Hey, my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast, and I'm having such fun right now. This epilogue we're doing on Galatians and the research I'm getting to do on as we try to answer the question did Galatians work? Did it solve this question that it was trying to solve? Did the churches that Paul was writing to, did they thrive? Did it work out? It's such a fun question, and it's such an obvious question. Who knew? Well, I'm having a blast with this, and it might take a minute, and I don't care. Yesterday, you really got to catch yesterday's bit because we were working through the quick timeline of Paul and how we got up to the time of the writing of Galatians and how that ties in with the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, which seems to be directly tied to the stuff that we're talking about in the book of Galatians. And I think it's so helpful to go back, having spent all this time on Galatians, and look again at Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council. I think it's very eye-opening. And before the day is over, we are going to get our first definitive clue as to whether or not Galatians worked. Ooh, I'm excited. All right, I'm gonna have Jeff play some music and we'll pick up right where we left off yesterday. So if you're willing to play along with me on this timeline, and I understand it is a little bit of a play along with me here, it's still possible that Galatians is maybe written in 55, after the second missionary journey, maybe even on the third missionary journey. I think the way things are unfolding, I think what I've learned about ancient travel routes and why Paul went where he went and didn't go where he didn't go makes the early date of Galatians and the southern theory make more sense. But just playing along for the sake of the argument, this would mean that Paul's first missionary journey is where he established these Galatian churches. They were all in. Paul made a little bit longer trip. He went and visited a few other places, he looped back to Antioch. He's maybe been away from the churches he established for a year. Tops? Maybe he's only been gone for like a couple of months by the time word gets to him, maybe in Antioch. And Paul then, I mean, what would your reaction be if you just left somewhere and everything was fine? And then in just the time it takes you to travel, everything falls apart. Would you be let me just throw out a word here? Astonished? Would you just be boggled by how anybody could so dramatically jump any opinion in such a short amount of time? Well, now consider the tone of all of the book of Galatians, which is aghast on the part of Paul, and consider specifically this language at the front end of Galatians, in light of this assumption we're toying with here, that maybe Paul had just left Galatia, gets situated back in Antioch, and immediately things are falling apart. To the churches in Galatia, grace and peace to you from the God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Like I just told you, like a couple of weeks ago, that part was paraphrased. I'll keep going. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. I mean, listen to the tone. That sounds like a guy who is not just stunned that they're getting it wrong, but he's stunned by the timeline and the rapidity with which they are abandoning these convictions. Remember, these aren't just convictions they came up with because they thought new things and had to bend the knee to a superior argument. They saw the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in inarguable public ways, and they didn't see that from the Judaizers. Yeah, it would make sense that Paul would be like, I can't even chalk this up to lack of memory, or it being, you know, years ago that you saw these miraculous things. This was re I I can count it with days, just a few times going through my fingers. What is going on with you people? Well, if we're playing along with this little set of assumptions, it makes the tone of Galatians make more sense, and it makes the timing of Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council make more sense. Paul is up here waging this really important theological war, and Jerusalem theoretically endorses him, but he's a long way from Jerusalem. Then Galatia's a long way from Jerusalem. Hold on, we just need to get everybody together in a room at the same time, not with letters that could be forged or what it's just everybody in a room in Jerusalem, all the big players. Let's sort this out. Maybe they even called it the Galatian controversy. I don't know that they did. It just sounded cool and interesting to say it that way. So then, in this hypothetical, Paul goes back to Jerusalem. He has that meeting in Acts chapter 15. You'd really not respect me right now if you were watching me thumb through the Bible. I went toward the back of the Bible from Galatians to find Acts 15. But it turns out that Acts is earlier in the Bible than Galatians. I do this for a living. Acts 15, the dissension. I've read it to you before. I won't read it all to you right now, but some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers, unless you're circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. Well, that sounds exactly like what was going on in Galatia. And Paul's in Antioch. I mean, heck, maybe what's going on here is that the reinforcements have come back now from Jerusalem. The Judaizers got whipped by Paul's letter to the Galatians. They went south to Jerusalem and reported back to the home team down there what happened. And now the Judaizers, they're going to go and strike at Antioch because Antioch is the supporting base that keeps propping up the Galatians. So they're going to go see if they can cut the head off of the snake. Maybe it works on a few people, but Paul is there, Barnabas is there, and so it ends up being a serious, well, it says sharp dispute. This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. No doubt, given what we read in Galatians, if this was the same crowd and they're teaching the same thing, so I assume it was, they're from Judea, they're using shady tactics. They're taking advantage of what the communication was like back in those days. They're trying to sow doubt in the people they're trying to win over about the authenticity of certain teachings or certain letters. Again, it this probably supports my theory as to why Paul was saying, look at why I look how big these letters are. As I write in my own hand, he's saying that as a signature to say, look, you remember my handwriting? That is my