Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And over the last conversation and into this one, we've been talking about this air quote use of the word sinner that keeps happening around the New Testament. And we've been kind of going through some examples, and there are more examples that we need to go through because the air-quote use of the word sinners is in play in the passage we're looking at in Galatians chapter two. And I don't think we should fly by it. I think we should really try to understand why Paul is employing this word with those scare quotes around it when he's talking to Peter and talking to the Galatian church. So if you didn't catch the last episode, you should definitely go grab that because we're kind of on a little Bible quest bouncing around right now. And I don't know exactly where we're going to divide it between the last episode and this one. So we're just going to pick it up where we left off and keep going. Well, I would still understand if you're like, cool, well, you found two places where they throw the word sinners in quotes. And that is more convincing than only one place, but you're still saying this is like a super huge, important passage with binding theological implications for the follower of Christ and the person who wants to be a Christian and do what the Bible says. Maybe we could have more than two examples. And if that is your impulse, I would say that is completely fair. So Luke 15 is a whole chapter of the Bible that is full of parables that characterize God's love toward, quote, sinners and also not air quote sinners, just literally people who are in sin and in need of the redemptive work of Christ. And so Luke 15 here, the modern translators do the same thing that they do with the book of Matthew. They do the same thing that they're doing in Galatians chapter 2, with the throwing the scare quotes, the ersatz quotes around sinners. Here it says in Luke 15, 1. Now the tax collectors and quote sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Now in this situation, the first use of sinners gets the scare quotes here in the New International Version. The second one, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them, does not. But I kind of think that's because it's the Pharisees who were saying this quote. So the Pharisees wouldn't be using the word sinners ironically. And neither Luke, who wrote this originally, nor the modern translators who are taking it from the Greek into the modern language, neither were willing to give the Pharisees the benefit of the doubt here and imagine that the Pharisees were using the term sinners ironically. No, they weren't. They're using it unironically. The Pharisees mean sinners, so it doesn't get air quotes. No, there's nothing ironic about that. That's exactly through the front door what they mean. Whereas at the beginning of Luke 15, now the tax collectors and quote sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. When Luke says it, he's using sinners ironically in the pejorative way that the Pharisees use it, but he's kind of flipping it around like we talked about Yankee Doodle a while back in one of our conversations, and how that was meant to be an insult, but yeah, okay, we'll wear it Yankee Doodle and became a compliment, or you know, the term Yankee became a compliment or a badge of honor for people who were fighting for the uh American Revolution against the British. Okay, so then the parables that we get here all illustrate that Jesus loves the quote sinners, the undesirable, deplorable, unredeemable types who are made that way, both by merit of their unwillingness to submit themselves to the rules and the social preferences of the Pharisees, but who are also, quote, sinners and unredeemable, possibly because of simply their birthright, being Samaritans or Gentiles. Jesus does not share the Pharisaic perspective on the redeemability or lack thereof of these people. Instead, Jesus holds up the quote sinners as being incredibly valuable to God. And he tells them three parables. I'll read you one of them and summarize the next two. He said, Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I've found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. The word sinner, right there in the last sentence of that parable from Jesus, is not thrown in air quotes by the translators here, and I think they made the correct decision because Jesus is using the word sinner there unironically. Anyone who has need before God, which is everyone, whether that need is a product of where they were born and what they never heard or things they did volitionally that were screwed up and wrong, doesn't matter. However, you got to sinner, well, Jesus is expressing that he has great interest in you and that there is rejoicing when even one sinner repents and is brought back into union with God. And then the next parable in this triplicate of parables showing that Jesus loves quote sinners is one about a woman who has ten silver coins and she loses one. And rather than being like, I was just one, I got all the other ones, she lights a lamp and she sweeps and she looks carefully until she finds it. And then when she finds it, she calls her friends and is like, I found that lost coin. And he says, in the same way, I tell you, there's rejoicing in the presence of the angels over one sinner who repents. Sinner is not in quotes. And then maybe the granddaddy of all the parables? Yeah, what ranks above this one? The majority of the rest of Luke 15 is Jesus telling the powerful, heart-wrenching, beloved parable of the runaway son. This parable is often called the prodigal son, who goes to his dad and is like, I don't really want to wait around for you to die to get all of my inheritance, so give it to me now. Yikes. And the father's like, okay. And the kid goes and lives like an idiot and he squanders everything. And then when he hits rock bottom, he's like, Ah, I'm a fool. What have I done? And he works up this whole speech that he's going to give his dad. He's like, I'm going to go back to my dad. I'm just going to be like, I'm not even worthy to be called your son. You make me his servant in your household, please. And he's on his way back to his dad's place from a land far away where he blew it and wasted all his dad's money. And his dad's waiting on the porch and he sees him a long ways off. And the dad doesn't even care about his dignity in front of his whole household. And he's a powerful man. And like hikes up his robes so that he can run better. He runs down the driveway to meet the kid. And the kid's like, Dad, I uh I got this whole speech. Just hear me out. Before you say anything, I'm not even worthy to be called your son. I blew it. And the dad just embraces him. He's like, put the ring on his finger. This is my son. Kill the fattened calf. And this son of mine, he was dead and now he's alive again. And in that respect, it's like an enhanced version of the first two parables here in Matthew 