to destroy the church. He was self-righteous. And he was trying to just obliterate and wipe out this church for what he thought were noble purposes. Okay? And so it makes me just kind of think of a tangential application question. How many times do people who say, "I love God, I love Jesus," but they're like attacking the church nonstop today?

One way or the other. They're acting in, like they believe themselves to be in the right, but they're persecuting the church of God perhaps from within. Is that something that some of us in this room are doing? So those are thoughts that I have. Okay? So in Paul, in persecuting the church of God, I just copied and pasted some of the verses that describe it. Saul was in hearty agreement putting Stephen to death. Saul began ravaging the church. Now Saul's still breathing threats and murder. And then Paul talks about himself, "I persecuted this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons. I punished them often in all the synagogues. I tried to force them to blaspheme and being furiously enraged at them."

That's interesting. If I were just to say, "I'm enraged at Daniel," that's a pretty strong word in and of itself. But if I'm like furiously enraged, that's like I'm almost insane. Right? So Paul uses very strong words. He hated the church. And later it says, "Being more extremely zealous." So this guy was a fanatic. He was a nut. He was passionate. Okay? And he was doing it all wrong. "But when God..." So that's a very important "but" in the scriptures. That's a very important time marker. Okay? Paul was running 100 miles an hour this way, and then God redirected him. Now he's going the other way.

"Who had set me apart even from my mother's womb." That kind of is reminiscent of like how Isaiah, how Jeremiah were like set apart for a specific purpose, right, to preach. But set apart just means to fix as a boundary, to determine beforehand. Are we set apart? Hopefully you say yes. Okay? And then here's a word, "calling."

And what is a calling? It refers to the whole complex of events, including repentance and faith, by which a lost sinner is converted to Christ. So he is set apart from the womb, and then he is called for the purpose of preaching. Okay? So I have a couple verses here that my mind went to, Ephesians 1, 4 through 5. "Just as he chose us in him "before the foundation of the world," not from even before my mother existed. Okay? "From before the foundation of the world "that we would be holy and blameless before him, "in love he predestined us to adoption as sons "through Jesus Christ to himself "according to the kind intention of his will." God's election and predestination are hard to argue against in Scripture.

Okay, Revelation 13, 8. "All who dwell on the earth will worship him "and everyone whose name has not been written "from the foundation of the world "in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain." So the book of the life of the Lamb who has been slain was written from when? Before the foundation of the world. Okay, so God ordained this. Okay? So if you've been set apart, you've been set apart from before time began. This is what the Scriptures teach us. Amen? Hallelujah. God, there's nothing that's out of his control. And what are we set apart for? Okay, Ephesians 2, 10. "For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus "for good works which God prepared beforehand "so that we would walk in them."

And so here's the application. Be diligent to make your calling and your election sure. Right? A lot of the times people get kind of, "Well, if God predestined, what if I'm not predestined?" Like, that's a very arrogant statement. Okay? While it is still called today and you have an opportunity to repent today, if you hear your voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the wilderness. So our application really is to make our calling and election sure. So I'm going back to Paul. So I look through just all the Acts accounts and I see that he's converted. And how is he converted? Saul sees a light from heaven, brighter than the sun it says in some of the accounts. He hears a voice.

Is Paul the only one who sees the light? No, there's people with him. Okay? But they don't quite discern the voice. He hears get up and go on into Damascus. Ananias, who's terrified of Paul, God sends him to minister to Saul. And then Paul returns to Jerusalem temple, falls into a trance, and he immediately gets up after he's baptized, he preaches, and then day one, people are out to get him, to kill him. Two plots against his life happen right then in Jerusalem. So when Paul says in Galatians, I did not go to Jerusalem, the question I have is like, but he's in Jerusalem. Right? Is that a contradiction or is that just a different time marker? So that's a question that I'm going to have in my head over the next several sessions.

And then do you know who helps Saul get away from the murderer plots? His former disciples. And it makes me wonder, I wonder what that conversation would have been like. Saul's like, I believe in Jesus. And all of his former disciples, there was probably a lot of confusion. But they let him down the basket, and then he goes away. So there's a lot of stuff, if you actually look through the Acts accounts, that give you additional detail that will help you when you're reading Galatians. So Acts chapter 26, verse 16 to 18, "But get up and stand on your feet, "for this purpose I have appeared to you, "to appoint you a minister and a witness, "not only to the things which you have seen, "but also to the things in which I will appear to you."

These are the words of Jesus. "Rescuing you from the Jewish people "and from the Gentiles, "to whom I am sending you, "for what purpose? "To open their eyes so that they may see, "to open their eyes so that they may turn "from darkness to light, "from the dominion of Satan to God, "that they may receive forgiveness of sins "and an inheritance among those "who have been sanctified by faith in me." So this is Paul's so that. Okay? "But when God, who had set me apart from my mother's womb "and called me through his grace, "was pleased to reveal his Son in me." Like that so that is very important. So then I would ask you, are you saved? If you are saved, what are you saved for? What is your so that?

