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SPEAKER_00Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour podcast, and we are just closing it out. I hit my elbow. Did you hear that resonate all the way through the microphone? It's hit my funny bone right on the edge of my desk and my big fat, overly large Bible, and it is still reverberating. Oh my goodness. Ow, why would I do that? Why didn't I delete this and start over? I don't know. Because it's a daily podcast, and things just happen in real time, and that's what happened. Dang it, stupid thing. Do you guys remember rom coms? I don't know. I don't know if they do them the same way anymore. The last couple I've seen were a little less family friendly-ish and a little more trashy-ish. But for the longest time, rom coms were sort of medium, wholesome, like a little wink wink. That was a reference to things adults do. But mostly it was like pretty harmless just love story drivel. And the calm part of the rom-com of this era, from like whatever, 1990 to 2010, 2015, the com part, you know, they weren't that funny. They were more quaint, I guess, than funny, but the structure of these rom coms was all the same. You got two people, they're both very attractive. Maybe they're both in other relationships with people who are not very likable, or maybe one of them just got out of a relationship, or maybe one of them is married to their work because they're going somewhere. And in these rom-coms, what would happen is early on, you would always have some kind of sequence where the person who's unlucky at love or just isn't ready for love, they've got a slightly less attractive but more quirky and observant friend who will list off their entire resume for them in stilted dialogue in these kind of rom-com movies from this era, and be like, but you're so-and-so, so-and-so. You graduated first in your class from Harvard. You were the first recipient of the this thing. You traveled to Israel and did a wartime photo shoot that won this award from this thing. And you're I mean it's just ridiculous, but they spell it all out expositionally, and now you're like, oh, okay, well, I know who these two people are. I get it. And then they run into each other, they get forced to work together, and they don't like each other very much at first, but then later they do like each other. But something that was set in motion, some plan or scheme or mechanation before they started to like each other, comes to fruition after they start to like each other. And then when that finally comes to light, there's a sense of betrayal, and then they part ways very dramatically, and one of the two is usually gonna get on an airplane that takes them to Madagascar, where they're gonna live forever among the lemurs, and they can never talk or be in love again, it's over. And then the other one's like, I'm going back to my scabby former boyfriend or girlfriend, and we're getting married right now. And so then they go to a wedding, and then the person who's gonna move to Antarctica is on the way to the airport. Antarctica, did I just change it? I think I did. I hit my funny button earlier. This is difficult. I'm doing my best. But then the limo driver, who's always known a little something about love, spouts a bit of wisdom, and then the one who's about to flee to Madagascar looks out the window and sees a family and people in love, like right there saying goodbye at the airport. He's like, What am I doing? Driver, take me back to the wedding. And he drives to the wedding, but there's a traffic jam, so he has to get out and run over the top of all the cars, and he runs into the wedding all disheveled, and the priest is in there and like, Do you promise to get married? And the scabby one getting married is like, I totally do. And you can tell that they're gonna be evil and it's gonna be a terrible marriage forever. And then the other one is like, Are you gonna get married? And they're still thinking about the person they actually love, and they're trying to talk themselves into it, and they're hesitating. But then the doors throw open, and the person they're supposed to be in love with comes in. It's like, we should be in love. Stop this ceremony, don't go through with it, don't do the thing. And then probably you can't hurry. Love comes on, and there's flowers, and they cancel the wedding, and they get married, and that's it. None of it was terribly funny, but it reminds you of why you love love and why you love the person you love, or why you hope to find somebody you love. And you had a nice couple of hours and it's a nice time. But they all have that was four minutes, oh my goodness, they all have that burst in and interrupt the whole ceremony scene. No, don't go through with it. If this becomes officialized, it's gonna be hard to come back. And then after that scene, you don't really get to see it, but you get to leave anticipating them having this happy life with each other moving on. Likewise, Galatians 5, 1 through 12, and really you could say Galatians 1.1 through 5.12, all reads to me like Paul bursting into the ceremony at the last minute, as all the dudes are lined up in their under trousers, getting ready to go to the front for their big circumcision ceremony to demonstrate that they're now married to the Old Testament law and everybody's singing, I surrender all. I'm looking at you, Twitter. I know who made that joke. It wasn't me, but I thought it was real funny. And then boom, the doors swing open, and Paul's like, Stop this ceremony! Hold up, mark my words. I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. And I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. I tried to say that the way that they always do the desperate, I love you, and I'm so sorry for everything that went wrong speech in rom coms. I don't think I got the tone quite right. So Paul gives his big interrupt-y rom-com. I'm telling you and the whole world, I don't care who knows. This is what I have to say, kind of speech right there. And let's just say that it worked. The the letter gets read out loud because Paul didn't physically burst into the room, but the letter burst into the room representing Paul, and they read the letter, and everybody stops singing I surrender all, and all the people in line are like, uh, I'm just gonna put my trousers back on until we get this sorted out. Let's just, I'm not, let's just hold off on the circumcising ceremony for just a second. I want to hear where the rest of this letter goes. Well, now we're to the part of the rom com where the ceremony's been interrupted, the bad idea, let's say it worked, has been thwarted. Well, now there's the one remaining question, and that is what's next? Are we just against the Judaizers and against circumcision? And I just don't want you to do that religious ritual. And if you just don't do the ritual, if you just don't take the vows and you just don't marry that scabby bad guy, then everything is good and your life is fulfilled. Well, no, the lesson we learned from nineties and two thousands rom coms is there has to be a constructive proposal. There has to be an alternative. In rom coms, the alternative is don't marry him, marry me. Don't marry this false lover that is scabby and deceptive, then doesn't really love you and just wants to use you and control you. Marry me because I actually love you, and I'm here bearing my heart. I sound like Seinfeld. It's that funny bone hit. I don't know what happened. Marry me instead. That's the constructive proposal. That's the alternative. Well, Galatians 1.1 through Galatians 5.12, that's the interruptee scene. That's the pour out the heart speech. The counter proposal, though, is not you marry me instead or let me Paul circumcise you instead. The counterproposal is life by the spirit. Don't go through with this ceremony. Don't let the cutting happen because in doing so you're going through a blood ritual to marry the law. Don't do that. Instead, live life by the spirit. This is the way to go. This is the set of vows to make. This is who to give your heart to. This is what to use the freedom that you have on. Don't use your freedom to go back into something that's twisted up and controlling and weird and not the point. Use your freedom to live life by the Spirit. That's what all of this was for, guys. That's what everything, the whole story of the Old Testament, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets and Jesus and all of it, the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost, all of it was set up to bring you guys to this moment. And now you're in a line with your trousers off, getting ready to do this ceremony. Don't do it. Do this other thing. Don't marry that. Marry this. Don't marry the law. Marry life by the spirit. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But don't use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you'll be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. At the end of the dramatic third act of a romantic comedy, somebody's going to make a big, grand, I don't care who hears this, public, desperate proclamation of let's not walk away from this thing. Don't go through with it. And they're also going to offer a counterproposal. Go with me instead. There's love in this. There's life in this. Let's do this thing. Likewise in the book of Galatians, we get that big, grand interrupte speech. Don't go through with this. Don't give your heart to this. And the counterproposal. Give your heart to this. Life by the Spirit. And that's the focus of everything that we've got for the rest of the book of Galatians. This was a weird one. I have no regrets. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.