You're listening to the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast. It's fast on free daily deep dive Bible. And right now we're talking about Galatians.
SPEAKER_00That's kind of interesting if you look at society. There's certain stuff that you just can't claim to be if you're not. Like I don't think, at least in my country, you can just say, I'm a lawyer, and then go do law things. It's a pretty heavy certification process for all of that. Also, it's kind of hard to fake because you've got to go to school for it for a long time. Yeah, I suppose it could be faked, but people know there's a bar association. People know if you're an actual lawyer or not. You can't just give yourself that title. You have to be sort of signed off on by everybody else. You can't just call yourself doctor, not medical doctor, not doctor of philosophy, or you know, some sort of academic doctor. It doesn't work that way. You have to be signed off on by a bunch of other people who've already jumped through that hoop. And this might not be the best way to do authority, but it's kind of time-tested, and I think it works. And it tends to be that the most important titles in society, you can't just give yourself and then fake it. I can't just call myself senator. Well, I guess I could call myself senator if I want, but I don't get to vote in the Senate just because I call myself that. Then there are other titles that I think you should just be able to give yourself. And people make fun of this stuff, but I'm not sure it should be made fun of. Like, for example, if you want to be a hairdresser, but you don't have a license, uh, why do you have to have a license for that? If you're a bad hairdresser, people figure it out pretty quickly. If you want to be a personal trainer, that's one of those things where I don't know, is it good? Are you good at it? And people figure that out pretty quick if it's working or it's not working. So there's certain titles in society, the point is, that you can just grab anytime you want, and that's what you are now, that's your title, hang out aside, and then there are others where yeah, they're a little more authoritative. Now, here's a title from the ancient world that we've kind of flirted with the last few days talking about the book of Galatians, that I think was treated differently back then than it is treated now. Apostle. The opening line of the book of Galatians says Paul an apostle, sent not from men nor by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers with me to the churches in Galatia. Okay, we talked for the last few days that there's a lot of overt authority flexing here, and also a lot of subtle authority flexing here. But that word apostle, unless we kind of try to put ourselves in the shoes of the original audience here, that might feel not actually that authority flexy to you and me. Here's what I'm talking about. A while back, I was on a plane ride with somebody, and you know, we didn't really get into what I believe or what I do or where I'm coming from or anything like that. I was talking with somebody who, you know, clearly they were having a day where they wanted to just share some things about themselves. Okay, that's cool. I listened to a whole bunch. It was interesting. I learned things about this person. And partway through the conversation, I'm like, I'm Matt, by the way. I held up my hand and he was like, uh, oh, I'm I'm not gonna say his name, but I'll just make one up. He said, I'm the apostle Brian. I was like, whoa, okay. And he could tell that my eyebrows kind of went up over the term apostle. He's like, Yep, that's my that's my title. I'm an apostle. And so of course I pulled on that string. I was like, Well, how does one get that title? And he's like, Well, you know, God called me to you know do these things, churches and ministries, street preaching and stuff like that. I was like, All right. And I thought, I want to pull on that string a little bit more. So what was that like? I just I just know it's what God wants me to do. Like, okay. So what does the term apostle mean? What what is that? I mean, that's not a normal job title. What does that mean? Again, he has no idea that I think about these things too. He went on to say, you know, it's somebody called by God, and I believe I'm called by God. And then at some point in the conversation, I was like, So is that different than like the apostle Paul or the apostles in the Bible? And dude was like, No, same thing. God called them, God called me. And I didn't argue with him, like, whatever. That's what your business card says. You're an apostle, cool, you got a church that thinks that. But I'll tell you what I think. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's the right use of the term. I think apostle is different and unique, and I think the way he was using it was more like the way people use personal trainer or hairdresser today. I think it devalues the title. Apostle in both the original Greek, that's the letter that the book of Galatians was written in, and Hebrew, which Paul also would have been very conversant in, given his line of work. In both situations, it means something a lot more than someone who follows after somebody. That's what disciple means. Anybody who follows after someone else is a disciple, follows after their teachings, whatever. But the word apostle, and we know this from extra-biblical writing, that's kind of how we cross-reference to figure out what these words mean. And we know this from triangulating and using context clues within the Bible. Apostle in both Hebrew and New Testament Greek is talking about somebody with a very special charge from a master or a nobleman or whatever. They might have the signet ring of the master, meaning they get to do business on the master's account. They can sign for things, they have access to the master's credit card, they can make decisions for the master's estate. If they negotiate a deal, that is binding. They aren't just speculating about what the master wants. They hold a unique commissioning in a household or in a governmental organization to function as a representative, as an agent of that master. Now, I do think that is different fundamentally from disciples. So it's one of these logic exercises, right? Uh how do I say this? All apostles are disciples, definitionally speaking, but not all disciples are apostles. In fact, a very small minority of disciples are apostles. So with the third word in this letter being apostolos, what Paul is saying is I'm not just another disciple who speculates about the will of God. I've been uniquely commissioned by God to speak authoritatively on things like this. And by that being the third word in the letter, he's saying your situation has risen to such a level that it is no longer a matter of church debate and theory about, like, well, are people saved by being circumcised? Well, you know, that could go either way. That's not really a fundamental. Let's not divide over that. By saying the word apostle, claiming that title in the third word of the thing, Paul is saying, your situation has been escalated to the level of high authority here. There are not two opinions on this. There is a correct