01 Galatians 1:1-10 Whose voice should you listen to?

Speaker: This is Wednesday in the Word, a women's ministry of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today is September 7th, 2011. Our passage is Galatians chapter 1, verses 1 through 10, and our teacher is Krisan Marotta. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Krisan Marotta, and my husband's an elder here at Trinity. I volunteer leading the women's ministry team and teaching here. We've been married coming up on 30 years. We have two children that are basically grown. Our son graduated from film school last year and is now in California trying to starving basically. Trying to make it as a film editor. And then our daughter's a third year at UVA. We each run uh businesses and we both love to teach the Bible. And I love Wednesday in the Word. I started coming when I was pregnant with that college student now. So I think, of course, objectively, that this is the best Bible study in Charleston. So, objectively speaking, of course. So, anyway, thank you for coming and um giving me the chance to be part of it. So we are going to jump right in. Uh, this summer I ran across two health and fitness stories that caught my attention. And I like to read the health and fitness news. I don't always follow it, but I like to read it. But I found these two studies. The first one said, if you exercised, well, let me say, even if you exercise an hour a day, but you sat too much the rest of the day, you got no health benefit for it. Like, I have a death job. That was really depressing. But then I ran across a study that said, if you exercise as little as 15 minutes a day, you can dramatically improve your health and fitness no matter what you do the rest of the day. Okay, how are both of those true? One says an hour a day is useless if you sit too much, the other says 15 minutes a day is great no matter what you do. So, how can both of those studies be true? So I found a third study that said if you want to live forever, just eat chocolate. That's the one. Seriously. And this one came out like two weeks ago. You can probably still find it if you Google it. But he said if you eat dark chocolate, you have a third less risk of heart disease and 30% decreased risk of stroke. So, in other words, chocolate consumption is just as good as five miles a day on the treadmill. Worked for me. So, you know, we we get bombarded with that kind of conflicting information every day. So all right, what's the current wisdom on how babies should sleep? Tummy, back, or side. What a on your back? See, now when my kids were little, tummy was the only way to go. Everybody said you have to put them to sleep on their tummy. And if you suggested otherwise, you were a rotten parent. So now it's what back? I think probably in between it was side. So I figure my kids are still alive. I did my job. So but if you I bet when you're my age, some of those of you have young moms, I bet you'll stand up there and go, oh, it's side now. You know, it's it just the world changes. So we live in this world where we get all these conflicting voices, and I don't know if you've noticed, the voices seem to get louder, more insistent, and more intrusive every day, and you can't escape them. You know, you get tweets and Facebook status updates and podcasts and email updates and blog posts, and you know, there's 24-7 news and talk radio, and and I bet the minute we go on break, a lot of you are going to open your smartphones and look to see if you have any emails, you know, or any text that came in while we were talking. So how do you know which voice to listen to? Which voice has authority? So when they conflict, so you know, is it health news, which study is right, or parenting news, what's what is best? How do you know which one to listen to? And those may be relative importance or not importance in your life, but what if the voices conflict over who God is and how do you know Him? Now we're talking serious stuff because we have to get that right. And different religions will tell you different things, but different denominations and even different voices within the same denomination. So which voice do you listen to out of the millions that are competing for your attention? That's one of the themes we're going to talk about this year. Because Paul's going to talk about what voice you listen to and speak clearly and definitively to that question. And he's going to say there's only one voice to listen to, and you listen to it above all other. It's the voice that gives you life, and that's the voice that speaks the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's a major theme of the book. So we're going to be studying Galatians between now and Christmas. And we're going to look today at chapter 1, verses 1 through 10. And Paul's going to introduce two major themes of the book. Actually, all three are going to be introduced in this. And he's going to return to these themes over and over. So here are the three themes. The first is his gospel, the second is his apostleship, and the third is freedom. So he's going to say, you need to listen to the voice that teaches the