Galatians 1:1-5 - History, Foundations, Life Together

Listen along as we begin our series through the book of Galatians.

Notes//Quotes:

Galatians 1:1-5 - Larry and Jorgen Reading

Galatians 1:1-5

Acts 15:6-11
Acts 15:19-21

“Paul was against the legalism of the Judaizers because it usurped the work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit and forced all converts to become Jews. It was not what was done that rankled Paul; it was why these things were done that produced his quick reaction. The system is one of “addition by subtraction”— adding to the gospel by subtracting the sufficiency of Christ and the Spirit.” - Scot McKnight

“Paul was preaching—and this is what the letter to the Galatians is all about—that whenever anyone believes in the crucified Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and the risen Lord, that is already a sign that such a person is part of God’s true people, no matter what the person’s ethnic or moral background may be. New believers from a gentile background, Paul taught, were full members of God’s people without the demand for circumcision. Nor did they need the other regular signs of Jewish identity, the Sabbath and the food laws.” - NT Wright

”In this short letter, Paul outlines the bombshell truth that the gospel is the A to Z of the Christian life. It is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live as part of the kingdom. It is the way Christ transforms people, churches and communities. We’re going to hear him solving their issues not through telling them to “be better Christians”, but by calling them to live out the implications of the gospel. Paul will explain to us that the truths of the gospel changes life from top to bottom; that they transform our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything. The gospel—the message that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope—creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth, for obedience, for love.” - Tim Keller, Galatians For You

1 Cor 3:10-15 

“The church is a community that exists because something has happened that makes the entire process of self-justification irrelevant. God’s truth and mercy have appeared in concrete form in Jesus and, in his death and resurrection, have worked the transformation that only God can perform, told us what only God can tell us: that he has already dealt with the dreaded consequences of our failure, so that we need not labor anxiously to save ourselves and put ourselves right with God.” - Rowan Williams

Values Graphic

“As a country we are turning away from religion, from community involvement, from patriotism, from marriage, from having children. We are turning toward money, toward work, toward politicizing everything, toward fewer interactions with people, toward more time online. How are our choices working for us? We are becoming less happy, more stressed, more depressed.” - Maxwell Anderson

They call it radical individualism. What this amounts to is simple enough. We in America have been socialized to believe that our own dreams, goals, and personal fulfillment ought to take precedence over the well-being of any group—our church or our family, for example—to which we belong. The immediate needs of the individual are more important than the long-term health of the group. So we leave and withdraw, rather than stay and grow up, when the going gets rough in the church or in the home. - Joseph Hellerman 

All earthly cities are vulnerable. Men build them and men destroy them. At the same time there is the City of God which men did not build and cannot destroy and which is everlasting. - Augustine