Epistles of Paul 16

Good evening, Brevin, and thank you for listening to this Bible study.

I'd like us to start by turning to Acts 18. There we see when Paul went into Corinth at the end of Orada during his second missionary trip. He then, from there, wrote first and second Thessalonians. Then we read in verse 19, then he left Corinth and he went to Ephesus. This was on his way back to Antioch. I'm going to share you a screen of his trip through Galatia. Then he went all the way up north, this area of Turkey, and then he went across to Thessalonians.

From Thessalonians there, then he went down to Corinth. He stayed there for a year and a half. Then on the way back from his trip, he went into Ephesus. Then from Ephesus, he then went back to Caesarea to go to Jerusalem. Then from Jerusalem, he went back to Antioch, completing his second missionary trip. We can see, as we read in Acts 18 verse 21, when he was in Ephesus, he took leave of them saying, Amas, by all means, keep this coming feast in Jerusalem. So he was in Ephesus and he said, Amas, by all means, keep this feast in Jerusalem. So he had to travel to keep the feast and then he went back to Antioch. So he wrote the book, the epistle, to the Galatians, either in YHWH at Ephesus or after he finished the trip, when he got back to Antioch. So somewhere along YHWH, either there or when he arrived to Antioch, he wrote Galatians, which puts us either in late 52 AD, winter, beginning of 53 AD, or beginning of 53 AD. The feast year was probably the Passover that he went to Jerusalem in the senior year. So that's basically where he wrote Galatians. Now this region of Galatians is a region we can see includes areas like Derby, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, the Poseidian Antioch. Not this other Antioch, which is basically his home base, but this other Antioch Poseidian. And this whole area, as you can see, is marked as Galatia. So he traveled through Galatia.

Then, when on his way back, he probably got some news from Galatian. He wanted to write to them, but whether he wrote them there while he was Ephesus, or whether he wrote when he got back to Antioch, we're not sure. But it was around about that time frame. I also want to show you something else about the Galatians.

And I'm going to share you another screen, which is from the book US and Britain in Bible Prophecy. There's a chapter there, starting in page 58, which talks about the mysterious Scythians burst into history. But there in that chapter, you can see it talks about the geography of the Celtic Scythian commerce.

And so we know that that area which is an area of Gauls, atia in France, these people were very probably Celtic people. And some of them in this time frame, because they went into this area probably around about around about the first or the sixth century before Christ, when they, as we read there, let me just see, there is a lot in this section, but they left YHWH, which there was that when the Northern tribe was thrown out of their homes, and they went into into northern Asia. And the Bible prophecy says they actually were to then emigrate all the way northeast.

And so those selts came over there. And it's possible that some of them maybe would travel back and forth. And some of them got settled in this area of Galatia. So that's just to give you a little bit of geographical background and historical background in there. Now, if we just briefly look at the book of Galatians chapter one, verse one, it says that Paul, an apostle, so we see that the book of Galatians was clearly written by Paul.

Also, in chapter five, verse two, in chapter five, verse two of Galatians, it says, indeed, I, Paul, say to you. So we can see Paul refers and identifies himself clearly as the writer of Galatians. Then also in Galatians chapter two, verse one, in chapter two, verse one, it says, then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem. So he's talking about when he went to Jerusalem in Acts 15. That was the Jerusalem Conference. And that Jerusalem Conference was after the first trip. So we had his first missionary trip.

And then we had the Jerusalem Conference. And at the end of Jerusalem Conference of Acts 15, then he started the second missionary trip. Right, so we know that it was after the Jerusalem Conference, which is in Acts 15. Now, the churches in Galatians were established in his first trip. So his first trip was went through Galatia.

And let me just share you a screen that shows a little bit about Paul's first trip. So let me just share it with you, which is this. Let me share. All right. So in his first trip, again, he left from his home base, was Antioch. And then he went through Cyprus. A very big part. And then he went over here. He harbored in here in, as we can see, let me enlarge it a bit more, in Perga.

And then from there, he went into this area of Galatia, the city of Antioch, Arconium, Lystra, and Derby. So his first trip was when he established the churches in Galatia. And then after that, he went back to, let's call it, his home base in Antioch. So that was the first trip. At the end of the first trip, as I mentioned, then there was the Jerusalem Conference when he went down to the Jerusalem Conference of Acts 15 in AD 49.