gospel. You can recognize the gospel by its source, its substance, and its result. And we're going to talk a lot about that over the next few weeks. He's going to say there's one voice, one gospel that never changes. You can recognize it by its source, its substance, and its result. Its substance is grace. Grace that is the free, unmerited favor of God because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he's going to argue strongly that any gospel that does not contain a cross is not a gospel. It's a false gospel. So it's so its substance is grace, and the grace based on the cross of Jesus Christ. Its source is divine revelation. Paul's going to argue very strongly that the gospel, the true gospel comes from God, as revealed by Jesus and his apostles. It does not come from man. No human invented it, no scholar decided what it was, or studied it, or thought it out. It comes as a revelation from God. So its substance is grace, its source is God, and its result is freedom. The gospel sets you free from sin, from perfectionism, from bondage to this world. So those three things are going to come up over and over again. Let me give you a little bit of background and then we're going to jump into the text itself. We spent the last two years, for those of you who have been with us in Wednesday in the Word, we were in the Old Testament studying the stories of Samuel and Saul and David. This book is different. We're in the New Testament. It's a letter, it's not a story. So it we approach it a little differently. We aren't looking for themes and characters, but we're looking for the flow of thought and the outline. So we can tell it's a letter by its form. In most cases, the practice today is you sign a letter, you sign an email at the end. But in the first century Roman world, you announced your name up front. So letters begin with the author's name. So typically it starts with an identity. Next, you identify who the people you are that are writing to, and then typically you give a word of blessing or praise, and then launch into the body of the letter. And that's what we're going to see in our section this morning. Paul's going to start with his name, who he's writing to, and then go right into his letter. Galatians is one of the earliest New Testament letters written. I think it's probably the earliest, but there's some dispute over that. So it was probably written around 49 AD, or approximately 15 years after the resurrection of Jesus. I think Paul wrote this letter from Corinth, and he was writing to the churches in the southern province of Galatia, the ones he visited during his second ministry journey. Now scholars disagree over that who exactly the Galatians were, and there's a big dispute or whether the churches in Northern Asia Minor or the churches in Southern Asia Minor. And as far as I can tell, those two viewpoints make very interesting reading, and they add lots and lots of pages to commentaries, but they don't make any difference at all. I mean, pick one or the other, it makes no difference in how you understand the letter, as far as I can see. So if you're familiar with the discussion, I favor the southern view that these were the churches of the southern province that Paul had visited during his second missionary journey, which is recorded in Acts 13 and 14. If you're not familiar with the debate, don't worry about it. It's really not that important. In terms of tone, this letter is probably the most argumentative letter in the New Testament. Paul pulls no punches, he curses his opponents, he reports without apology that he challenged Peter publicly to his face. He questions the sanity of his readers. He uses two very visceral images that Alu denies, and he very forcefully makes his point throughout this letter. He leaves no room for doubt and no room for sitting on the fence. He says essentially, choose which voice you're going to listen to, and there is only one right choice. That is the voice that teaches the gospel. Choose any other one and it's at your own peril. Now that's going to confront us a little bit because as we study Galatians this fall, we may be required to make choices. Maybe in areas where you don't want to make a choice. And Paul's not going to leave you the option of sitting on the fence. So if you're kind of living your life, kind of sampling the theological smorgasbord of, you know, a little of this, a little of that, never narrowing your choices, Paul's not going to leave that as an option. In fact, in the middle two chapters, in chapters three and four, he's going to make a series of arguments where he places two notions in opposition to each other. And all of them are in contradiction. It's the same dichotomy, but he uses different language to illustrate it. So he's going to say, choose between works of the law or hearing with faith. Choose between living in the spirit or living by the flesh. Choose between the blessing or the curse, the law, the promise, or sonship in slavery. And all of those dichotomies point basically to the same choice. He says there's religion that is man-made, and there's religion as God revealed it. And you choose you can't