I want to take a diversion of sorts this morning from our normal verse by verse exposition of Galatians.  But I do so having been provoked by Paul in chapter 3 of Galatians.  If you will remember, in his argument of faith vs works, Paul introduces the example of Abraham in chapter 3 vs 6.  And throughout the rest of that chapter, Paul makes the point that it is those who are of the faith of Abraham who are the sons of Abraham.  Now he is making this point because the Judaisers had come into the churches of Galatia and

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One of the dangers, I suppose, of putting my address on public announcements or advertising, is that people know where you live. I had a visitor a few nights ago who I hope was not prowling about my house after dark. He did however leave a letter on my mailbox addressed to me. So it was evident that he knows me, but he didn’t sign it, which is kind of concerning that he wants to be anonymous. The bottom line of the letter he left was to inform me that generations of Bible teachers and scholars have gotten wrong the

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Paul has written this letter to the Galatians to counter false teaching which has entered the churches in Galatia.  He had founded these churches, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe and others during his first missionary trip.  But in no time at all, Jews from Jerusalem had come to the churches and spread a malicious doctrine that you had to conform to Jewish law, particularly that of circumcision and other ceremonial laws, in order to be truly saved. So Paul spent the first two chapters of his letter reestablishing his apostleship and authority in giving them the gospel.  Now he adds to that

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As I have said previously, this is Paul’s first letter, or first epistle, that he writes in his ministry.  And the subject of this letter is to write the Galatians a defense of his apostleship, and a defense of his gospel and the doctrine of justification by faith.  Now we have looked at his autobiographical details in chapter one in which Paul defended his apostleship.  He did that by explaining his conversion on the road to Damascus, and how the Lord Jesus spoke to him directly. Then we read that immediately following his conversion, he did not immediately confer with

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The epistle to the Galatians is Paul’s first letter to the churches. And perhaps due in a large part to being his first epistle, he spends a large portion of this letter defending his apostleship, and his gospel. We get something like a summary of his biography in the first couple of chapters, at least the part of his history that has to do with coming to Christ and the beginning of his ministry. And that was necessary then because there were false teachers that had crept into the churches of Galatia that Paul had started, and they were undermining

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Well, having finished up 2 Timothy last week, we are beginning a new book, which is Galatians. I think I preached through Galatians on Wednesday evenings maybe around 10 years ago. However, I can’t find my notes on it, so this will be like starting from scratch for me. But in 2 Timothy, we had what many believe to be the last words that the apostle Paul wrote before he was martyred. In Galatians, we have what many believe to be the first epistle that Paul wrote. Galatians was probably written very early in Paul’s ministry. The chances are that

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The word of God is not just all theology, but also very practical. And by the same token, the church is not just all doctrine, but also fellowship. In Second Timothy, Paul has written extensively about doctrine, the need for sound doctrine, and warned about false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing that will ravage the sheep. He has urged Timothy to stir up the gift that is in him, to study the word, to preach the gospel, to stand firm and to persevere. Now his epistle is almost over. But before he closes his letter, he gives a few personal,

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Today we are looking at the last chapter that Paul ever wrote, and writing what we might call his own epitaph. An epitaph is a statement written about a person who has died, which often says something about the person’s legacy. You know, important people, such as President’s, are always concerned about their legacy, what history will say about them. I think it’s indicative of their own sense of self importance that they are so concerned about it that they build libraries in their own honor to try to mold people’s opinion. So an epitaph is written on a tombstone.

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Last week we studied a rather grim message that Paul gave Timothy regarding the last days. And as a reminder, the last days is a phrase that refers to the time period between Christ’s first appearing and His second coming. It is sometimes called the church age, which is the age Timothy was living in, and which we are living in. Obviously, we are living in the latter days of the last days, but we don’t know how much longer there is until Christ comes back. But I say it was a grim message because Paul said there would be

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