15. They just give you this clear sense. If you didn't get it already, Jesus loves sinners. Jesus has compassion for the lost, even those who are really, really lost. But this parable takes it even a step further, because there's another brother in the equation who'd always done the right thing and obeyed lots of rules, maybe some rules that Dad actually had in this hypothetical household, maybe some rules that he made up for himself, just to feel even better and superior in his own exemplary behavior. And the older brother, who didn't run away, he is maybe understandably resentful of the forgiveness his younger brother has received. And he goes and he complains to the dad and he says, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. You never even gave me a young goat so I could go celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him. And the father, ever gentle, ever wise, says, My son, you're always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we have to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And in this, there's an anticipation of the very tension that is prompting the writing of the book of Galatians, the whole situation that we've been talking about in this whole season. And that is that look, some people felt like they had earned favor with God through exemplary behavior, some stuff that God wanted them to do, some bonus stuff that they just voluntarily did that was above and beyond, many of them following the ways of the Pharisees. And maybe they got a little bit of a sense of entitlement, like God owes me something. Maybe they got a sense of I'm not really a sinner because I've mastered all of my bad behavior and I don't do bad things, and therefore I'm more in a role of judge over these lost people and these outsiders, in a role of helper to help acclimate them to how things are around here by giving them some of my social preferences as well. And then it looks like Jesus and the Holy Spirit, through his miraculous actions, is just like, nah, I'm just welcoming these sinners, these Gentile outsiders who were born outside of the whole equation by birth, who are, in your minds, unclean to even eat eat a table with by the Holy Spirit by his actions, it's like, yeah, I just welcome you into the kingdom. Awesome. Repent and believe. You do, brilliant. Here's the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here's the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. Here's life and salvation and redemption and forgiveness. And much like the grouchy older brother in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, some people, as the Holy Spirit and the message of the kingdom went out, and outsiders started to respond, and air quote sinners started to respond, they didn't like it, and it made them fussy, and they acted like the older brother, when instead they should have acted like the father, or at least one of the servants who was just happy that the quote sinner, the lost brother, had come home. Now there are plenty more examples of the air quote use of the term sinners throughout the New Testament. I think of Matthew 15 and his encounter with the Cyro Phoenician woman. Jesus in in that story kind of seems to be channeling language that was popular among the resentful older brother Pharisee types toward this quote sinner, this Gentile outsider, even channeling some of their language to liken her to a dog. So I think there are plenty of smoking gun examples of the air quote use of sinners, as well as thematic examples that might not have the smoking gun air quote, but thematically it's still there throughout the New Testament. But I think we've covered enough to get the point across that clearly what Paul is doing here in Galatians chapter two is he's sort of thrusting a painful dagger toward Peter with this sarcastic use of the Pharisaic language of these air quote Gentile sinners. And just by even employing that phrase or that verbal motif, what he's saying to Peter is like, dude, come on. You're better than this. You know better than this. You were there when the parable of the prodigal son was told for the first time. Come on, Peter, don't revert to this Judaizer Pharisaic nonsense. It's not who we are, it's not what we do. And I really think that it's been worth a couple days here for us to go and understand the air quote use of sinners throughout the New Testament, because Paul is invoking it here to snap Peter and the Galatian church to their senses. And frankly, if the book of Galatians was meant for you and I to read down the road, then I think it's meant to snap us to our senses as well. It was so clear and easy back in the early days, wasn't it, when Jesus is telling those parables? There's no moral ambiguity about it. You don't read those three parables, especially the one of the prodigal son, and as a reader, be like, okay, yeah, but hold on. I have a few exceptions I'd like to take with how Jesus told the story. No, you read it and you love it, and you embrace the story because you put yourself in the position of the lost son. You think of the stuff that you screwed up in the times that you were both a quote sinner, but also just a sinner sinner. And the idea of the father receiving you back and calling you son or daughter, then loving you and restoring you by his grace and his power is life-changingly beautiful. But then, you know, you get a little further into the New Testament and you're like, oh, maybe these other people have a point, maybe they have a point. You know, this is just a denominational dispute. It's hard to say really who's right. Galatians is screaming loud and clear. No, this isn't ambiguous. Remember back when it was simple? It's still simple. Remember how easily you understood what was being intoned by the air quote sinners and how that was an eye roll at the arrogance of the people who would use that term that way? Yeah, it's still that simple. And even the best of us, even Peter, even Barnabas, can easily be suckered into going back to legalistic old ways where we imagine that we're just far better and more desirable than the bad people who are outsiders, and that God is so very lucky to have us on his team as opposed to the far less desirable, deplorable types. Now, I think what we're getting here in the very first turn of a phrase in Paul's theology summary of what he said to Peter and why he said it, I think that turn of a phrase is meant to soften our hearts toward the outsiders and to remind us of when we were the outsiders as well. Cool. Well, I hope you enjoyed these last couple of conversations on air quotes. And I'm excited to move forward into the rest of Paul's theology statement here at the end of the book of Galatians. Don't read in any of those air quotes. They were all meant to just be misapplied to kind of round out the joke from the other day. It occurs to me that I may have just committed heresy. I'm so, so, so sorry for everything. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.