have both. You have to choose between them. So you can either live to please men or you can live to please God. You can get your sense of worth from what other people say or think about you or from what God says. You can try to gain the benefits by your own labor and your own works, or you choose grace that God offers you. And essentially he's going to say you can choose a false gospel that has no cross or the true gospel that centers on the cross of Jesus. In fact, we're going to start right off with one of those dichotomies. So if you um turn if you don't have a Bible, you can turn to page six of your handouts or your booklet, and that has the text today. We're going to look at Galatians 1, 1 through 10, or if you have a Bible, you can look there as well. I've given you the text in what I call an analytical outline, which is my absolute favorite study tool. And on the website, there are complete details instructions on how to do this, if you would like to learn. It's just a way of writing the text out so that you can see the relationship between the thoughts. So if you remember like in sixth grade English where you diagram sentences, you know, it's kind of that idea to try to help you. If you look at this and you go, this does not make any sense, just ignore it. It's just a study tool. If it helps you, that's great. If not, don't worry about it. So we're going to just walk through it in sections. We're going to start with one to two. So it starts out, Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. So he's starting as a typical letter. He identifies himself and his apostleship. He says there are brothers who are writing with him, and he's writing to the churches of Galatia. Now, an apostle was a special term, I think, in this sense. It's not, Paul is referring here to an office. So this is not a term that you would apply to every believer or any believer. An apostle is a special term reserved, at least in this context, for those who were given a specific, unique authority by Jesus after his resurrection. And Paul is claiming he has that authority. And notice he starts right out with one of our dichotomies. He says it's not, he's an apostle not from men or through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. And then in verse 3, he's going to say, Grace from God our Father. So he says, Where does my message come from? It comes through and from God, not through and from men. And we're going to see the importance of that as the letter unfolds, because most of the first two chapters, Paul's going to go on to defend that statement and prove you can trust what I say because of where this message comes from. It is trustworthy because it's from God. So essentially he's saying, look, I didn't rise up through the ranks to become an apostle. I didn't grow into this position by getting the right degrees or studying with the right scholars. I didn't, you know, apprentice and work my way up through the ranks. I was made an apostle by God the Father and Jesus Christ working together. They appointed me their emissary. I speak for them. And what I say in my apostolic ministry is true and you should listen to it. And it's authoritative. You can trust it because it comes through and from God, not from humans. So he's defending his authority so he can defend his message. And as we'll see as the letter unfolds, there were those in the church who were teaching a different gospel, and the Galatians were being mesmerized by that view. And Paul is going to defend the gospel he taught as the authentic true voice, the only one you should listen to. And he backs up that claim by saying he was given authority for Jesus or by Jesus. Now that actually is a debate that still rages today, because if you can go out and read blogs and books and listen to different uh scholars, and you'll find a lot of different gospels. And you and this claim is made frequently. People will say, well, you know, Paul, he was a first-century witness to Jesus, but we're modern witnesses to Jesus, and our witness is just as good as his. So that may have been Paul's view, but Paul was, you know, he's just a product of his rather backward, unenlightened culture. Our modern view, we're more sophisticated, we have more knowledge, we have increased understanding. So where we disagree with Paul, we just toss him out. As if we had equal authority with Paul to decide what is true and right. Now, that may sound silly to you, but that's a debate that's going on right now. I don't know if you've heard, you've probably heard about the controversy over megachurch pastor Rob Bell's book called Love Winds. One of the things he does in that book is separate the teaching of Jesus from the teaching of Paul. So it's a question that is happening today. If you're not familiar with the book, I'm going to read you this is a summary of it by Kevin DeYoung, who's a senior pastor at University Reformed Church in Michigan. I thought he had the best, most concise summary. And this is how he explains it. He says, Love wins, as the subtitle suggests, is a book about heaven and hell and the fate of every person who ever lived. Here's the gist. Hell is