Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour podcast. I have a question for you, but it's a difficult one to frame. Let me just try this here. Can you think of any examples of a time in history where there's a conflict between two teams? We'll call them Team A and Team B. And in the midst of that conflict, a ruse, a deception was employed that goes as follows. Somebody from Team A impersonated in writing a leader from Team B and wrote orders in the name of Team B, maybe with the imperial seal of team B, so as to trick the underlings from Team B into thinking that the leader of Team B had told them to do something, but that something is actually very destructive to Team B. I know that was a little bit overwrought, but what do you what do you call that? It's not quite a false flag. I can think of a few examples. Maybe this will help you understand what I'm talking about. There is a play by a guy named Euripides. I mean, this is back like Trojan War era stuff, written a little bit after the fact. And one of his characters, a very famous character named Ulysses, has a political rival that he wants to get rid of, but Palamedes, I think that's the name of the political rival, he's so popular that nothing can be done. So Ulysses, instead of attacking him straight on, he attacks his reputation by forging a bunch of letters in the name and with the signature of Palamedes that makes it look like he's planning a betrayal of some sort. And then Ulysses gets his wish. Those forged documents, they undermine Palamedes. And yeah, it's really hard to check because it's just a document, right? I mean, they didn't have all the fail-safes that maybe we would have now digitally. Maybe the most famous example I can think of from literature is just Julius Caesar. I mean the Shakespeare version of it. Do you remember the part where Cassius? Is it Cassius? Dang, it's been a minute. Okay, I'm gonna say it's Cassius. Yeah, of course it would be. Cassius writes uh letters or maybe a letter in the name of the Roman people, and he throws it into the house of Marcus Junius Brutus to convince Brutus that this is what everybody's thinking. Well, the letter was forged, but if Brutus took the letter to be authentic, it would change his behavior, and so thus it's a very effective deception on the part of Cassius. Actually, from history, Hannibal, during one of his Roman campaigns during the Punic Wars, that's a series of three wars fought between well, they were Phoenicians, but they moved to North Africa and went by the name of the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians and the Romans were close rivals, and Rome kind of barely beat them. And Carthage's great general was this guy named Hannibal. He's sort of the next great global general military legend after Alexander the Great. And along the way, Hannibal apparently figured out how Roman documentation looked in terms of orders, and he constantly wrote orders in the name of different Roman commanders, and then would find a way to give them to Romans so that they would go and do things that they thought their commander wanted them to do, but it would put them in a horrible position on the battlefield, and then Hannibal could take advantage of that. Is that making more sense what I'm talking about? Okay, well, yeah, da da da da. Likewise, here's the point I'm driving at. We've talked a lot about why Paul would grab the pen from the guy who's writing his letter and be like, let me, let me do that here in Galatians 6.11. I'm I'm writing this part. See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand. It's me, Paul. We've talked about some of the reasons Paul might have done that. One, a little bit. I mean, maybe he had an eye problem. One of the reasons some people think that maybe Paul said, I'm writing this. Look what large letters I use, is because he just he had to write big because he couldn't see very well. Maybe. Another reason, and you and I talked about this a lot, is that this is sort of ancient all caps. I mean, everything was all caps, so they didn't have that as an option. So you just wrote bigger. Look, I'm writing bigger. This is me, my hand. This next stuff I'm about to say here at the end of the letter is the most importantest. This is me with no help from my buddy. This is direct from Paul. It's not just that I'm writing it, but also that no paraphrasing is happening here. This is straight from my brain to my pen to this paper to you in Galatia. So really pay attention to this next part. Could be. I think I think that's very likely what's going on here, but a potential additional third reason that Paul might do these signatures at the end of these letters that I think is really important to us as we read this last bit of Galatians is authenticity. How would you know if you got Galatians? Like let's just say you attend the church in Galatia or one of this network of churches, and the Judaizers show up and they roll out their little clinky circumcision tools and everything. They kind of wheel it to the front, squeaky wheels, it's real quiet in church, and they unroll it. Everybody's