Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - May 23, 2021

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Galatians 5:1-15.

We have all heard the saying, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.”  What exactly does that mean?  Sometimes we try to cover all of the bases.  When I started to dating Jackie, I had a ‘39 Plymouth which had a will of it’s own.  If it didn’t want to go, and it often didn’t and that could happen anywhere, at any time. I could be up the stream without a paddle.  So, I always had to have a contingency plan if it decided not to start after our date.  I have to admit that sometimes I didn’t mind it’s reluctance to start because I could have more time parked in front of Jackie's house drawing upon her sympathy because I was a lonely stranded guy.  Now, if I had enough money left from the date, which didn’t happen usually, I could take the bus home or if I was flat broke, which was generally the case, I could hitch hike home.  Now I wasn’t broke because Jackie forced me to be a big spender.  Even years later, she would tell people that when we went to Burrows after a big date down to the Loews movie theater, she was always advised that she could have fries or a fudge Sundae but she couldn’t have both.  Leaving the car at Jackie's house for the night, I hitched hiked home.  The next day, my brother and I would return to Jackie’s house and old Black Beauty, that was the name of my car, and we got it started and drove it home. 

All of this happened because I put all my eggs in Black Beauty and they all broke.  I could have played it safe and have driven the family car - a chartreuse and black Kaiser hand painted those colors by my Dad.  I had confidence in our relationship, but I couldn't risk Jackie gasping as she took in a hand painted chartreuse and black Kaiser just before she slammed the door in my face. 

Well, today’s study deals with the people in Galatia trying not to put all of their religious eggs in one basket.  “Hey, I believe in Jesus, but, what is it going to hurt if I cover all the bases and do a little bit of the law too?  I mean, if it will make me one of the guys,  Is that so bad?  These Jewish Christians are always on my back to at least show that I acknowledge that there is some merit in knowing the law.”  Have you ever went along with peer pressure?  There is good peer pressure and bad peer pressure.  Peer pressure makes us act in a civil way to each other.  It makes us accept society’s view of what’s normal and what isn’t. Then there is the dumb or bad peer pressure.  People around us influence our thinking, our actions, our ethics and sometimes even our deeply held beliefs.  And this is really so for teenagers.  Teen fads are all about peer pressure.  I remember in high school, some of the more cool guys thought that it would be neat if the guys wore one blue sock and one red sock.  So they wearing one blue sock and one red sock.   Within a few weeks we were all wearing one blue sock and one red sock - to this day I still don’t know the reasoning behind it.  I expect it was a way of identifying the cool guys.  What fads did you go along with?

We can’t say if the problem in Galatia dealt with Gentiles who were just going along to get along or whether they were trying to insure that if Jesus’ promise didn’t pan out, they could fall back on the law.  Regardless, Paul let them know on which side of the fence he stood.

Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.  2 Listen!  I, Paul, am telling you that if you let you self be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.  3 Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.  4 You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourself off from Christ ; you have fallen away from grace.  5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.  6 For Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

If you wanted to summarize Paul’s letter to the Galatians it would be found in 5:1, “For freedom, Christ has set us free.”  This is Paul’s motto for the Galatian churches.  And if they followed this motto then they wouldn’t submit to the yoke of slavery.  What is a yoke?  It couples oxen or horses to a plow in order to plant and take care of crops.  That sounds like a pretty positive thing to me.  So why does Paul speak of a yoke in such negative terms?  While it might prove to be of benefit to men, it wasn’t so hot for the animals.  For them it was a burden that they had to bear.  In that sense, Paul is telling the Galatians that the law is a burden for them.

But when Paul used this phrase, he was probably talking about how the Romans treated a conquered people.  In his day the Romans would parade those people through the town with a yoke on their necks.  This was to let everybody know that these people were no longer free but slaves to their Roman masters.  Using this image, Paul was saying that trying to get salvation through the law was confessing to being a defeated people.