what we create for ourselves when we reject God's love. Hell is both a present reality for those who resist God and a future reality for those who die unready for God's love. Hell is what we make of heaven when we cannot accept the good news of God's forgiveness and mercy, but hell is not forever. God will have his way. How can his good purposes fail? Every sinner will turn to God and realize he has been reconciled, already been reconciled to God in this life or in the next. There will be no eternal conscious torment. God says no to injustice in the age to come, but he does not pour out wrath. We bring temporary suffering upon ourselves, and he certainly does not punish for eternity. In the end, love wins. So that's the message of the book. Doesn't really matter if you don't realize it or not, you are already reconciled to God. God's love will win in the end for everybody. Here's a quote that was uh Kevin DeYoung's summary. Here's a quote from the book itself. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith, and to reject it is in essence to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, and forgiveness and the joy that our world desperately needs to hear. So in his book, Bell essentially reduces the Bible and the message of the gospel to story, but then here's where I think he goes wrong. He says it's his right and his duty to determine which story is better than another. So which version of Christianity is going to be compelling and attractive to unbelievers today. And that message about hell, that's just too offensive today. Unbelievers don't like it, and they get put off by it. So we're going to replace that story with the with the story that we see that he sees as better and more tolerable, and that is love wins. Well, that's the kind of thing Paul's writing to, and he's going to write about in this letter. He's going to dispute that anyone has the right to do that. The right to say, here's a message, here's a message, I get to pick and choose which one is right. He's going to spend most of the first two chapters saying, the only people who can speak to what the gospel is are those who were given that authority by Jesus Himself. So they had a you the apostles had a unique experience with the risen Lord. They were given a unique authority to speak and write for him. They were inspired to accurately convey his message and given a unique calling to teach it. And we're going to see in just a couple verses, Paul says, if even an angel from heaven teaches another gospel, they're wrong. They don't have the right to do that. So you may think, well, this was an old debate going on in Galatians, but it's going on in our church today. Who are you going to listen to? A gospel that comes from men, or a gospel that was revealed by God Himself. Okay, so let's go on. So three to five. Grace, this is his greeting then. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of God and our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Now grace and peace are fairly standard greetings in Paul's gospel, but they're not just kind of a formal hi, how are you that has no meaning. They summarize his gospel message. So the message of salvation is essentially grace and peace. It's peace or reconciliation with God based on God's grace, that is, his undeserved, unmerited favor because of the death and resurrection of his son. So Christ's death was not primarily a display of love, although it was that. It was a sin offering, a unique sacrifice by which our sins could be forgiven, and we could be reconciled to God. So notice he starts off with that. He says, Grace and peace from God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins. So his death was a rescue. So Christ's death rescued us from this present evil age, from our bondage to sin. That word rescue, or it might be deliver if you have a different translation. It's the term that's used in Acts to refer to the Exodus. So when Israel was rescued from slavery in Egypt, it's the same word. In Acts 12, it's used when Peter is rescued from prison. And in Acts 23, it's used of Paul's rescue from a mob who wants to lynch him. This use in Galatians is the only use we have where it's metaphorical. But it's here it points out that Christ's death delivered us from sins out of this present evil age so that we could have eternal life. And that's essentially the message of the gospel: grace, peace, and rescue. So grace from God. We have, because of his grace, we have peace with him as opposed to war. We are reconciled to him and we are rescued from our bondage to sin. And he's going to claim this is the substance of the gospel. You can recognize a gospel because it's grace and peace based on the cross. Any gospel that minimizes or eliminates the cross is a false gospel. Then in next, Paul launches right into his defense. Galatians is the only letter he writes where Paul does not follow this greeting with a prayer or a word of praise or a thanksgiving. Basically, in the very next verse, he says, Have you lost your minds? You know, none of this, thank God for my remembrances of you, or let me pray for what I see. He basically turns around and says, What is going on? So let's look at 6 through 10. