Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast. We're in Galatians chapter two, looking at this place where Paul is trying to dig out of this mountain of dishonesty and divisiveness that has been sown in the Galatian church by these agitators, these outsiders who just want to make a mess of things, apparently. And so point by point, Paul is having to go through and debunk this and clarify that and say, nope, that is that's not Christian there. This is over here. And it's been a lot to track with all of this debunking section of the book, but I think it's really starting to take shape. It's coming into focus. We're in the middle of a passage right now, this is part two of a conversation from yesterday, where I think Paul is just doing a remarkable job of threading this needle where he is criticizing the idea of celebrity culture being the way that Christians should know what is and isn't true. Like celebrity endorsements, that's not the number one way that we know a thing is real or not. That's a world system way of thinking, not a kingdom system way of thinking. So he's simultaneously undercutting that approach that his critics have taken while also propping up and affirming the other great Christian leaders back in Jerusalem, the people who walked with Jesus, and also confirming we're all on the same page and we're all talking about the same stuff. It's the same gospel through and through with all of us. I'm going on too much again. I'm going to ruin and spoil the whole episode. Jeff needs to just play some music. I'm going to be quiet and we're going to pick up where we left off yesterday. Here we go. I mean, that's kind of where Paul starts his argument here. He's like, yeah, it doesn't matter who seems to be important. God doesn't judge by external appearances. I mean, what's one of the verses for those of you who are raised around church and you memorized Old Testament stories and verses when you were a kid, or maybe you went to Bible camp and they had you memorize some verses from the Old Testament. I mean, 1 Samuel 16, 7, right? Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. It's when God is coaching up the prophet Samuel to go and pick who God wants him to anoint. And the Lord is saying to Samuel, I, you know, don't look at how big he is or how kingly he looks or comes off. Because man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. It's the same principle right here that Paul's drawing on. Man looks at celebrity status and whoever has the biggest name and the most clout and the most clicks. Whatever. That stuff is cheap. That stuff is disposable. If you sat in my seat and saw how the numbers work and how all of the different algorithmic things that make YouTube and podcasting and all of this stuff ebb and flow, you would see very quickly what I see every day. It's cheap. Click economy is false. It's fake. It's all hype. There are brilliant things that don't get clicks, and there's absolute garbage that does get clicks. If somebody has clicks or not clicks, it's no sure sign of anything. It doesn't matter. And especially when you're talking about stuff like this. I mean, God uses whatever he wants. Man looks at the number of clicks, God looks at the heart. The click economy is not the kingdom economy. So that's what Paul is saying right here. Celebrity economy is not the real economy. Those aren't the kingdom values. That's not how things work. So right off the bat, Paul rejects the premise of their argument, saying, we don't do this celebrity culture thing here in Christianity. This isn't how we evaluate whether or not something is true, first and foremost. I mean, the merits of the thing is what we look at. And he's been appealing to the merits of the message all along. And then he goes on to say, and further, these great people, these pillars of the church, they didn't add anything to my message. They got it from Jesus. I got it from Jesus. It was the same message. When we compared notes on it, what we found was, huh, looks like we both must have encountered Jesus because we got the exact same thing from him, and it's having the exact same effect on people, both Jews and Gentiles, when we go out and communicate this. So then he goes on to say, these Judaizers, these agitators, their whole argument from celebrity, this whole fallacy is backfiring on them because the very people they're saying are legit and should be listened to, as opposed to me, lowly Paul, who's a fraud and doesn't get a lot of clicks. The very people they're saying to listen to completely signed off on the gospel Paul was articulating, gave Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, sent him out with blessing, and agreed on the strategy. Paul and Barnabas, you go to the Gentiles. You're well built and well positioned to go and do that. You're great at saying in a way that makes sense. It's already working, keep doing that. These guys over here, you're gonna go to the Jews. You're well built and well positioned for that. It's