Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast, and it is November. Therefore, I am sick, because that is just what happens to me in November now. Put it in the Google Calendar. This is gonna happen. Get the head cold or whatever. I'm gonna feel get the flu, feel real bad for a while. So I'm doing that. I'm gonna try not to sound as snotty while we talk here as I feel inside. Sorry about all that in advance. But I'll tell you what I'm not sorry for is the little tip that I'm about to give you gentlemen, because it is November as I'm recording this, which means that it's gift giving season. I know a lot of you guys are probably feeling real angsty about what you can get for the special lady in your life. And I think I might have just solved your problem because right before I turned on this microphone, I was looking at Facebook Marketplace here locally in Rapid City, South Dakota. And some guy, I don't know who it is, I don't get anything for this. I don't I don't know this person or anything. This is the listing. They're selling the perfect gift for that special lady. It's a plaque autographed by World Wrestling Federation great rowdy Roddy Piper. And I think it's like 200 bucks. That's it. I know it kind of blow your mind that you could get something like that, a genuine collector's item for $200. But probably you're like, oh, that's a great suggestion, Matt. That's why I love you so much. Thank you for being a part of my life. But you're picturing Christmas morning, and you're like, she's gonna open the thing and she's gonna be obviously elated when she sees it, but then she's gonna be a little bit cautious about it and nervous because she's gonna be like, oh, honey, it's exactly what I wanted. But how do I know it's real? Well, I got you covered there too, my brother. Because then you just hand her this other package that's all wrapped up, you can give her a little wink, and she's like, Well, what is it? And you're like, just open it. And then she opens it up, and what's in there? A certificate of authenticity. Because that proves that it's a real signature from World Wrestling Federation great Rowdy Roddy Piper. And then, well, everything goes to plan for your relationship. Congratulations, you're welcome. There's only one of them available. This episode isn't brought to you by that, but I just try to help wherever I can. Thought that was pretty big news. The other thing that's pretty big news is this showdown between Peter and Paul in the Bible in the book of Galatians. You're probably wondering how that ties in. If there's like some kind of likewise, hey, I'm sick. There's not no, there's I got nothing. There's no tie-in. But in Galatians 2, we've been talking for days about this confrontation where Paul had to yell at Peter in front of everybody for being wrong and how he was handling his business and basically how Peter was handling his table manners and you know, his decisions about who he sat with and who he didn't, he was undermining his belief and the gospel, the message of Jesus. He was making it seem like the whole Jesus thing never really got through the armor and like Peter never really understood the whole point at all. So Paul had to confront him. And we've looked at the anatomy of that and kind of speculated about the story for the last few days. But Paul, after he gets done explaining the story of what the little confrontation was like, there's another six verses after that where he goes into this pretty lengthy theology statement about why the confrontation with Peter is sort of the tip of the theology iceberg. But then those next six verses, that's like the whole big, bulky Titanic wrecking thing down there below. But there's a little bit of a conundrum in this passage as to what's actually going on here grammatically, conversationally, how we're supposed to read the letter. And uh, how can I put this? I had a friend who would constantly use this expression. She'd be like, Well, you know, they were saying this, and then I was like, and she would say something that sounded pretty smart, but then I would ask, Did you say that? Were those the words you said, or were you like that? And then she'd always giggle and she'd be like, I was like that. Ah, like that, and actually having said that, are very different things. And we all know how this works. When you summarize an exchange that is interesting, but that doesn't have any action, nobody punched anybody, there was no blocking, like you move around, or you went here and then you went there, and then this happened. It's just a conversational story that you're relaying about Chit-Chat. There's a lot of, and then he was like, and then she was like, and then he was like, and then she was like, that goes into the whole thing, but you don't assume any of it to be precise quotes. Well, this is very interesting. People who translate the Bible and interpret the Bible were way smarter than me. They've wondered about this in Galatians 2 for a long time, as to whether or not we are best to understand the last six verses of Galatians chapter 2, as Paul saying, Here is exactly what I said to Peter next in front of everybody. Or if we should understand these last six verses as Paul saying more or less. Anyways, that's what I said to Peter before. And now let me expound on that a little bit for all of you who are now receiving this letter, oh dear Galatian Church. Now, in the translation that I've been using for this season, which is the old school NIV, I think it's the one that they did in 1984, the they are making an assumption here that all the stuff that Paul says is deep dive theology stuff for the last six verses of chapter two, they're making the assumption using quotation marks that that is all of what Paul said. Other translations that I have right here next to me in the office do not throw quotations around it, indicating that they view this as Paul kind of expounding on the exchange with Peter for the benefit of the reading audience in the letter. Let me just bring you back up to speed here. Here's the the whole thing. Galatians 2, verse 11 and forward, this is Paul talking. When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy so that by their hypocrisy, even Barnabas was led astray. Well, and I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. I said to Peter in front of them all, You're a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow the Jewish customs? Now, this is where the little bit of a conundrum comes in. Some people, including whoever did the work on this version of the Bible I got in front of me, they looked at the original Greek