We all live by rules, some we like and some we don’t like.  What are rules that you live by that you don’t like?  Income taxes.  What would happen if you choose not to live by that rule?  Pay a fine and maybe go to jail. So, in a real sense, to live by rules make us slaves to the rules.  Did you develop the tax code?  No, others did.  And that is the thing about rules - others make the rules and then we are forced to live by them.

While we have to live by rules, we also live by principals.  Principals are those things that define our life style.  What makes up our principals?  Our attitudes, our goals, our ambitions - all of the positive things in our life.  Our principals anchor our hopes and dreams.  They frame and define our very character.  So while rules are pushed on us by others, principals are guidelines for our life that we impose on ourselves.

The freedom that Christ gives us is to develop this principled life along God’s plan for us.  Used this way, the Commandments aren’t rules for our life, but guidelines for the principles governing our life.  What that means is that the Commandments aren’t something we have to do, but, something we want to do.  Then our lives will be raised to a higher level because our conduct will reflect our desire to please Christ - not to please ourselves or any other people or organization.

Circumcision was important in Paul’s eyes, not for the physical act but because it represented the law.  It was the badge of the law.  When you see a police badge, it represents civil authority.  When you see a red cross pin it represents caring for people in need.  When you get on an air plane, you sure want to know that the guy behind the controls has a set of wings pinned to his uniform.  Badges identify the person to us.  And this will apply to religion too.  If a person is wearing a crucifix with Christ on the cross, the person is probably Roman Catholic.  A plain cross is usually worn by a Protestant.  The badge itself is a testimony as to who you are and what we believe.  Paul says if you claim to be a Christian and also wear the badge of the law, circumcision, then you are not testifying for Christ but for the law.  

It is like an episode on the Beverly Hillbillies where Granny had a secret formula to cure the common cold.  She testified that it worked 100% of the time.  Now Milburn Drysdale saw an opportunity to cash in on Granny’s formula so he quizzed her about how it should be taken and such.  Well, Granny said that it should be taken twice a day and then go to bed for two weeks, drink lots of liquids and get lots of rest.  This bummed out Drysdale because he realized, like the rest of us, that anyone who went to bed for two weeks, drank lots of liquids and rested would probably beat the cold whether they drank any of Granny’s formula or not.  So the question of whether the formula worked or not was compromised by other things that could have cured the person.  Paul says that if you are trying to wear both the badge of Christ and the badge of the law, then the truth of your salvation hopes is compromised.  The minute you add the law to Christ, you no longer have your faith solely in Christ.  So, this addition would minimize the authority of Jesus Christ and Paul won’t stand for that.

For those Gentiles who said, “Well, I’m going to follow only the big things in the law but I’m not going to follow all of those annoying small bits of the law.  I’m still going to eat ham biscuits and crab cakes.”  Paul tells them they can’t pick and choose.  As far as the law goes, it is the law’s way or the highway.  When you accept a little bit of the law, you accept the whole law.  There is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant.  Remember that hamburger commercial several years ago where the guy moaned, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”  When you accept the law for salvation then you eat the whole thing.  And that's a lot more than you intended.

Remember we said that in Christ we are raised to a higher level.  That higher level is brought about by grace.  To revert to a lower level is to fall from grace.  There are two mighty works of God acting in our lives.  (1) Salvation and (2) Sanctification.  Salvation is justification through grace and sanctification is, after being saved, raising our life style to a higher level.  It is during this sanctification phase that the world sees our Christian witness.  The world isn’t going to see how many times you go to church or how often you pray, but, it will see how you live your life - what values you hold as important.  Rather than trying to be good, we should be trying to live good.  Because when we are truly pleasing to Christ, we will be living good.