All right. So that clearly shows he established the churches on his first journey. That is described in Acts 13 and 14. So we just go to Acts 13 and 14 very briefly. In Acts 13, verse 13 and 14, we can see in 14 that he says, that they came to Antioch in Bsudia, and then they went into the synagogues on the seventh day.

And then in verse 38 and through 46, verse 38, it says, And therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, talking about Christ, he preached to you the forgiveness of sins.

In other words, we are forgiven by Christ's sacrifice, by his faith that he had, that he became a man and trusted in the Father and he died for us. So we sacrificed by Christ's being a part of it. We are forgiven by Christ's sacrifice. And it says, And by him, everyone who believes is justified. So we are justified by Christ's actions, by his faith, by his acts in faith.

And it says, Not justified by the law of Moses, in other words, by the ceremonial law, not by physical offerings. This became a big issue in Galatians. So this became a big issue. And we read here, and in verse 42, or Acts 13, that the Jews went out and the Gentiles begged him to preach again the next Sabbath. And then we read in verse 44, On the next Sabbath, our most whole city came together to hear the word of God. And when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy. And so we can see the root of the problem, envy. And then when he left Antioch, then he went to Iconium. We see that in Acts 14, verse 1. Now it happened in Iconium. We see he went into Iconium. And then we see in verse 8, then he went into Lustre. So he went there.

In verse 8, we see that also in verse 19. And it says, Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul. And then Paul then escapes to Derby. We can see that in verse 20. And in verse 21, it says, And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and made many disciples, they returned to Lustre, Iconium, and Antioch, obviously Antioch of Persia, in that area of Galatia. So we can see that the preaching into this area of Galatia was done during Paul's first journey. Then we see later on in chapter 14, verse 26 through 28, it says, And from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commanded to the grace of God for the work which they had completed. And so that, and then you read in verse 28, you see, so they stayed there a long time with the disciples. So at the end of Paul's trip, so at the end of his first journey, he then came back to Antioch, his own base. So he came back, and then he sailed back to Antioch. And then we have Acts 15, which is the Jerusalem Conference. So that hopefully becomes very clear. So the problem became much bigger, because when you read in Acts 15, in verse 1, it says, And certain men came from the Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom Moses, you cannot be saved. So justification now becomes through circumcision and physical circumcision, and through the ceremonial law. And we can see, for instance, you see this in verse 2, therefore when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them. So to put it mildly, there was a big argument going on in church. I mean, there was a real crisis in church with this situation, a real trial in church, because there were these people that had converted to Christianity, but they were Jews. And they said, no, the Gentiles need to be circumcised, because he heard that Gentiles from Galatia had been converted. And you read that also in verse 5 of Acts 15. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believe rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them, you know, with the Gentiles, and to command them, the Gentiles, to keep the ceremonial law, the law of Moses. And this became a big issue. And that's the outcome of the Jerusalem Conference. That's why they had the Jerusalem Conference.

And so the outcome of this Jerusalem Conference is described in verse 23 to verse 29 of Acts 15.

And so he's saying, look, tell the Gentiles that there's no such command for the Gentiles to be circumcised. They don't need to be circumcised. That is an instruction for the Israelites, and not to the Gentiles. But it says, tell the Gentiles not to practice these practices of idolatry. In other words, we read them in verse 29, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. So if you do these things, you do well. So avoid these pagan ideas and concepts. So the real issue, the real dispute, if we summarize all this, the real dispute was people that came from a Jewish background, an Israelites background, were saying you have to be circumcised to the Gentiles. You have to keep the sacrificial law. In other words, the dispute was about how to be justified.

So then we can see in Acts 16 that then they went back on the second missionary trip for the second time, and then they went back to Galatia. So on the second trip, the first thing they did is they went back, or Paul and his team went back to Galatia to give them the news of the decision that had been done at the Jerusalem Conference. So we can see it came through the hill country, and it came into Galatian in this direction. He went back to Galatia. But the dispute continued. You see, so when he went to Europe, more specifically to Macedonia and to Greece, when he came back, then news came to him, surely he are in Ephesus, that the people in Galatians, there are still problems. And then he recognized there was a need of writing the book of Galatians. Whether he wrote then, or whether he wrote that when he got back to his own base, obviously it's possible there was one or the other. But the timing, as I mentioned, is run about at the end of the year 52 or the year 53. So let's just continue with that.