real nervous, but it seems super Christian and they have nice outfits. Seems like they know what they're doing. I guess, I guess, send all the dudes up. We're gonna get circumcised. Then you get the first guy up there for adult circumcision, everybody's singing just as I am, and he rolls up his metaphorical trousers, and the Judaizer is up there, he's like, This, this is a thing, this is very important. He's holding a scalpel up over his head and he's like doing maybe some kind of prayer or something, and he's just about ready to make that first cut. And dude is like biting a stick and clinching a couple things, and his buddies are holding them down, and then boom, the door opens. Stop right there! Drop that scalpel. I have a letter from Paul himself. And the Judyzer guy with the scalpel is like, no, I'm just going for it. But then another buddy who's been on a fence the whole time grabs him by the arm and holds him back, and he's like, No, we're not gonna cut Ralph just yet. I want to hear what that letter says. And the Judyzer guy looks all sad about it. He was like, I'm just about to get to doing circumcision. It's like my favorite thing. But no, they're doing the letter instead. And so the guy gets up front and he starts reading the letter, right? And everybody's standing around. We've pictured this scene several times over the course of our conversation. Yeah, it's kind of awkward. Paul says some pretty direct, pretty harsh things. But if you're there in the crowd and you have any modicum of intelligence, what is one of the questions you're asking, regardless of which side of this argument you're on? I mean, really, everybody other than Ralph here, who Ralph, you can you can put your robe back down, dude, for the letter reading part. Thank you. Everybody other than Ralph, who understandably is under a bit of duress and maybe not thinking straight, everybody else is thinking, is this actually from Paul though? Like who's the guy who ran in with the letter? What would his motivation be for running in with the letter? Has he already read the letter? Check the seal on that. Is it still does it look legit? Is does it look like it's resealed, like reheated up and then redone, or does it look really clean and really good? Pass that around before you open it. Let me see the seal. Yeah. Okay, I guess that looks pretty good. But I suppose you could fake a seal. I don't know. It's just very, very convenient that Rob, who would be, let me just check the list here, 11th in line to get adult circumcised in this circumcision service. It's really convenient that you ran in with that letter, because I know you weren't crazy about this idea. So I'm a little skeptical already. How do I know that you didn't have somebody with good handwriting who sounds like Paul just write this dang thing and bring it in here so you wouldn't have to get adult circumcised because you're weak and a coward, and I guess you just don't love God very much. Everybody is gonna be thinking it every time one of these letters from Paul shows up. Now you might be thinking, I don't know, these letters are so nice. Why would anybody care? Are they, though? Because most of the letters of the New Testament are born out of tremendous tension. And the Corinthian letters, Paul's talking about, I wrote you this sorrowful letter and this tearful letter, Galatians, is obviously written under very difficult circumstances. The letters to the Thessalonians are like, you guys are in confusion. And the second letter to the Thessalonians is like, do I have to write the first letter again? I feel like I spoke to all of this. Okay, here's basically the first letter, but again, but shorter and with fewer niceties. Did you guys get it that time? I mean, heck, maybe Second Thessalonians was just written because the first letter they questioned the authenticity of it, because it looks like Paul's speaking to the same thing in most cases, both times around. So what's Paul to do then? We've already gamed out what do you do if you want to emphasize a given point? And then it's been fun to game it out, but what do you do if you want to put your signature on it and make absolutely sure that I can't be there to interrupt this circumcision service, deliver this letter with maximum haste, but I need to put something in the letter that will cause the people I know there who know me best to vouch for the authenticity of this letter. Well, maybe Paul had a very distinctive writing style in terms of his actual handwriting. Heck, if he was really going to be some kind of regional leader for these churches he helped establish, it would have behooved him to give them a writing sample when he was there, or like to actually write down some of the stuff. This is the faith handed down. Here it is verbally, but also here it is in writing. These are some of the key details. Also, if you ever get a letter from somebody and they say it's from me, make sure it looks like this. Because if it doesn't, it might be one of those Ulysses and Palamedes situations, or one of those Cassius and Brutus situations, or one of those Hannibal and