Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour podcast, and this is a weird one because Jeff is here lurking in the background. I mean, he's not in the same room, but he's there. Jeffrey, I'm telling the truth, right? You're there? Hello.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Hi, buddy. Okay, Jeff, if you don't know, he edits the podcast and he makes all of the music that happens, and all the little musical wisecracks and homages and pastiches and stuff. All of that is Jeff. Jeff also is a pastor of a church. He's been doing this for a long time. We met in college. We've been friends since forever. We went to the same seminary. And so from time to time, Jeffrey and I get together and we talk shop about the Bible and church, because this is legitimately what we're into. This is fun for us. And of course, we're going to talk about the hard passages more than the easy passages. And so we have one we've been talking about together quite a bit as pals here over the last few weeks. And it's the passage that you and I are talking about in Galatians 5. It's all of this business about the life by the Spirit and the desires of the sinful nature or the desires of the flesh, depending on how you translate it. And so I thought it'd be weird and fun and a little bit different, but fruitful to have Jeff jump in and kick this thing around with me and see if we can get to the bottom of what the heck is going on here with this really important passage in Galatians, because it does feel like here in the middle of Galatians 5, we're kind of rounding out all the things that had to be done to get to the end to the part where Paul can say, This is the point. Here's what you do. Yeah, that was a lot of resume. That was a lot of stuff about a fight you might have heard about with Peter. That was a lot of stuff about the Old Testament and Deuteronomy and the curse and slaves and freedom and the law and circumcision. But here's what you do. Here's a problem, though. Right when it pivots to here's what you do, it gets a little bit confusing for a minute. And there is one read on this text that I've heard for my whole life. To me, it is a pretty intuitive way to read this passage that we're talking about right now. But given the larger context of Galatians and the Bible in general, I kind of wonder if this read on the text that Jeff is always talking about might make sense too, or might even make more sense than the read on this text that I have heard my whole life. And I thought, who better to talk about Jeff's ideas than Jeff? So I just roped in Jeff. Here's the passage we're talking about, and I'm gonna throw it to you, buddy, with a couple of questions I got for you here. All right. Resetting the question. Galatians 5, 16, maybe I'll read a little more. This is Paul talking. So I say, live by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They're in conflict with each other, so that you don't do what you want. But if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Okay, there's a lot going on there. And I acknowledged in our conversation yesterday that this translation I like to use, the 1984 New International Version. I've acknowledged that some people say that while this is a good translation, maybe this isn't their finest moment in terms of translation precision. Maybe there's a better way to translate from the original Greek to modern English. And a lot of people suggest that the English Standard Version does a better job of that. And I'm just going to read one verse from there where it says, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now, if we just go and read, Jeffrey, Galatians 5, 16. To me, the way it's phrased, the most natural, obvious read there is to say, All right, you got two wolves, just like you've been told, same illustration we've heard forever. And these wolves represent two different natures inside the Christian, and it is close. They are in a tug of war, and it could go either way. Maybe it'll go toward the wolf that represents the life by the spirit. Maybe if the sinful nature wolf gets a little bit too buffed up, it will win out. So you got to be careful about which wolf you feed, because ultimately that's the wolf that's gonna win, and then something will happen after that, I guess. So to me, that seems like a really natural way to read the passage, but I have to admit that when I pick up Galatians 5 16 in the ESV and it says, But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, I kind of don't have an immediate knee-jerk reaction to that. I sort of don't immediately know what to do with it. Right. So give me the quick overview of what you, in your opinion, what do you do with this passage?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, I think I agree with you about I like the NIV a lot and I'm not sure what to do with sinful nature. Because I I think the rest of the Bible and this whole idea of what the new covenant entails by the life of Christ in us, I don't see that there's two natures at play. I think there's enough elsewhere in the Bible that makes it clear that our old nature was crucified with Christ. Anyone who has been reborn, like Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter three, you're reborn by the Spirit through faith, as Paul has made it clear in Galatians, that your old nature is dead. It's crucified.
SPEAKER_01If anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation, the old is gone and the new is come.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the idea that there's there's even still another wolf doesn't really flow with the rest of what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_01That's a huge problem, though. Okay, you know that I'm gonna agree with what you're saying right now. There's tons of stuff in the Bible in the very book that we've been looking at this season. There's stuff that says, you know, I'm crucified with Christ. You just referenced it. So yeah, I get the strong impression from the Bible that we are given a new heart, that we are made new, that the scales fall off our eyes, that God gives us the ability to see. And I think that has happened to me. I think I'm a Christian. It feels like it. I want to be. I think I love God. I'm pretty sure I'm a Christian. I'm baptized, I take communion. So even Christians who would say those are the boundary markers, hey, I do that. I go to a church, so the Christians who would say that's the important thing. Okay, well, I pass that test too. Also, am I in a position where I would confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead? Yep. So any Christian who would say that's the key boundary marker, that test of belief, I pass that. I think I'm a Christian, man.
SPEAKER_00Me too. I feel like I thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01But you've known me for a long time and you've seen both wolves. I feel like I have two wolves. Like, am I just misreading myself? Or what is the other wolf? I mean, where does my impulse to do stupid crap come from? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think this is a really important conversation about sanctification. How are we being transformed? How are we becoming more like Jesus every step of the way?
SPEAKER_01That's what sanctified means in your in your use here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And the idea of this ongoing transformation, does that happen because of what the Spirit is doing? Or is that happened because of what we do? Is the million dollar question. And that pendulum has swung throughout Christian history of, well, I don't I don't do anything. Let go and let God. It's nothing I can do, so I'm just gonna sit here and he'll do it all. Or you get the kind of the way we were raised, let's go be Navy SEALs for Jesus. And somewhere in the middle there, what does it mean to walk by the Spirit? Because that includes we're walking, but he's working, right? And I think if you start from this position of my old sinful nature is still hanging on, now you're building it on a theology of it's up to me to sanctify myself. So I'm saved by grace because of God's work through Jesus, but I'm going to be sanctified by my efforts and my work. And I think in the context of Galatians, that's what he's talking about. Don't do that second one.
SPEAKER_01Okay, help me. What is the second one though? What it's not a wolf.
SPEAKER_00It's the desire to go back to rules to say, I've done the thing. I really think that's the context of Galatians five. Because again, it's the circumcision, it's the they might as well just go the whole way. Cut the whole thing off. Because if you want to keep the law, then keep keeping the law and it'll never work. But he starts Galatians five with you are free. It's for freedom that Christ set you free. Or like you did the Romans passage a couple days ago. Right after he's doing his soul searching about why do I keep doing what I don't want to do, the answer is Romans 8 1.
SPEAKER_01No condemnation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I have the spirit. So like let's go back to the the verse of today. So I say, walk by the spirit, you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh. This would be so much easier if he said, Walk by the spirit, and you won't gratify the requirements of the law.
SPEAKER_01But it's not quite what he's saying. If you look at the larger context.
SPEAKER_00I know, I know, and that's my point.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I okay, so you're not making a point about translation. No, no, no. You're just saying it would make it this podcast easier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it would make it so much easier if that's what he said. But that's not what he said. He's now bringing in this idea of the flesh while he's talking about the law versus the spirit. So I think we have to understand flesh in this context is having to do with the desire to keep a law.
SPEAKER_01This is future me, Matt, jumping in to interrupt old version of me and Jeff to say we're gonna hit pause there and keep this conversation going for a little while longer. We will pick up where we left off on all of this, manana. All right, that's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.