Biblical illiteracy will produce very weak answers to this so that. I am saved so that I can be in heaven. I am saved so that I can avoid hell. I have been saved so that I can have a baby. I have been saved so that I can have a better life here on earth. I have been saved so that my life can have purpose and meaning. Is that a biblical so that? What have you been set apart and called for? Is an application question that's important for us to think about. Okay? And one thing that's really cool about Paul, and this is kind of something to keep on the back burner when we were looking at Galatians, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of the other apostles, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Did Paul work hard? Absolutely. Did he work hard to earn righteousness or salvation? No, but the grace of God, which set him apart, called him, saved him, ignited his righteous life. And that's an important thought to keep in mind when we're going over Galatians. Okay? And then in that like zeal that Paul now has for Jesus and for the church, you also see him actually growing in humility. So something that's really cool, if you look through Paul's descriptions of himself, 1 Corinthians is a little bit earlier when he writes in verse eight, he says, "I am the least of all the apostles." In Ephesians 3, eight, which is one of his prison epistles, he actually calls himself, "I am like the least of all the Christians.

"I am the least of all the saints." And toward the end of his life, when he's writing to Timothy, he actually says, "I am the chief of sinners." So I think as Paul grows in his faith, he's seeing more and more and more of the depravity that God saved him out of. And I find that very, very cool. I'm gonna just do one little last exercise just for your benefit. I like maps. It helps me kind of mentally to track what's going on where. Verse 15 to 17 is just one long verse. Okay? But there's some geography that's mentioned here. So Paul says, after he got saved, he says, so he was in Damascus. So I didn't go up to Jerusalem, to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia, which is a little bit south.

And then returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later, I went down, technically, to Jerusalem. So one thing that I observed is, there is no, I ever go down to Jerusalem. And I wonder if that's the figure of speech. Is it always up? But anyway, he goes to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter, Cephas. And then later, he goes to Syria, up north, and Cilicia, his area of origin and birth and his youth. Okay? So that's the wrap up for today. It's pretty meaty, it's pretty heavy. And my knees are knocking as I'm always trying to prepare the wrap up, I'm like, what do I talk, how do I address this? But hopefully you can make sense of a lot of the things that we talk about in the wrap up as you're plowing through the text yourselves.

All right? I'm gonna just do a couple of announcements, upcoming events, and then I'm gonna talk about the discussion questions. Next week, we don't have Bible study. Hopefully you guys knew that. Next Wednesday, we don't have any Bible study. On Friday at 7.30, we're gonna have our all church praise and prayer. This isn't something where like, hey, no Bible study, I get a week off. No, this is actually when we wanna make a concentrated effort to gather together to really pray for the needs of the church, for the needs of our members. So please do make it a priority to come at 7.30. For you guys who are interested in being members of the church and are not yet, our next membership class will start in a couple weeks.

And so if you can, do sign up for that through this link. For you guys who are aware that the Reformation Night is coming up, it's on Tuesday night, October 31st, and we actually do need a lot of volunteers to host trunks, to donate candy, to donate goods and things like that. You do have to be a member, okay? So please do volunteer if you are able. And Sunday, November 19th, we are having our regional Thanksgiving dinner. But we are right now, we only have enough homes for like just maybe a quarter of our church, okay? So in the event you are willing to, give you a reason to clean your house and stuff, but if you're willing to host a Thanksgiving dinner, we do need more host homes, okay? One last very important announcement.

Our church, we're having a cleaning and maintenance day on Saturday, October 7th at 9 a.m. Refreshments and coffee is gonna be provided. If you guys can, right now, check your calendars. And if you are able to help beautify the facilities of our church campus, please go on this right now and sign up for that. And I'll give you like seven seconds. Okay, and then here are the prep questions for September 27th. It's to read, excuse me. Read and inductively prepare. The last six verse, seven, hairball. Galatians 1, 18 to 24.

And then question number two, what's the significance of Paul's visit with Cephas and the apostle James? One thing you'll discover is that James, the brother of John, was killed in Acts chapter 12. This is James, the brother of Jesus. He's an apostle? So I'm gonna think through, okay? And then what exactly were the churches of Judea glorifying God in? Don't just write down the verse, here, verse 24, and they were glorifying God because of me. Like, but what? What was it that they were glorifying God in? Okay? So for tonight, with the remainder of your time, these are, so usually before we do the Bible study, the lesson, a lot of it's giving you an opportunity to share the things that you've wrestled with, that you've dug into, that you've examined and explored at home, and now you're sharing with the group.

And then the wrap up isn't supposed to be like, I'm gonna answer every question. A lot of it is to tie in, to lead into application. And then the follow up discussion is actually supposed to be for a time where you're actually not just studying the text as an academic exercise, but you're trying to figure out, what does this mean for me as a child of God to feed off of his word and to submit to his truth? What does that mean? And so these application questions are not here to probe into your life, it's trying to push you to submit yourselves to the word of God, okay? So the first question that I have here is to share briefly about your former manner of life outside of Christ, if you are a believer.

If you're not sure whether you're a believer or not, that's fine to share, okay? But if you are a believer, explain what your life was like before Jesus. How did God call you? And then to what did God call you? Some of us may have never thought about this question, but what did God call me? Well, duh, the church. What is your role? Okay? Number two, in what ways are you obedient to the call of God in your life? In what ways are you falling short? Third, do you have zeal for the church of God? And how do you objectively discern whether you are building up or hurting the church? And what are ways that your group members can stimulate you towards love and good deeds? Okay? So let me pray for us, and then we'll dismiss.

Father, thank you for the joy of just diving into hard texts like we see here in Galatians 1. I pray that you would give us just insight, give us just a heart that just really desires to submit ourselves to all of your truth. So we pray that as we fellowship, that it will be centered on Christ, that we will be really hedged in by your word and your truth, and cause us, Lord God, just to be humble before one another, to be vulnerable before one another, to really love each other, and to lift one another up, Lord, for your glory and for our joy. So we thank you, Lord, for our time, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.