Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast, and I am having so much fun because I'm in the middle of what for you is going to be a two-day conversation about Titus as a test case, who the Apostle Paul brought with him to the Jerusalem Council, and Titus got right in front of all of the Christian leaders from two different sects. There were the Christian leaders who were the Judaizers, the agitators, the ones who threw the Galatian church and the Antiochian church into confusion. They're like, oh, people have to get circumcised. If you're Gentile, you have to be circumcised and follow the whole law of Moses, or else you're a big giant fraud. Those people apparently pressured Titus to get circumcised, and he was like, eh, yeah, I'm going to pass. And then also Titus got put in front of generation one of the Christian leaders, like James and Peter, like the pillars of authority in Jerusalem. And what do you know? None of them raised a single question. They all knew Titus wasn't circumcised. They all knew he was not Jewish. And look at his name. It's Titus. They knew he was Greek. And yet they could plainly see that the work of God was upon him and that he was a legitimate Christian in every way. And so what Paul is going to do here in Galatians 2, I think, I mean, I haven't read it to you yet, but what it probably Paul's about to do is to point to Titus and be like, hey, I took him to Jerusalem. And the pillars of the faith there didn't have any problem with him back then. They didn't say a peep. In fact, it seemed like they kind of liked him. And now these other false representatives, they're showing up and being like, oh no, actually, circumcision, it's a big deal. You totally have to do it. Nah, guys, it doesn't check out. Look at the Titus test case. It speaks for itself. I'm overdoing it. This is just supposed to be the introduction. All right, I'm going to shut up. Jeff's going to play some music. We're going to pick up where we left off yesterday and look at Galatians 2. Galatians 2.1. 14 years later, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. This timeline, maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow. It's tricky. I still haven't totally solved this. North Galatia, South Galatia, Paul timeline Arabia thing. They're two good working theories, really smart people, better, smarter people than me, think both things. I don't know. We'll get back to that later on. Fourteen years later, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas, and I took Titus along also. Okay. 14 years this trip to Jerusalem, it's got to be the Jerusalem Council, because the Jerusalem Council happened in the late 40s AD. So we just go back 14 years from that. Now we're in the early 30s. Well, if you go any earlier than that, Paul isn't a Christian yet, and Jesus hasn't been crucified yet. So I mean the timeline tells me I mean this is the Jerusalem Council trip. I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. Okay, well that sounds like exactly what happened at the Jerusalem Council. I mean, just summarize that we just read a bunch of it together. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. Okay, so maybe he laid that out twice at the Jerusalem Council. Maybe some of the people who were getting their hand slapped weren't at the particular part of the meeting that we were reading from before. I don't know. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. So Paul goes down there, he's dealing with exactly this issue. He brought Titus, he knew what kind of scrutiny that would invite. I don't necessarily know how they all knew, but they all knew who was circumcised and who wasn't circumcised. I think he was bringing Titus along as a test case, to be like, huh? Well, look at this guy. Remember how Peter went and talked to Cornelius, and then the miraculous hand of God was upon Cornelius, a Gentile's household right after that? Then the same gifts of the Spirit that were happening with us Jewish Christians were happening for those Gentile Christians. How can we be against God on this point? Well, guys, the same thing is happening with Titus, except I'm not just telling you stories about it. I brought him with. This is Titus, right here. Titus, say hello, hey guys. And then Titus is like, well, yeah, here's what happened, here's what I've seen. And they'd be like, wait, but you're definitely not circumcised? No, guys, I we covered this, I'm definitely not circumcised. I think Titus was there as a living, breathing, flesh and blood test case to support what Paul had been seeing in the field on his prove it journey, that being that not circumcised people were receiving the Holy Spirit and they were Christians just as much as anybody else. Verse 4. This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. Who are these false brothers? Well, they're the agitators, they're the Judaizers. They're the people Paul is writing against right here in this letter to the Galatian church. They're the people who went up to Antioch and picked the fight about circumcision at the beginning of Acts 15 that precipitated, that was the occasion that caused the Jerusalem Council to happen. Verse 5, Paul goes on, but we didn't give into them, not even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. Here's the bottom line. I think this is the first point where for an after-the-fact audience like you and me, Paul's argument is really starting to come into focus about this whole timeline stuff and how it all fits together. This is the point in the Applebee's conversation where I'm like, oh, oh wow, I'm actually starting to get it. I'm figuring out who all the names are and all the people were and who sent what text to when, and the timeline's starting to make sense. Yeah, you're right. If the leadership in Jerusalem had a problem with uncircumcised Greeks being legitimately called Christians, they would have brought that up when Titus was there. I mean, obviously. Yeah, checkmate Paul. I mean, that's an absolutely great point. This is very compelling to me. And I do think it was a stroke of genius move for Paul to bring Titus along. This is very prescient of him, knowing that Titus would serve as a test case for all of this, and that Titus later, just his mere presence there, would point out the hypocrisy of any from this agitator, Judaizer crowd who might later try to rear their ugly head again and cause more problems. Just want to say thanks again to Bill for lending me that car. I was able to eat a lot of Wendy's $1 chicken nuggets and rent a lot of video games from Blockbuster and return them in a timely fashion because of you and your Ford Fiesta. I'll never be too good for that car, my friend. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.