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel. Contrary to the one we preached, let him be accursed. As I have said before, so I now say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of men or of God? Am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. So he launches right into his, basically his defense or his attack. He says, I can't believe what I'm hearing is happening. How is it that you are turning away to a different gospel? And he calls them deserters. And the word means to transfer your allegiance. So it's the word used of a soldier when he revolts and leaves his post. It's used of people who switch sides in a debate, and it's now how Paul dresses the Galatians. But it's a serious charge. Every culture disdains deserters. There is no culture around that that looks upon that action with favor. So parents who desert their children, spouses who desert their marriages, you know, team members who desert their team, leaders who desert their followers, soldiers who desert their unit, that kind of action is almost universally despised. No culture values it or ignores it. So this is a serious high-stakes charge. But notice that Paul's not accusing them of deserting a political philosophy or a duty. He says, you've deserted the God who called you. So you haven't deserted a theory about truth. You haven't deserted, say, your religious affiliation. He says you've deserted God Himself, the one who called you by the grace of Jesus Christ. So you're turning to a different gospel. The true gospel is grace and peace based on the cross, and you're turning to this gospel that says, nope, you need to do something else. So we're going to see as we go on that there was a group of working at this time who were teaching that, yes, you start with faith in Jesus, but after that, you now must keep the law of Moses and be circumcised. And this group was called the Judaizers. We're going to run into them later in the letter. They come up again in James as well. And they were teaching that Christ's cross did not finish the process. You start with faith, but it's not enough. To finish it, now you have to keep the law of Moses. And Paul's writing against that and saying, look, what are you thinking? How did how did you get taken in by this? That's interesting that he makes this charge right off the bat because elsewhere in other letters Paul writes, he argues very strongly for unity and maintaining the bond of peace. And this letter, he comes out with his guns blazing. So it's like, how did how why did Paul write both letters? Why did elsewhere he strongly encourages to unity? And here he calls, he just comes out pulling no punches. I think that should teach us that unity goes only so far. When the gospel itself is at stake, we have to take a stand. So when the cross is being compromised, when the message of the gospel is being compromised, there's no room to sit on the fence and tolerate. That's when you have to stand up and go, wait, that's not the Bible. That's not what it teaches. Okay. So the two tick chief characteristics of these false teachers are they're troubling the church, they're changing the gospel, their teaching is not producing fruit and light and growth, rather, it's producing dissension and debate because they're distorting the gospel. So these um the Judaizers were teaching you start with faith, but then you have to finish what Christ started by obedience to the law. And Paul's essentially saying, look, don't be deceived by the package that's wrapped around this so-called gospel. This may look this different gospel is not a d a gospel at all. There is no other gospel. There's only one voice to listen to, one way of salvation, one Lord. So there's no other version of the work of Christ. This so-called, you know, more sophisticated, more impressive gospel is no gospel at all. So first we see Paul shocked at their behavior. Then he gives this stern, powerful declaration that they're deserting God Himself. And then the third element in this section is his judgment. He says, Let me be clear. Let anyone, even an angel from heaven who preaches a different gospel, be accursed. And just in case you think I'm speaking rashly or I'm angry or speaking out of turn, let me say it again. Just so you can be clear, I mean this. Anyone at all who preaches a different gospel should be accursed. And the Greek word he uses there is anathema. It's the word that translates the Hebrew for devoted to destruction. So he's essentially calling for God's judgment or God's wrath to fall on them. Now that sounds awfully harsh to us, you know. Because in our age, tolerance is probably the highest virtue of our culture. You're supposed to tolerate everything. So is is Paul just, has he gone off the deep end here? Is he just reacting too harshly? I would say no, because his judgment falls on anyone who teaches a false gospel. He's not directing this personally at any one person. He's even including himself in the statement. He says, look, if anyone, even an angel from heaven, or we ourselves teach a different gospel to you, let them be accursed, let them