No law or legal system can produce the Christian lifestyle.  The way to the Christian lifestyle is faith working through love.  The love of God brings each of us before Him cloaked in righteousness.  The law can’t do that.  Paul tells the Galatians that they have a clear choice here.  They must look for righteousness through faith or righteousness by the works of the law.  If they choose the works of the law, then they are turning their backs on God, because they are saying that they control their righteousness and not God.  That by their hard work in following the law, they will be saved.  God becomes irrelevant.  His gift of salvation is returned unopened.  What Paul wants them to understand is that righteousness before God depends on God and not us.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth?  8 Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  9 A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.  10 I am confident  about you in the Lord that you  will not think otherwise.  But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty.  11 But my friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision? In that case the offence of the cross has been removed.  12 I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves! 

Paul knows that he is really hitting them hard so he feels compelled to give them a little encouragement.  He tells them that he knew that they were “running well” - they were on the right track.  But someone or some people had derailed them.  He put it in the past tense which is saying that things have changed now and you not only aren’t running well but have fallen down flat on your face.  "Who ever it was who talked you into this, has really messed you up."  Paul assures them that no matter how smooth those people talked, what they said did not originate with God.  Paul characterized these people as the little bit of yeast that leavens the dough.  He could just as easy have said they were the rotten apples that spoiled the barrel.

Paul knew that Jews equated leaven with evil.  So a little leaven, a little evil, a little sin, produces a sinful life.  But, how do we know we sin?  The law defines sin and condemns us immediately.  It would be comforting if we could think that the leaven that Paul is talking about was only in the churches in Galatia some two thousand years ago.  But that little bit of leaven is still creeping into the church today.  The new laws, the ones that are needed because faith in Christ alone isn’t enough, find their form in the amount of water for baptism, speaking in tongues, gender awareness, and even in being embarrassed about saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.  You see, leaven is added to the gospel today so that it will seem more tasty to those who love their sin and want to remove condemnation of that sin from society.

Paul is sure that eventually the Galatians will come to their senses and reject the Judaizers.  He doesn’t name the Judaizers but these are the people filling the Galatians with this perverted Gospel.  Some of these Judaizers are confusing the Galatians by telling them that Paul is preaching to them that they do not need to be circumcised while telling the Jews that circumcision is necessary.   Paul asks for them to look at what is happening.  If he, Paul, was really preaching that circumcision was needed, would the Judaizers be following him around making trouble for him?  He would be on their team and they would be applauding his efforts.  Instead of chasing him out of town, they would be carrying him through the town on their shoulders.

The Gospel was and still is an offense to the world.  The world tries to add something to it to make it less offensive.  When you were a child, did you ever have to take a medicine that really tasted bad?  What did your Mom do?  I remember having to take Phillip’s Milk of Magnesia.  I think my grandmother must have bought it by the gallon.  It was a chalky thick mixture that no matter how hard you tried to swallow, it seemed to want to stay coating your mouth and tongue.  My grandmother would mix it with some orange juice which just made me hate orange juice.  The orange juice was used to make the milk of magnesia less offensive.  The world wants to make the Gospel a little more palatable so a little orange juice is added.  The Judaizers idea for improving the taste was to add circumcision.  

Why does the world find the cross so offensive?  (1) Morality - the cross says that sins are to be rejected and not enjoyed; (2) Philosophy - the cross says you have to depend on faith - a faith that sometimes isn’t reasonable and might not be found in college text books; (3) Social Position - the cross says that the rich and the poor are treated the same so money doesn’t buy salvation; (4) Pride - the cross says that I don’t control my destiny, it is in the hands of an unseen God; (5) Self esteem - the cross says that I am a sinner so I’m not so great as I thought after all; (6) Pleasure - the cross says that our actions should please Christ and that I can’t live by the credo that if it feels good I should do it.  Folks, if the cross is an offense, then we are in big trouble if the organized church hides Christ just so that it will be loved by CNN and the New York Times.

Then Paul puts his feelings right on the table and tells them what he wishes.  What does Paul wish for? That the guys who are upsetting them about circumcision wouldn’t stop there but keep cutting and castrate themselves.  "What did you just say?", you ask.  That doesn’t sound like Paul - to say something like that right out of the blue.  Should something like this even be discussed in polite society? 

