Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: In the preceding verses, Paul spoke of the enormous love and devotion the early Galatian converts showed to him and to each other. Now, he has gotten word — we don’t know exactly how — that they have turned away from the gospel he taught them, and have begun to listen to the gospel of Judaizers - people who preach that, to be saved by Christ, the Galatians must follow the Law of Moses. In this section, Paul takes it personally. He appears to abandon logic and to appeal, instead, to their feelings. As Diana Ross might have put it, “Baby, where did our love go?” Jesus playing as a boy Jesus playing as a boy. But unlike the Supremes’ song, Paul’s appeal is not purely emotional, for Christian love is not simply an emotion. Love of one another is a commandment of Christ. It is obedient and spiritual. (John 13:34-35) Thus when Paul raises the question, “Why do you not love me as before?” he puts the Galatians in a logical bind. Have they abandoned Christ’s commandment of love as part of their new beliefs? And then he asks one of the great, penetrating, and eternal questions of Christianity: Why do we hate those who tell the truth? One major obstacle to the growth of Christian faith is our innate tendency to confuse popularity with truth. First, we tend to believe people we like — people who have charisma. We often listen to the person more than to the message. Second, we tend to think that the majority is correct. This is a natural herd instinct that has become even more powerful recently, with the advent of democracy as a political ethic. Third, by our nature, we attempt to impose the values of secular society on the Bible; if we think something is “right”, we assume that we will find it in the Bible. But this is a poison cocktail. Charisma is not a guide to the truth; the truth cannot be changed by majority opinion; and democracy is not a Biblical value. We might value democracy, especially in its pure sense as a form of government, but it is an ethical issue only in the secular arena of politics, which has almost nothing to do with God. How we personally treat other people, on the other hand, is a fundamental Biblical value. God enjoins us to compassion, love, humility, and forgiveness. But we must never confuse the realm of earthly power, where popularity reigns supreme, with the realm of ultimate power, where truth reigns — no matter how unpopular it be. Where in the Bible do we see this? The first person who comes to mind is Noah. One man, on the entire earth, was right about the most basic issue in life. He was outvoted 10,000,000 to 1. On a ballot, he would seem like one of those nut-cases who writes in his own name in a presidential election. But the one was right, and the millions were wrong, and look at what happened: God destroyed the entire population of earth and only Noah, the apparent nut-case, survived. Paul asks, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” We learn, in life, not to speak the truth in some situations because people will hate us for it. People would rather hear a comforting lie than a difficult truth. And, this is fine and good, if the difficult truth is that the person has an ugly face, or was born with a mental defect, or is wearing ugly clothes. If God is Your Copilot, Switch Seats But the truth about Christ is not a matter of social nicety; it is a matter of eternal life or death. Our treatment of God’s Word as if it a) must not offend anyone, and b) is subject to popular referendum, puts us in precisely the shoes of Noah’s fellow citizens. Why have so many people and so many churches fallen prey to “liberal theology” movements? Exactly because they fail to realize the fixed, eternal, and undeniable nature of God’s Word. (Note that we are not taking sides in political issues, for “conservative” and “liberal” churches make the same terrible mistakes, of seeking to co-opt Christ into a political party. And “conservative” theologians, while paying lip service to the eternity of God’s Word, are just as capable of ignoring Bible passages they don’t like.) These are the first matters taken up in the Psalms, for we see them in Psalms 1 and 2. “The kings of the earth take their stand/ And the rulers take counsel together/ Against the Lord and against His Anointed . . . .” (Ps. 2:2) We cannot change the world. God will work His purpose out, whatever we do. We can spread the Gospel — we are commanded to spread the Gospel — but we cannot force others to change. We cannot make anyone accept Christ. We can only change ourselves. We can strive, every day, to a clearer understanding of what the Bible tells us. And every one of us must try to listen to those who tell us things we do not want to hear, and test their words against Scripture rather than our own ideas. We should at least consider that they might be right.