the Roman campaign situation where it is a it's a fake order, it's sort of a false flag meant to trick you into thinking you're hearing from me, but it would be a lie. Maybe Paul even built in some kind of thing like that. I mean, it it sounds a little crazy and it sounds a little paranoid, but you and I have never lived in a world where written communication with limited authenticity options or authentication options are available to us, what would you do? I mean, if you really cared about the souls of these people and you were trained under Gamaliel, who was kind of the smartest guy in the room, and you're Paul, and you're kind of the smartest guy in the room, you're thinking measures and countermeasures, you're thinking in advance, what would you do? Well, I think it's reasonable to imagine that this stuff that Paul gives us in his own hand is maybe just big writing because it was hard for him to see things. Maybe very likely it was also meant to communicate authority, emphasis, clarity. But I think a third thing that he's doing here is simply the same kind of thing that causes us to now put that shiny little hologram strip in our hundred dollar bills in my country. So you're like, oh, it's got the that thing's harder to fake. That's real, that's a mark of authenticity right there. But before we wrap up, and I didn't I still didn't make it to the passage, still didn't make it to the passage. I am a monster. Let's just look at a couple of these examples and think of it in light of what I'm talking about here. Last verse of Colossians, Colossians 4 18. I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, remember my chains, grace be with you. Why would he have done that? I mean, was Colossians a terribly contentious letter? Kind of. I mean, the people of Colossae really liked their old pagan gods, their old Greek gods and stuff. I mean, Colossae, it's named after a Colossus. They had some probably really big god there that they liked. More on that in the next season when we talk about Philemon. But what does that accomplish? What I just read to you in Colossians. It's kind of the cheapest read on that would be like it's the equivalent of putting your cologne or perfume on a love letter in the 1990s that you mail to your girlfriend or boyfriend that you met at camp. Like, yeah, it's a little personal touch. Here you go, thinking of you. But I think Paul's shrewder and clever, and that is sentimental. But it seems to me that it's there to be like, all right, any questions you have about what you just received, let them be answered. This is true, this is real. Look at my handwriting. Do you see it? Do you know that's Paul's writing? That's right. It's very distinctive, isn't it? Second Thessalonians 3, end of the chapter. I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write. Just a second, I gotta find a microphone to drop it. I'm gonna use this wooden spatula instead. Boom!
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SPEAKER_00That's right. I could have just led with that probably, but instead I made this whole elaborate case, and we had a whole scene we imagined with uh circumcision and somebody busting in with a letter. I think we've had a really nice time today, but also, yeah, I think the greeting at the end of 2 Thessalonians, I think it really supports the argument that I'm making here. Why is Paul bending over backwards to be like, look at this? I'm not just writing it in my own hand and splashing it with perfume because I'm sentimental. This is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write. They knew, sister, every single one of these churches, every single one of these church leaders, they knew how Paul wrote, and he had anticipated from lessons learned in classical history that letters can be faked, orders can be faked, and absolute chaos can be sown within the ranks if people think they're following the marching orders of their great leader, when in fact they're following the marching orders of their exact enemy. Now, what was the crisis of the Galatian church? I mean, uh, precisely the scenario I just described. The people were in confusion over whether or not these guys were from Paul or were from a higher authority than Paul, and they were supposed to clear it up. They came with new marching orders, and the Galatians were bumbling around trying to half follow the new marching orders, but we're not sure if we should. So Paul would need to send something authenticating to say, stop. This has the real mark on it. This is authentic. Listen to this, this letter you just got, which sounds just like the whole version of Christianity that you received when I was there, that has my handwriting on it, my big, dumb, clumsy, oversized, poor eyesight handwriting on it. Make fun of it all you want. It's a good distinguishing mark. This letter is the real thing. Listen to it. And what he writes next in his own hand with large letters is the stuff he wants them to take and me to take. And I promise, next time around, we're actually gonna get to that. Okay, that's good. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.