answer. Apparently, you don't remember what it is, and it is going to be spoken to in this letter. I really think the original audience, like the not the people who read Galatians in the following decades after it got circulated around. I mean the people who got the letter and were like, I'm gonna open it, and they opened it and they saw that as the third word. I think they knew what was coming because people back then had enormous social sense, much like people now have enormous social sense. But there's this underlying issue with Paul throughout the whole New Testament. You remember when we were doing the flyover of Acts early on after Paul goes through his conversion, there are people who were a little bit bulky about him. They're like, eh, I don't know. He tried to kill Christians. So there's some hesitation about that from the Gentile New Believer side. There's also some hesitation about Paul from the very ultra-conservative, heavily Old Testament law, Jewish-leaning side of the aisle when it came to early Christianity. A lot of them were like, uh, have you gone soft? Are you liberal? Are you throwing out the word of God by not making the Gentiles get circumcised to ensure their salvation and their right standing with God? So Paul, as a result, is constantly defending his apostleship, not discipleship. No one could argue that he was a disciple, but he's defending his apostleship, his right to speak authoritatively about all of this. Now, well, let's just start with the basics here. Is Paul right to do that? Is he actually an apostle? Well, according to Luke, it sure looks like it. According to the opinion of the early church and the reputation that Paul still has, it sure looks like everybody, other than a few dissenters who Paul had to argue with were on the same page. This was the majority position. Paul is legitimate, he is speaking as a representative of Christ, commissioned by Christ. And indeed, when you read through Acts, it's flat, beginning to end with no breaks, after a while you start thinking, how many times has the story of Paul's conversion been told in here? I think it is the most oft repeated story in the Bible outside of the crucifixion and resurrection. It is repeated far more than the birth narrative of Jesus. It is repeated far more than Mary's interaction with the angel when she found out that she was gonna be the mother of Jesus. It's repeated far more than classics like David and Goliath. That one comes up a couple times and maybe gets referenced elsewhere, or Noah and the Ark. Paul's conversion is everywhere. Why? Well, apparently Luke felt the pressure to really spell that out in the book of Acts to make sure everybody in that original audience who was going to read this thing, and Theophilus, the guy to whom he dedicated the book, or to whom he said he was for whom rather he said he was writing the book, he wanted to make sure everybody knew Paul is just not a super disciple. He is an apostle. He is like Generation One. He speaks with the authority of Generation One. And one of the bonus side effects of Acts 15, remember that very important passage that is the Jerusalem Council. The outcome of that was very important. It was also very important to the stability of the entire early church that everybody who heard about the Jerusalem Council and who read the book of Acts noted that Paul was there and spoke authoritatively and was regarded as one who could speak authoritatively. And James and Peter and all the other rock stars of this movement, they all fully accepted the story of what happened to Paul. And honestly, why wouldn't they? It's the best explanation for what happened. He just flipped, he went from one side to the other. Miracle is probably the most rational explanation for what occurred on that road, even if you hadn't heard all the details about it again and again from Luke, and then also from Paul, who gives us little tidbits about that conversion story throughout his letters as well. And look, this has implications for how we read the whole Bible and how we read all of church history. If Paul was just a really dedicated disciple who was super into it every time they did praise songs and like closed his eyes the hardest and swayed the most and muttered things in between verses the most, and he was always the first one to volunteer to pray, and he donated a lot, and he always volunteered his time. I mean, all that stuff is rad. But if that was all he did, then he's one voice among many and someone to be considered, like, you know, one of the church fathers who wrote later on, but who was a voice, a great disciple, a wonderful and thoughtful person, like Ignatius or Justin Martyr or Origen, these guys were brilliant, enlightened. They were even a generation or two at times removed from the guys who were first generation apostles. But even that, if Paul is only that, that is less authoritative than him being uniquely commissioned in the early going of Christianity by Jesus himself. Remember, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? It's me, Jesus, who you persecute. Jesus identifies himself by name, and Paul never backs down from anybody who challenges his role as an apostle, an ambassador, a signet ring bearer, someone who can do business, who can negotiate for, who can speak authoritatively on behalf of the master. This is such a big deal, and I glossed over it too much. I feel dumb about that. I'm doing this all out of order. And I don't just want to tell you this stuff about what Paul said and how big a deal his apostleship was. I want to go and show you some of this from other parts of the New Testament. So we're going to do that next time around. And after we've done that, I think it's going to make a lot more of this letter make sense because if you just read this cold, it kind of comes off like Paul's being like weirdly defensive about his title. Like, hey, I'm authoritative. You guys have to listen to me. It sounds a little petty and a little egotistical when divorced from the larger context. But when we understand what he's speaking to and that he's trying to basically kill one of the earliest Christian heresies that is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus, and he's trying to nip it in the bud here, and he's trying to use his authority and the authority of Jesus for whom he speaks and all the rest of the church, when we realize that's what he's doing, the stakes are really high. And actually the authority of his apostleship, a very unique role, despite what that business card from that guy in the plane might have said. If we understand that how seriously you and I should take whatever we're going to encounter here in the book of Galatians is hitched, joined at the hip to the credibility of Paul's claim of being an apostle, once we understand that, we realize this question it really is pretty important, even though we're only three words into the thing at this point. So more on Paul's apostleship, this controversy, and how he tackles it in other parts of the New Testament next time around. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'm Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.
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