Consider the Source (3)

Galatians 1:11-12

Dear Friends in Christ,

Consider the source. That’s a statement that can have two completely opposite meanings. If you are a little skeptical of what someone is telling you, you might ask them where they got their information. If the source of the information is known to be biased or untrustworthy, for example one of the tabloids, you might respond, “consider the source!” On the other hand, if the source of the information is known to be honest and trustworthy, like God, the other person might say to you, “Consider the source!”

This was the situation with Paul and the false teachers in Galatia. They had come to the churches in Galatia where Paul had taught salvation by grace alone through faith. They didn’t believe that salvation was by grace alone. They were trying to teach another way of salvation that included the keeping of the Old Testament laws. As you might imagine, the members of the churches in Galatia were confused. Paul had come to them claiming to be an Apostle. He preached salvation by grace alone. He taught that the Gentiles did not have to become Jews first in order to be saved. Then here came these teachers who claimed to come from Jerusalem, who claimed to have received their teaching from men like Peter, James, and John. They taught that the gentiles did have to be circumcised and become Jews in order to be saved. Who was correct? Consider the source.

When the false teachers said, “consider the source,” they wanted to focus attention on Paul. They did all they could to try to discredit him. From what Paul says in verse ten, am I trying to please men, it would seem that one of the accusations they brought against Paul was that he would change his message to fit the audience. It seems that they were saying that he was like a politician, that he would tell people whatever they wanted to hear. Since the Gentiles certainly wouldn’t want to hear that they had to be circumcised and live like Jews if they wanted to be saved, Paul told them that they didn’t have to. “Besides, who was Paul anyway? He wasn’t one of the original Apostles. He wasn’t with Jesus during his ministry. In fact, he actively persecuted Christians and had a part in the stoning of Stephen. What he told you about Jesus was secondhand information, and you know what happens to information when it is passed on from one person to another, something always gets changed. Consider the source. Paul isn’t really an Apostle, and he has only secondhand information. Some of what he says is just made up. If your eternal salvation is in the balance, do you really think you can trust what Paul says?”

There are those still today who try to discredit Paul because they don’t like what he says. When Paul says that the husband is to be the head in the home, and that men are to have the leadership roles in the church, they don’t want to accept it. They say, “Paul wasn’t married. He must have had a bad experience with women, so he said these things just to get back at women.” “When he speaks about the sins of homosexuality and sexual immorality, he is just reflecting the attitudes of his day. He’s just repeating the old-fashioned ideas he had been taught. People are more enlightened today.”

When you don’t agree with someone, or you don’t want to accept what they are saying, you can say, “consider the source.” You can point to the person’s sins and shortcomings as a means of discrediting what they are saying. That’s what the false teachers in Galatia were trying to do to Paul. But Paul turns the argument around. He says, “consider the source,” but when he does, he is not pointing to the sins and shortcomings of those who were opposing him. When Paul says, “consider the source,” he is pointing to God.

In the very first words of his letter he wrote Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. In these verses he amplifies the point, I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Did Paul have his sins and shortcomings? He sure did. He calls himself the chief of sinners. He admits that he was an enemy of Jesus. He admits that he persecuted the church, that he was there at the stoning of Stephen giving his approval. No matter what anyone said, he was convinced that Jesus was a false prophet and that those who followed him should be wiped off the face of the earth. There was no one who could convince him otherwise. There was no human argument that could change his mind. He heard Stephen’s witness before the Sanhedrin. He heard Stephen pray for those who were stoning him. He heard what Stephen had said about seeing Jesus with God in heaven. Instead of making him a Christian, he just became all the more determined to get rid of Christianity. If, all on his own, Paul had come up with the message he had preached in Galatia, his detractors would have been correct. In fact, if he had gone to the Apostles and learned the message from them, they might still have an argument. He could have forgotten something or changed something around. But the source of what Paul taught was not his own ideas, nor was it something that he was taught by someone else. Paul makes very clear what the source of his teaching was. I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us in other places in his letters what happened. As he was on the road to Damascus with letters of introduction to the Jewish leaders there, on his way to arrest and imprison Christians, suddenly he was engulfed in bright light, and he fell to the ground. He heard a voice asking him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me. And when he inquired as to who was speaking to him, he was told, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Later, in his letter to the Corinthians, he talks about being caught up to the third heaven and receiving surpassing great revelations. He had been a devout Pharisee, a student of Gamaliel. At one time he would have agreed with the false teachers who had come to Galatia that you did have to keep the law in order to be saved. But God changed his mind. Jesus appeared to him and gave him the gospel message he had proclaimed. Paul says, “consider the source.” The source of the gospel I preach to you is Jesus himself.

In Catechism class we learned the fancy term, verbal inspiration. We learned that it meant that every word of the Bible is God’s word. We learned that, not just what Paul wrote in Galatians, but what Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, and Peter wrote, all has the same source, God. As Peter says, We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We weren’t the source; we didn’t make these things up. We didn’t come up with some goofy idea and see if God liked it. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain… Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

As you hear the Scripture readings in Church, as you study the Bible on your own, and you hear things that you don’t like, consider the source. When a Bible passage talks about greed, or selfishness, or impure thoughts, and you see yourself condemned in the mirror of God’s law, consider the source. When the Bible talks about Jesus as the only way to salvation, or about roles of men and women, or how we are not to separate what God has joined together in marriage, consider the source. These are not the ideas of “the church” or “the Synod.” These are not just man-made rules that can change with the times. God said these things and only he can change them. We don’t have the right to ignore them just because we don’t like what he says or because we think what he says is old-fashioned. Consider the source. These are the words of God, not of men.

But most importantly, when you hear the wonderful promises of Scripture, consider the source. The Bible says that whoever believes in Jesus has, has right now, eternal life. It says that the just shall live by faith. It says that we are saved by grace through faith. It says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It says that God is at work in everything that happens making sure that it serves our eternal good. It says that Jesus is with us always to the very end of the age. It says that Jesus is going to come again, and he is going to raise all the dead and give all who believe in him glorified bodies so that we can live in the presence of God forever. Whenever you are down, whenever you are tempted to doubt, review these promises and consider the source. Each one of these promises, and any other promise contained in the Bible, is completely trustworthy because God is the source. It’s his word, not the word of man.

When the false teachers of Galatia tried to discredit Paul, he answered them. He wanted the Galatians to know that what he taught and what these men from Jerusalem taught were not just different opinions or interpretations. He wanted the Galatians, and us, to know that what he taught them was what he had received directly from God. So, if these teachers who had come to them after he left for Greece were teaching something different than what Paul taught, consider the source. What they taught was not from God. If it wasn’t from God, it was untrustworthy and dangerous.

Whenever you hear someone trying to discredit something from one of Paul’s letters because it pricks their conscience, or because it seems old-fashioned, remind them to consider the source. Paul claimed that he got what he taught from God. Like the rest of Scripture, it’s either God’s word or it’s not. If you say it’s man’s word and you want to pick and choose what you like and don’t like, you lose everything. You might as well spend your time reading novels or Tabloids and forget about the Bible because it would be just as untrustworthy as anything else man writes. God is the source of what Paul, and the other writers of the Bible wrote. That makes the Bible God’s inerrant word. That makes the Bible trustworthy, the only place where you can find peace and hope in Jesus. As you read Galatians, as you read the Bible, consider the source.