Hello, my name is Matt Whitman. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast where we pick a book of the Bible and we go through it a little bit each day for however long it takes. It doesn't matter how long it takes because we have time and we're just doing it, we're just chipping away at the thing. And right now we're working on the book of Galatians, and we are two chapters and a little bit into it. We're working on the beginning of chapter three. Now you are properly reset, but before we get into what I was gonna talk about, I have a question, and this is not some kind of like gimmicky question where I ask it, but secretly I know the answer is just a thought exercise to make you think about things and learn some stuff I already know. No, I literally don't know what the word is for this thing. What do you call a thing that is said of a person? Like a reputational statement. That's actually the best version of it that I've come up with so far. That's the closest thing. Uh, a reputational statement, you know, like this person, it could be said of him, he always knew how to do that, but never did this. It's not a quote, it's not an epitaph, not epithet, that's different, but like an epitaph, you know, sometimes that'll be what's like what's written on a gravestone. And I went and looked a bunch of those up, and epitaphs, they're more like sing-song-y, they're sayings. You know, uh, what was that? Winston Churchill? Is he the guy who had the one that was like, um, I am prepared this day to meet my maker, but it remains to be seen if he is prepared to meet me. I don't even know what that means, dude. You put that on your tombstone, seriously, if it's even on there. So I don't think it's an epitaph. I don't think I'm talking about accrued titles or stylings like they had in the Middle Ages, king of the this and the that, breaker of chains, ruler of the andles and the first men. I don't think it's that. Those are styles, those are titles. It's a reputational statement. You've heard me use a reputational statement. Again, I'm still looking for the right term, so I'm using reputational statements all I can come up with for now. You tell me what the right term is later, please. But you've heard me use or reference a reputational statement that my Uncle Abe has in my family. Never met Uncle Abe. He was much older than me, he's gone before I ever got here. But there's a chair. Whenever anybody talks about the chair, they say that is Uncle Abe's chair. And then somebody is bound to say, and Uncle Abe was a prince of a man. That's his reputational statement. There was a movie that came out when I was a kid about a guy, an Englishman who went up a hill and came that might be the name of the movie. The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain. I think it's all fictitious or whatever, is a Hugh Grant movie, but it was cute. It's like, ah, it could be said of this man that this is what he achieved. This is who he is. Ah, yes, that's what I'm driving at. I'm I'm wanting you to tell me the name of the kind of term, the kind of saying that summarizes a person's life in a thing that they did. I he went up a hill and he came down a mountain. It's a metaphor in there, right? Uncle Abe, he's a prince of a man. It's a metaphor. I thought of a few more to help jog your brain and help you help me think of what this phenomenon, this figure of speech, is actually called. But I'm gonna do it here as a little bit of a quiz. I think that'll make it more fun. Okay. This person from history spoke softly and carried a big stick. Do you have it? Teddy Roosevelt. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Okay, there's a quiz if you haven't caught onto the format yet. Here comes another one. He refused to be king. Or the man who refused to be king. Maybe there'd be a few who you could give that title to. Maybe Cincinnatus that would work for, but I'm thinking of George Washington. He refused to be king. Here's another one. Her husband was the kingdom of England itself. It's the Virgin Queen, Queen Elizabeth, right? Okay. Let's try another one. He came, he saw, he conquered. That is not a reference to the obscure Christian rock act Petra. That is a reference to Julius Caesar, Veniviti Vici, right? He walked on the moon. Neil Armstrong, you can probably say about other people too, but you know, Neil Armstrong's who you think of. She wouldn't give up her seat. Rosa Parks, right? So you know what I mean with reputational statements. There are people who did a thing in a moment. They made a pivotal choice, and that decided everything about who they were and their fate and their legacy, and oh, to have a life so rich and influential and principled that people could give or assign to you a reputational statement to be like this person when the going got tough, they did this. That'd be pretty cool. I have to think that probably most of us, including myself, will not rise to that level of character reputation, of awesomeness, but it'd be pretty cool. What would you want yours to be? I don't know. That's what we're thinking about, right? Okay. Here's what I'm driving at with all of this. What is Abraham's reputational statement in the Bible? I think is one of the best of all time. Maybe it's the best reputational statement that I've ever heard anybody have ever. It is Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. But it's a great reputational statement because it has so many layers and so much truth that transcends time. And I mean there's a message in there for the hearer of that reputational. I mean, there's an example in it, you know. He believed God. Okay, so he was a person of faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So his righteousness was not really his own, his righteousness was from God, and all he did