Imagine it is 48AD and you are a farmer in what is now modern day Turkey. Your family has lived there and worked the land for generations. One day you are going to worship Zeus, the god of your ancestors in hopes that he will send rain on your land so your crops will grow. He is the “rain-giver” after all. You’ve done your ritualistic washings, you have your robe on without a belt – which is what the priest requires. You have your barley offering and are walking on your way to the small temple just outside the city where the act will take place. As your sandals are crunching the gravel of the road, you see the temple in the distance. The limestone altar to Zeus is prominently out front with the bearded god holding a lightning bolt. To the side you son Hermes is off to the side with images of Roman gods, and then Zeus’s son Hermes all with their own small altars and statues.
But just then you see also a crowd forming away from the temple inside the city. Everyone seems quite excited and more people are gathering. You start to hear shouts in your Lycaonian language that make you nearly drop your basket of barley: “The gods have come down! The gods have come down to us! Zeus and Hermes! Zeus and Hermes!” In all the excitement you see two men everyone is pointing to as the cause of all the excitement. You start jogging to hurry there and finally you ask someone what is going on. They tell you, “The gods have come down to us as men. Look, there is Zeus and there is Hermes!” The two men do not look happy about what was happening. They kept trying to talk but the excited crowd wouldn’t listen Just then, coming from the temple of Zeus just outside the city, the priest was hurrying on his way to the crowd – himself full of exuberance. Behind him some servants were leading bulls to offer as sacrifices to the two gods who had come down as men.
But Zeus and Hermes were not their names. Their real names were Paul and Barnabas. They were Jews from Israel and they had come to the city not as Zeus, but in the name of Jesus Christ.
This story launches us into our study of the book of Galatians. Interestingly, we aren’t going to Galatians today. We are going to Acts 13 and 14 so that we can see the history behind the letter. In these chapters we learn a lot of the context surrounding the letter and its purpose.
GETTING TO GALATIA
To get the Gospel into Galatia lets quickly review what’s happening historically. Jesus was raised from the dead and went back into heaven. The early believers were growing into the thousands inside Jerusalem. Then persecution broke out and the believers spread out and left Jerusalem. And wherever they went more people believed in Jesus and were saved.
Meanwhile, this guy named Saul was a Jewish Pharisee and he was very energetic in his persecution of the Church. One day he is confronted by Jesus personally and converts to Christianity. After a number of years he is ministering with others in Antioch, which is way up north of Jerusalem. In Acts 13 it says the Holy Spirit called Saul (now called Paul) to go out and preach the Gospel. This is his first missionary journey. So Paul and his co-missionary Barnabus sail to the island of Cyprus preaching the gospel there. Then they sail up to the mainland of Asia Minor, and begin heading north preaching from one city to the next.
Paul and Barnabus finally enter Galatia and in every city the same pattern takes place: they preach in Jewish synagogues – they win Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ – but Jewish and Gentile leaders conspire against Paul and Barnabus – and they flee to the next town – leaving behind the brand new believers they had won to Christ. This happens in the cities of Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13), then Iconium (Acts 14:1-7), and then Lystra and Derbe (14:8-21). These are the first cities in Galatia to hear and believe the Gospel. These will be the churches that will later receive the letter Paul writes to them – the letter we know as “Galatians.”
What can we learn?
First, the STRATEGY of the Holy Spirit. These cities were much more populated and connected than the rural areas surrounding them and in the northern Galatian areas. So logistically, the Apostles would be getting more ministry per square mile you might say. More people in one place increases the number of people you can minister to in one place. Also, being well connected with Roman roads these cities meant believers would travel easier and thus carry the Gospel to other places much easier.
Second, Paul ministered with the rule “THE JEWS FIRST.” What that means is he went FIRST to the Jews with the Gospel. Look at 13:5 (Cyprus) and 14 (Pisidian Antioch) and 14:1 (Iconium). In Lystra and Derbe there was no Jewish synagogue so Paul went right to the pagan Gentiles there. But the rule was wherever there were Jews he would go to them first to give them the chance to hear and receive the Gospel. Paul explained this in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believers – FIRST TO THE JEW, then to the Gentile. Paul would say the Jew is first for salvation and also first for judgment in Romans 2:9 (turn there and read….)
So remember that Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Gal 1:16; 2:9). The arc of his whole career would be preaching to the Gentiles. But everywhere there were Jews his rule was to go to them first. If they rejected the Gospel and persecuted him he would turn to the Gentiles, as he did in Pisidian Antioch. Look at 13:44-46…..
We see that in 2 of the 4 cities he visited in Galatia there was a significant Jewish presence, with not only thriving synagogues that had converted many Gentiles to the Jewish faith, but those Jewish leaders were very influential with powerful Gentiles in their cities – as we’ll see shortly.
Thirdly, both Jews and Gentiles believed. Look at 13:26, 43, 48; 14:1, 27. Paul was reaching many Jews in the synagogues. He was also reaching many Gentiles within those same synagogues. If you were a Gentile who went to the Jewish synagogue you were either a “God-fearing” Gentile, or you were a full convert to Judaism. A God-fearer was not “all-in.” They went to synagogue, followed the moral commands, prayed, honored God, and so on. But they didn’t get circumcised and go full-on Torah keeping Cornelius (Acts 10) and Lydia (Acts 16) are two examples of God-fearing Gentiles. They were very respected by the Jewish community but were not considered a part of the community.