text and they're like, ah, the quote continues. Now Paul goes on to say exactly what he said to Peter verbatim. Other people, once again, look at this and they're like, nope, the quote is over. So you can tell the difference. If you got a Bible there, you can tell what your translator's best guess is as to how to read this based on where the quotation mark is. If you get to the end of verse 14, how is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? And there's a close quote, that means that your translation of the Bible, the best guess, and it really does have to be a guess, this isn't knowable by science. The best guess on the part of that translation team was to say, okay, all the rest is Paul doing this for the benefit of the readers of the Galatian church, people who are reading this letter. If there is no closed quote after verse 14, but a continued open quote at the beginning of verse 15, we who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, then that means they're saying, no, this is you know, Paul giving us his very best recitation or recollection of what he went on to say in front of everyone. And I think it's interesting, I think it's worth taking the conversation today to consider this, because they really are two very different social scenes that we imagine in our brains depending on where that one little close quote or open quote goes. If we're talking about a scene here where Paul went to Peter in the lunchroom in front of everybody at the church in Antioch, and all he did was walk over with his tray table right to Peter in front of everybody, and the whole room gets kind of quiet. It's like, oh dang, this is about to happen. And Paul says, real loud, so everybody can hear, Hey, Peter, you're a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? And then Paul just turns around and like walks away or something with his tray and goes and eats angrily at another table. I mean, I don't know that that's how it actually happened, but that's one way to kind of imagine it. If that's all the quote was, then dang, it was really succinct and it was frankly pretty personally accusatory toward Peter. It is a character accusation in that case, because there really is no expanding on the theology side at all. So, like, wow, Paul, dang, like you just called him out on his character. You called him out on his conduct, and you didn't really even get into the theology side. You didn't make it about ideas, you made it about him. So, I mean, that's a pretty dramatic scene. People were gonna be weird after that. There wasn't gonna be a lot of giggling and laughing in the lunchroom after that at the Antioch church. I think it would have been pretty tense for a little bit after that. However, it's a very different scene if we view this as a continued quote. Paul walks over, everybody gets real quiet, and he's like, hey, Peter, you're a Jew and yet you live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force the Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? And then he goes on to say a bunch of other things. Well, it's a lot of things. So maybe Paul would have to sit down by him then, and maybe there's a little bit of a change in tone. And he's like, Peter, we who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus. We may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. I mean, I'm kind of voice acting here a little bit with a cold, so maybe that didn't come through the way I wanted it to. But the idea is you can imagine a big bold opening foray in front of everybody from Paul toward Peter, and then Paul kind of softening his tone and being like, let me walk you through it, man. I mean, come on, you know this stuff, right? So this is just one of those places where I don't know, I'm kind of enchanted by these sort of little details in the Bible where you don't get to know exactly. I guess you're not intended to know. I mean, if there's a God who knows all things and is master of everything and can't be fooled or tricked and never learned anything, I mean, he could have used a language that had more punctuation for the original language for the New Testament, but you know, he went with Greek, and there's a certain ambiguity here when you move it from Greek to English, and it just sits there. I don't know, could go either way. I think now that we're at this point in the conversation, I guess I do have one more thought as to my leanings on this. I think it kind of makes Paul look a little worse if he just went up to Peter and just said that angry thing, and then that was it and didn't say the rest of it. So if Paul wanted to make himself look good, I think the whole thing would be one big quote, and that'd be why he'd be willing to tell the story, because he's like, I confronted Peter and I explained everything. Whereas maybe Paul looks a little bit worse if all he said to Peter was that one little phrase and then everything else was, you know, later for the benefit of the Galatians, and maybe Paul would be less inclined to tell the story. I don't know. See, this is why I go around in circles on this particular thing, and I've never known exactly what to make of it or how to read this part. What I do know is this the deep dive theology stuff that we get next between verses 15 and 21 is really, really, really important. Whether Paul said that verbatim in the lunchroom that day, or whether Paul took a bunch of time to reflect on that conversation and sort of summarize all of the theological reasons that he felt justified in confronting Peter succinctly with just a couple of sentences, either way, it's really potent stuff. And it's sort of a capstone for everything Paul has been saying in the first two chapters, and it's also sort of the, you know, the transition into everything he's gonna say next, as well as just a really profound restatement of the basics of the Christian message, the gospel, the message of Jesus, and how that affects you, the individual, where we fit into that message. So I said we were gonna break it down today, and then we just, I don't know, we talked about the structure of it a little bit more. But I had a lovely time. And well, probably by now, if you haven't gone and bought the Rowdy Rowdy Piper autographed plaque, it's already gone because somebody else demonstrated initiative and paused this and went and followed the link and got it immediately. But if it's still there, congratulations on that. She's gonna love it, and you're totally welcome. Okay, diving into the theology next time around. Sorry I was sick today. I I'm Matt. This is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.