going great. Everybody, hands in the middle, team on three, one, two, three, team. The only detail on the way out the door is like, hey, be cool to the lowly people. Take care of the poor where you have the opportunity to do so. And Paul's like, yeah, that's the very thing I'm eager to do. So what do you know? We're even on the same page on that. The point is, Paul is saying celebrity endorsements, that's not our economy. That's not how we do things here anyway. But even if it was, even if we are to frame it in the most spiritual language and say we esteem these people as pillars of the church, noble and spiritual, okay, fine. Even if we're gonna do it that way, well then hey, those very people got the same message from Jesus that I got from Jesus, and we all agree on this strategy and we're all in on it together. You're not gonna mom and dad us and drive a wedge between us. We're on the same team. But don't think that just because I'm telling you we're on the same team, that that means I'm tacitly signing off on celebrity culture and celebrity endorsements being how we measure truth in the kingdom of God. That's a world kingdom measurement of truth. So there's a lot going on here, but it makes a ton of sense to me. And the further Paul gets into this defense that maybe at the beginning of the book of Galatians is a little disorienting, the further he gets into it, the more I'm going, ah, okay. I get why you have to say this. I'm getting a fuller picture of what your critics, what the agitators here have done, what discord they've sown. And I'm seeing how Paul is going through one point at a time, and without ripping the whole thing up by the roots, he's picking out those little lies and those little bits of dishonesty and divisiveness and taking them apart one by one to demonstrate that what he said in the first place is true. You, Galatians, received the true message of Christ. It was preached to you right, you received it right, and then somebody else cut in on you with a false message that is really no gospel at all. I know I'm going on and on here. I don't want to gush over Paul too much, but this is sort of feeling these first few chapters of Galatians, they're sort of feeling like how it used to feel when I would watch Bob Ross, and he would start doing stuff, and I'd be like, Oh, this is gonna be a really pretty painting. And I trust you, Bob Ross. You're good at things. But then he'd do some stuff and I go, Oh no, that's not gonna work at all. You can't paint like that, Bob Ross. The mountain looks terrible. That's not a happy, that's a hideous tree. The colors are all wrong. What have you done? And then he mixes in some burnt umber and gets out a fan brush and a couple flicks of the wrist, and I just go, Oh, you genius. I see it. You had a plan all along. You knew what you were doing. I thought your thing wasn't good. I acted like I was the expert and I was the knower of things. I'm not the knower of things. I've been humbled once again by you, Mr. Bob Ross. And what do you know? Your painting is beautiful like it is every single time you basically magical paint wizard. That's the way I'm feeling with Paul on this trip through Galatians with you. Soon as I started to feel like, dude, you're kind of going on and on a little bit too much here, and you're not really lobbing me an easy pitch to hit with all of this timeline business and everything. But now we're getting a little further into it and dips in a little bit of that metaphorical burnt umber and flicks his wrist with the metaphorical fan brush a couple times, and pow, the whole thing really starts to come into focus. And I'm seeing more clearly than I think I ever have on any trip through the book of Galatians why these first two chapters exist. And also I'm seeing one of the challenges of interpreting a letter as a book of the Bible. I mean, let's just be honest. The last few weeks, especially, I mean, this last week I think has been easier, but the couple of weeks before that has been kind of difficult. I mean, that was challenging sledding getting through that part of the book, but now it really does feel like Paul has kind of put the back of his forearm on the back end of the cluttered, messy, icky table, and he's just cleared all of the junk off. And now it feels like we're setting up to have a clear table with everything that had to be addressed, all the ick, it's all been dealt with and cleared away. And now we have clarity of mind, clarity of conversation, and we're ready to get back to what the point actually is. We've refuted the bull crap, took an order of magnitude more energy than it did to make the bull crap in the first place. But now we're just about to the place after one more point that we're gonna walk through tomorrow and maybe the next day, where we're ready to take ground after having retaken all of the lost ground. I'm getting it, it's coming into focus. I'm having fun with it. All right, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.