But then there were Gentiles who went all in and became full converts to Judaism – circumcision, ritual washings, full law-keeping.
The reason this point is important is because later when Paul writes the letter to the Galatians he is not merely addressing Jews or Gentiles – but both. Jews believed the Gospel. Gentiles who worshipped with the Jews believed the Gospel. This was going to bring up issues that needed to be resolved: what relationship now did Jews have to the law of Moses? What relationship with the law of Moses would the Gentile believers have? Was there still any obligation to follow the law of Moses for either group? Was faith in Jesus AND following the law of Moses required to be justified before God? Short answer: No. Paul nearly died to tell them this. Look at Acts 13:38-39….READ
Fourthly, both Jews & Gentiles rejected Paul and persecuted him. Look at what happened in the first city they preached in in Galatia Pisidian Antiochin 13:44-45 and 49-51….then in Iconium 14:2, 5, and finally in Lystra 19).
What’s happening specifically in Galatia is that the Jewish leaders in these cities who rejected the Gospel would get the Gentiles all stirred up against Paul and then get them to agree to conspire to kill Paul. These Jewish leaders were so energized in their hatred that they would even leave their cities and follow Paul and cause trouble for him there. This happened in Lystra where Jews travelled all the way from Antioch and Iconium to a place where there were no Jews to help agitate the pagan Gentiles against Paul.
Here’s the thing: it wasn’t just Paul who would suffer persecution at the hands of these Jews and Gentiles. After Paul left, he left behind both Jewish and Gentile believers who ended up facing tremendous pressure by those Jews and Gentiles who did not believe the Gospel.
Which is why when we see Paul coming back through their cities to urge them to stay strong in the faith no matter what they face. For instance, look at 14:21-22…
Here you see Paul gets the the last city of his missionary journey, then turns around and retraces his steps in reverse and going back through all the Galatian cities he just came through. So all those believers in each of the four cities were going to get to see him for the second time. When he sees them what does he tell them? “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” He doesn’t say, “I must go through…” He says, “WE must go through…”
Paul was not telling them anything he himself had not done. Paul was willing to to face death to bring the Gospel to everyone. Let me point out two things about this:
- Serving Christ will demand courage. Paul had courage. When they left him for dead in Lystra thinking they had successfully stoned him to death, but they didn’t check his pulse and he ended up surviving – what did he do as soon as he stood up? He went right back into the very city they had just stoned him in. He probably passed some bloody stones they had used on him. That’s some serious courage. But that’s not it – after Lystra he went to Derbe, and then he turned right back around and went back through the very cities he had just been chased out of! Serving Christ – or just standing with Him for that matter – requires courage, and a readiness to die doing it.
APPLICATION: Stay courageous EFC and stand firm in the faith. No matter what pressure or what persecution comes, let each of us have courage to stand firm. One key to having courage is actually something Paul said in Galatians 1:10, “….read….” The question is who do we serve? God will test this in us.
- Fruit comes from fire. So Paul was thrown out of Antioch, almost murdered in Iconium, and stoned nearly to death in Lystra (14:19-20). But you know what? In each one of those cities that had NEVER heard of this Jesus, there were now devoted believers who had received eternal life. I especially love how the Lystra-Derbe episode displays this “fruit from fire” idea. Paul is stoned in Lystra, survives, then goes to Derbe, and what happens? It says in 14:21 that he “won a huge number of disciples.”
APPLICATION: Stand firm in the midst of fire and know that God is going to bring forth great fruit from it. What would Paul say in Romans 8:18, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Suffering for Christ is suffering with Christ – which is an aspect of fellowship with Him, “But rejoice in asmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” says 1 Peter 4:13. Stand firm EFC in the fire and fruit is going to come.
CONCLUSION:
The book of Galatians is going to be a rich study focusing on the Gospel, where we stress the teaching of justification by faith. The Galatians heard and believed this message from Paul’s very own lips. Acts 13:38-39…READ…..But since he left they were being thrown into confusion by Judaizers over the Law of Moses. We are going to learn in the book of Galatians what it means to be counted righteous before God, about faith and only faith being the way to righteousness, and that the law is not only not required for salvation, but it is also not required for sanctification and spiritual growing and maturing, we will see the role of the Spirit and the life we live in the Spirit, and the relationship of our flesh with the law and with the Spirit, and all sorts of biblical history that all of Paul’s teachings ties in with – from Abraham to Sarah and Hagar to Moses to Mount Sinai to spiritual-religious slavery to spiritual freedom in Christ to so much more.
Paul preached the Gospel in Galatia, and today we preach the Gospel in Spring Lake. Just like Paul called people to believe in Jesus Christ we are calling you today to believe in Him as well. The same Jesus he preached, we preach. And the same salvation offered (and taken!) back then is still offered today. Will you take it?! If you want to talk come up to me after the service and we can talk – I will be up front here.