fall under God's wrath. Now, notice he's speaking in these verses, not he's not speaking of the Galatians, he's speaking of those who are teaching them and leading them astray. So he is judging not those who are deceived, but he is judging those who are doing the deceiving. And he's speaking, I think, to those leaders who know what they're doing, who've thought about the issues, who've studied the issues, who've had every opportunity to believe the real gospel, know what the stakes are, and yet make the choice to distort or ruin it for others. And he's saying, no matter who those teachers are, no matter what their degrees, what backgrounds they have, what seminary they went to, how many PhDs they have, if they deny the finished work of God and the finished work of Christ, then let them be accursed. So I don't think this is an emotional outburst or a personal attack. This is saying this matters. The truth of the gospel matters. It's eternal life. Life and death matters. And those who with knowledge and understanding distort it are running a dangerous game. Let them let God's wrath justly fall upon them. You're probably aware, Joseph Smith claimed to have had an encounter with the angel Moroni, and based on that encounter, he had the authority to preach a different gospel, and that's where the Mormon church comes from. Sung Myung Moon, who we know started the group we call typically the Moonis, he also claimed to have had a divine encounter, and that's where he got his message. And Paul is saying, look, even if that happens, don't be led astray, don't believe it. But we have probably closer to home, you've probably seen where some learned group will come along and they have some great string of alphabet letters after their names, and they say, Oh, we have new scholarship, or we have new information that clarifies what the gospel really means. And so the rules have changed. We have a better understanding than Paul did. So forget what the Bible says because now we have the true message. Paul says, Don't be deceived. Don't be taken in by that slick new package wrapped around the gospel. It's a lie and it's a distortion. There's one voice you should listen to, one voice that should claim your attention, and that's the apostolic voice that preaches the gospel of grace and peace with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And then he closes the section, I think, with an attitude check. In verse 10, he says, Do you think I'm writing these things to try to gain your approval or gather a following? So he's essentially saying, look, this is not the kind of thing you say if you're trying to win friends and influence people. You know, if that was my goal, I I would be saying something entirely different. I'm not trying to tickle your ears with fancy words or lovely stories. I'm a bondservant of Christ. I serve him. I'm not out to please men. If I was doing, if I was out to please men, I wouldn't write all these harsh things. Instead, he says, I'm writing what you need to hear. And that willingness to do that, even to offend his readers, I think adds to his credibility. So Paul opens this letter by claiming there's one voice you should listen to, that's the voice that preaches the gospel, the voice that carries apostolic authority, and you can trust it because it comes from God Himself, not from men, and it doesn't change. So his the themes we're gonna run into throughout this letter are Paul's gospel, what it is and how to recognize it, his apostleship, and his authority, why we can trust him, and then the third theme is the freedom the gospel brings. He's gonna argue that the true gospel sets you free from sin, free from perfectionism, free from pleasing mankind, free from law-keeping, and free from the wrath of God. Alright, so what does that mean for us today? Let me give you two points of application and then we're we'll wrap all this up. So, first, I think the obvious application is choose what voice you're going to listen to. And Paul's going to argue the wisest choice is to listen to the apostolic voice that teaches the gospel. So, how do we do that today? You're in the right place? Bible study. We find the message of the apostles and the prophets and the teachers recorded in Scripture. The more you know scripture, the more you can recognize a false gospel. So when they teach people to recognize counterfeit money, they have them handle the real thing over and over and over again. And the more they handle real money, the more they're able to detect counterfeits. Well, the same thing's true for us. The more we study the Word of God and immerse ourselves in the Word of God and meditate on scriptures and pray through them, the more we can recognize a false gospel. So, yay, you've already applied it, you're in the right place, come back next Wednesday. So immerse yourself in the real thing. The second application is I think almost every false gospel will deny the cross in some way. Some gospels claim the cross wasn't necessary, others claim it wasn't enough. And as we'll see in Galatians, the Judaizers were claiming it wasn't enough. And Paul's going to vehemently argue against that. Let