weird goofy handwriting. That is me, Paul. I have to do this because these clowns use forgery, they use fraud, they use dishonesty, they're liars. So this would prompt everybody to on the side of truth to be like, we got to get together in Jerusalem. So Antioch sends Paul and Barnabas back down. And then verse 3, it says, The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. The news made all the brothers very glad when they came to Jerusalem. They were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders to whom they reported everything God had done through them. So if you expected there to be tension when you got to Judea, I mean these guys came up from Judea, there it sounds like there's a huge problem. But Paul and Barnabas got sent by Antioch and they went down the same road and told everybody what was going on, and all the Christians were real excited. Then they got to Judea and nobody was mad. Everybody was real excited. They received Paul and Barnabas happily. This alone is enough to say, okay, the Judaizers are the outliers here. They're not part of this. They've been lying and cheating and forging to make it seem like they're speaking with authority from Jerusalem when clearly they are not. It says, Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses. Now that's a very interesting passage in light of what we just did in Galatians, because they're called believers, some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees. I mean, we is this Nicodemus, the guy from John 3 who came to Jesus under cover of darkness? I mean, at the very least, it's people Nicodemus knew and influenced. Maybe maybe it's him. Oh no. Old habits are hard to kick. I get it. It was hard for Peter to kick old habits. That's what the stuff about the dinner table business is in Galatians. So okay, well, we can't fault them for that. At least they came to the meeting. We're gonna hash this thing out face to face, and at least they're willing to own it here. Maybe these aren't the agitators either. Maybe they're not the people who are causing the problems. Maybe, maybe these Judaizers are a completely different crowd, whatever the case, they've got a voice in the room at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, and they just credit to them. They come right out and say what they want. The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses. And then through the rest of Acts 15, we see Peter and Paul and James weighing in and telling the stories about what's going on. Barnabas weighs in, and it doesn't look like it's a very hard decision at all. In the end, the decision is it's my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, and from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. We broke down the details of that list earlier in the season, if it seems like a goofy list. You can go back and catch that episode and dig it up and see, you know, what we did with that before. But they ultimately put together a letter and they send out reliable people. There's an emphasis on sending reliable people with this letter, spelling out the results of the Jerusalem Council and making it clear what the deal was going to be with the Gentiles moving forward. In other words, if the question we're trying to answer here is did Galatians work? And you're willing to play along with my timeline here, the Southern Galatian theory, which goes with the early writing of Galatians theory, which means Galatians was written before the Jerusalem Council, and you're willing to go with me on my logic that would say if Galatians was written after the Jerusalem Council, you'd think Paul would have wanted to hit the Judaizers with that stick in Galatians. Like you'd think Paul would bring that up. Guys, we had a church council. Remember, we already decided this issue. I think he would have said that in Galatians if he was writing Galatians after Acts 15, after the Jerusalem Council, but he doesn't. So if you're willing to play along with me on all of that, then congratulations, my friends. Because we've just gathered our first clue in answering the question of did Galatians work? The book of Galatians seems to have informed the Jerusalem Council, which is binding. Clearly, the Jerusalem Council sides with Paul and the theology and the arguments presented in the book of Galatians, which would mean, okay, pretty effective book. That's a pretty gigantic win. The first church council ever said, Yeah, your letter that you wrote right there, that is true and accurate, and we endorse it, and we're sending out our best people all over the world to say, this is true, and this is how the things are moving forward. So if one of Paul's big practical arguments from Galatians was circumcision doesn't mean anything. You don't have to do that. That isn't something we're gonna put on the Gentiles. He doesn't necessarily abolish circumcision either, more on that tomorrow, but he does minimize it and he does say this is not gonna be a requirement that we put on the Gentiles. There's no special, unique right standing before God achieved through this mark of the Abrahamic covenant that has been a physical boundary marker for the people of God in the past. Now there's a new family of faith, earned and bought by the work of Christ on the cross and in his resurrection, maintained by the Spirit who is present as we walk with him. Getting circumcised at this point, Paul has argued, is a way of trying to go back and submit yourself to the law, and that won't work. Submit yourself to Christ, follow Christ. That's the real deal. So, hey Paul, nice letter. Hi, five. It would seem that you completely won the day. What you argued most fiercely for, in a practical sense, the entire church absolutely formalized with the first ever Christian council. And in a lot of ways, that makes it the most important ever church council. Wow. That is a huge deal and a resounding win. But I'm not satisfied that we have our answer yet. I want to get into practicals. Okay, so Jerusalem said Paul was right. Okay, that's that's awesome. But practically, how did it work out? Did the people of Galatia go along with what Jerusalem said? Did Christianity thrive there? Was the damage done by the Judaizers that prompted the writing of Galatians in the first place so bad that they couldn't recover? We got more digging to do, and I'm having a lovely time with this, and I am in no hurry to finish up this evaluative portion, this evaluative epilogue to our season on the book of Galatians. So, with that in mind, more tomorrow. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.