Well, you have understand what Paul is getting at.  Phrygia was a region close to Galatia and the largest heathen worship in the area was for the goddess Cybelle who was also the mother of Juno, Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune.  With kids like that, she could hardly wait for Mother's Day. Now it was the practice among the priests and devoted followers of Cybelle, that they would castrate themselves.  Folks, I am amazed that she had any followers at all with an initiation like that.  What Paul is telling the Galatians, who knew about Cybelle and her priests, was, “If you are going to reject Christ, of which circumcision is just the beginning, then you just as well take it a step further and really become alienated from God by becoming a fullfledge follower of Cybelle by castrating yourselves like the priests in Cybelle’s temple.”  This kind of talk may be shocking to us today, but, to the Christians in Galatia, it really drove the point home.  Paul is saying that once you add one thing to salvation like circumcision, then it won’t be long before something else is added and before long, the Gospel will get so changed that it won’t be able to save anyone.

Hasn’t that been what we have seen over the last fifty years?  Hymns that have lifted us for centuries suddenly have their words changed so God is a Mother and Father, where “man” is replaced by “people” and even “Amen” which  means "So be it" is removed as a benediction for the hymns because it wasn't in the original sheet music.  Besides "Amen" sounds too masculine.  Our churches are ashamed to witness to the saving grace offered by God through Jesus Christ for fear that a Hindu or Muslim will be offended.  I even had a member of our Presbytery tell me that to refer to the lost in our neighborhood would be offensive because we would be saying that we are judging people who we have not met or some stupid reason like that.  Forget that scripture and hymns encourage us to bring the Gospel to the lost of every generation.  These are the people who Paul suggests should mutilate themselves.  Paul said it, not me.

Galatians 5: 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.  14 For the whole law is sunned up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Paul wants to make sure that there is no misunderstanding about our freedom.  Some would say that since we have been freed from the law, that means that we can do anything we want and God will stand by his word and save us.  Haven’t you heard people say that since God is love, he wouldn’t be mean enough to condemn anyone to hell?  Those people will tell you that there is no hell because the God they worship is an indulgent father who forgives anything we do.  Well, folks, their own words define the problem we have with them concerning God.  The “God” they worship isn’t the same God we worship.  And we can thank God for that because ours is the true God.  

So what is this freedom that we have?  We have grace and it is grace not the law that frees us from doing wrong and encourages us to do right.  As a Christian we desire to please God not because he has a whip and forces us like an ox under the burden of a yoke and not because we fear him and don’t want to make him mad.  You see there is a difference here.  We love God.  We fear an enemy but God is not our enemy because an enemy doesn’t love us, but, God loves us so much that he sacrificed his son for us.  We are children of God and want to please our Father.  So it is all wrapped up in loving and pleasing God.  Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  And then he said that the greatest of the commandments was to love your neighbor as yourself.  This means to obey with love.  The law is to obey with fear.  Grace is positive and the law is negative.  Remember you're a good person under the civil law by what you don’t do.  You don’t steal, you don’t murder, you don’t beat up somebody - all negative things.  We are Christians for positive reasons, because we do something.  We accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and, folks, that is mighty positive.

 The bottom line is that we have the freedom not to do evil not the freedom to do evil.  A big part of that freedom not to do evil will rest in the way we treat those we come in contact with.  If our freedom allowed us to do evil then others will be hurt by our actions.  But if our freedom deals with not doing evil then we fulfill what Paul summed up as the whole law in the single commandment to love your neighbors.

So, should we put all of our eggs in one basket?  Paul tells the churches in Galatia if Jesus Christ is the basket, then they and we don’t dare bring in another basket.

Prayer: Father, of those we love and those we have difficulty loving, move us today to exercise the freedom we have in Christ by loving even the unlovely.  Amen