me just return to Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, because I think he claims it wasn't necessary. And let's just ask if we can recognize the gospel by its source, its substance, and its results. Let's see how his book measures up to that. And again, this is my own opinion, but there are a lot of people who dis who would agree with me on this. So we've talked about source, substance, and results. We've already seen, I think he fails the source test, because he admittedly in his book says he gives himself the authority to decide which stories from Scripture apply today and which ones don't. And like others before him, he wants to separate the voice of Jesus from the teachings of Paul. He likes what Jesus has to say, not so fond of Paul. Well, that raises the um the question of biblical authority. You have to choose which voice you're going to listen to, and the Bible speaks with one voice. So different books of the Bible may have different authors, but they teach the same gospel. And I think we must either affirm every word in the Bible as true and trustworthy and authoritative, or we create our own preferences. So now it's no longer a gospel from God, it's a gospel from man, because we have decided which ones we're going to listen to and which ones we're not. And I think Paul would say, man-made gospel, throw that one out. And further, if Jesus and Paul aren't telling the same story, then we really have no idea what the true story is. It's not we have no right to decide which story of the Bible we prefer or which message we find most compelling such that we can ignore the others. So we have to deal with every passage of Scripture, every word, every chapter, every book, every verse. We don't have the right to pick and choose. So I would throw him out on the source test. But let's look at the substance test. Bell is part of a movement that's developed over the last 20 years, which is often called the emergent or emerging church or emergent Christianity. And I'm not casting aspersions on the sincerity of any people in that movement, but leading figures have been deeply critical of mainstream evangelicalism. They don't want to destroy Christianity. Quite the contrary, they would say they are rescuing Christianity from itself. But where I find fault with them is their rescue effort requires that we abandon or give up certain doctrines because the modern age finds them too offensive or difficult to accept. And the doctrine of hell is front and center on their list of doctrines that must go, followed closely by the doctrine of sin. And I don't think we have the right to do that. I don't think we have the right to pick and choose and say, well, that's just too offensive today, so we'll just toss that out. So this is where I think he goes most off course. This is his summary of the gospel from his book. Let me read this to you. So he's talking about the gospel. He says, it begins in the sure and certain truth that we are loved, then that in spite of whatever has gone horribly wrong deep in our hearts and has spread to every corner of the world, in spite of our sins, failures, rebellions, and hard hearts, in spite of what has been done to us or what we have done, God has made peace with us. Now, what's missing from that summary? There's no mention of Christ, there's no explanation for the cross, why the cross was necessary, or even if it was necessary, there's no messing message of faith, or that we ought to trust or accept God's grace. There's no adequate understanding of sin or even an adequate understanding of God's holiness. So I don't think we have a genuine gospel. Contrast that summary of the gospel with Paul's in three through five. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Paul's gospel is grace, peace, and rescue. It's more than God loves you. To teach people that God loves you is not enough, and I don't think we do them any favors. That it's true that God loves us, but God loves us in spite of the fact that we're sinners. And the good news of the gospel is even though we're sinners, he made provision to rescue us from our sin. It's not that God loves you just as you are, it's that God loves you in spite of who you are. And yes, we are deeply loved, yes, God made peace with us, but he did that by sending his son to die in our place, to pay the penalty for our sins, and to rescue us from bondage to this age in to sin in this age. So it's a gift of God based on his grace given to those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not a universal gift that love wins despite whatever you think or do and whether you ever listen to God or not. So the voice of Paul would say, choose, turn, repent, follow God. It's not just love wins, it's that God wins because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I'd say again, he fails the substance test as well. All right, let me pray for us, and then on um we have a couple more announcements, I think. Normally we end and we give you a chance to ask questions or response, but I'm we're not gonna do that today. So sorry. Next week, but I'll be around if you want to ask questions, so um let me pray for us.