Whose gospel is really gospel, and how can we know?
Warm-up: Do you like debating? How do you decide what debates are worth to risk condemnation from others ?
Read: Galatians 1:1-12
1) v1-5: What do you find most unusual about the greeting how Paul started this letter?
- Do you find the claim of inspiration and its certainty about authority provocative? Why or why not?
- How do you think this claim was received in the 1st century?
- vv2-5: What evidence/credentials did Paul provide to back up this claim
2) What tempted the Galatians to be removed (gr. metatithesthe, lit. “being changed”) from Christ?
- v6 “…some who want to distort the gospel”: Why would anyone want to do that? v10
3) vv8-9: What was Paul’s reaction to those teachers?
- Should/can we declare anathema anyone who disagrees with our own view(s)?
- Did Paul curse anyone? Or is he saying: “Let them be what they are”? cf Gal 3:10
4) How can a gospel that is contrary to the gospel be recognized as such?
- What complicates this task?
- Why must every heretical teaching have an appearance of being the gospel? v7
- What is the appeal of these false teachers that makes their disguise so effective, 2:4? cf Mt 7:15
- Why is legalism even more effective than antinomianism as a disguise, and to distort the gospel?
5) What has any of this to do with the question of who we seek to please?
- How does one seek approval from men or from God? v12
- v10: Why did Paul consider this to be an either/or, and not a balance of both at the same time?
- Is v10 talking about seeking to please people within or only outside the Christian community?
- Why did the preachers of circumcision likely believe that they were the ones who put God first?
- How did Paul’s view of the law make him suspected of seeking to just please the Gentiles?
- How can you tell who really put God first, and whose example you follow?
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