was simply believe in the character of the greatest, truest, realist thing being in all of ever. I mean, really, Abraham's reputational statement that is all over the place in the Bible, Abraham believed God and it was credited in righteousness, is maybe the most common sense reputational statement ever. Julius Caesar's is awesome. I came I saw I conquered. Woo! That's pretty cool. But there's a lot of Julius Caesar doing stuff in there, and if I might add, there's a lot of Julius Caesar pointing out how many cool things Julius Caesar did in that reputational statement. But Abraham just sounds like a normal guy with common sense when you hear his reputational statement, yet it's treated in the Bible like this is a huge deal that he got this right. He believed God, the most believable being ever to be, the inventor of being. He believed him, and then God did something, credited it to him as righteousness. Huh. Yeah, it's the kind of thing where, all right, I might not be able to show up and look at something and then conquer it. I might not be the man who would refuse to be king. I might not speak softly and carry a big stick. I might not have the courage of Rosa Parks or be married to the kingdom of England. But I can do Abraham's reputational statement. Like it I think I could believe the most obviously believable thing ever in the history of ever. So that's one of the other just really genius things about it. It's such an accessible, imitatable reputational statement. But also I think it's profound because Abraham's reputational statement sums up the entire gospel message, kingdom message of hope in Christ that Paul is trying to articulate in Galatians, well, really through the entire book of Galatians. The whole message that the Galatian believers received in the first place, that Paul keeps referencing back to throughout this letter, is they believed God and it was credited to them as righteousness. They all effectively had the same reputational statement as the great Abraham. That's incredible. But then Paul goes on to be like, You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Or I'm astonished that you're so quickly abandoning the one who called you. I mean, points out, like why would you forfeit that reputational statement? You had it, you're good, you had the thing, you had it on lockdown. You realize that this was a reputational statement that is the best reputational statement, but also the least earned reputational statement, the reputational statement that most points the glory back to God and most puts our hope in God. You had that, but then you tried to flip it to some other weird reputational statement. A lot of paraphrasing here, but I think everything I'm saying is fair. It's like Paul saying, so you had the reputational statement that it could be said of the Galatians that they believed God and it was credited to them as righteousness, and then you traded that out for it. Show. And respectfully, that second reputational statement is stupid. Not the one you want. It's hopeless, it's embarrassing, it's a bad one. Like Jerry was a man who always farted at the least opportune times. Now, Abraham, his whole name, his whole reputation, his whole reputational statement, the whole aura around him in the Bible, it's macks of humility, it smacks of God doing the heavy lift, really God doing all the lift, and his character, his very name, is a reminder of what Paul is saying in Galatians, that God is the one in the driver's seat here, that the gift of forgiveness and right standing with God is one that is given by God, and that any alternative to the reputational statement assigned to Abraham is really no alternative at all. Once again, here's how Paul says it Galatians 3, 6. Consider Abraham. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. So, once again, it could be said of the Galatians that they believed God and it was credited to them as righteousness. But Paul goes on. Verse 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced to the gospel in advance to Abraham, quote, all nations will be blessed through you, unquote. Oh wow. So Paul's saying, remember that stuff from way back at the beginning of the Bible? Way back here. Yeah, that it's not just an accident or coincidence that your reputational statement was the same as Abraham's. It was ordained by God that you Gentiles, you're not even Jews, but it was ordained by God from the beginning of all of this, that your reputational statement could be identical to that of the great Abraham. Verse 9, Galatians 3:9. So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Ooh, that's like another little bonus reputational statement. Or maybe the man of faith. No, that's not a reputational statement, that's a nickname like Alexander the Great, or Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, or Edward the Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots. That's a great nickname. So that's crazy. You open with a reputational statement. He believed God, and it was credited him as righteousness, and then this little passage ends with an awesome nickname, the man of faith. And both of those, Paul is clearly communicating. It doesn't matter if you're Jewish, Gentile, who you are, if you heard the message of the kingdom, the message of the gospel of Christ, and you believed that, then Abraham's reputational statement is your reputational statement. And the title assigned to Abraham, the man of faith, is the title assigned to you. Fascinating. Please do tell me what reputational statements are actually called. I'm glad I stumbled into a term to get us through the episode, but I really don't know, and I would really like to know. All right, that's plenty for now. More Abraham next time around. I'm Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.