We now therefore have a letter, which is this letter to the Galatians, which is a most disputed letter because it covers key doctrinal matters. And the theme of the book of Galatians is justification. And what is justification? To be made right or just before God. How? By having your sins forgiven through Christ, not through killing lambs and goats. Your justification is by Christ's sacrifice. And once you made right with God, you and I, we need to have true repentance and live righteously, in the words of pain, God's laws. But you and I are not justified by obedience to God's laws. We are justified freely by the sacrifice of Christ. But once we are free, it is incumbent upon us to now obey, keep God's Ten Commandments, God's Eternal Law. So, the Galatians' message in its core is we are justified not because we obey the law perfectly, but we are made just before God by Christ's sacrifice. But now, we have to be righteous. We need to live a righteous life. We need to be just.

And therefore, that is obviously also an important subject in this epistle.

So, the question is summarized maybe in a different way.

And this is what some people today say. Well, Galatians says we are free from the slavery of the law. No, that's not that. It's not about that. We are free. We are justified. We are freed from the penalty of death by Christ's sacrifice. But once we are freed from death, and it was once we redeemed, we brought back to life, we need to obey God's laws. So, here is the whole issue of works versus grace. And so, this epistle of Galatians addresses these issues of works versus grace.

It addresses issues like to be under the law versus works of the law. And therefore, as we cover the book of Galatians, we're going to cover points like what law was added as per Galatians 3.19.

What does it mean that the law was a tutor? Galatians 3.24. What does it mean we are to turn away from weak and beggarly elements of Galatians 4 verse 9? In fact, we're going to cover a little bit of that today. We're going to also talk about the Jerusalem above and the two covenants as mentioned in Galatians 4 verse 24 and 26. Obviously, we're not going to talk about all this today, but during this series of Bible studies about the book of Galatians, we're going to cover that. And lastly, but not least, but also very important, we will cover and we will understand the impact of Gnostic teaching in the church. You see, all these matters are addressed and covered in this book of Galatians. So why is this book a most disputed one?

Because today, in today's so-called Christian world, people use the book of Galatians as an excuse to do away with God's law. Now, they don't say, well, you can kill, you can murder, you can commit adultery, although today one wonders what they say. But they don't typically, modern day Christianity doesn't say that, but when they say you don't have to keep God's law, they're actually referring about the Sabbath and God's early days and God's laws of cleaning and clean foods.

Therefore, they use books like Galatians, Colossians, and Romans to twist it and use them to justify they don't need to keep the Sabbath and God's early days.

Now, some of you are probably aware that Martin Luther called the book of Galatians his lover.

Why? Because it would liberate him from the law. Basically, it could, in his mind, justify breaking God's Sabbath and God's holy days. On the other side, Martin Luther called the book of James an epistle of straw. To him, it had no value. Why? Because the book of James clearly states we have to obey God's law. And therefore, the book of James directly goes against Martin Luther's doctrine, which says, by faith only, because it's not by faith only. It's by faith only. It's by faith and law. We have to obey God's law. Granted, we're not justified by obedience to the law, but we need to obey God's law. For instance, let's just turn quickly to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. And if you turn with me to verse verse 20. Romans chapter 3 verse 20. It says, therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified. You see, by the actions of the law, you're not justified. You and I are justified freely by the blood of Christ. Okay? But if you just read a page before, maybe in your Bible, just a page before, in Romans chapter 2, the same writer to the same audience, the Romans. In just one chapter before, Romans chapter 2 verse 13, it says, for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. So in Romans chapter 3 verse 20 says, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified. But in Romans chapter 2 verse 13 says, but the doers of the law will be justified. It is to some people an apparent contradiction, but it is not. It is not a contradiction because you and I are justified. You and I are made right with God by Christ's sacrifice.

But now that you and I are made right with God by Christ's sacrifice, we, through His grace, we have the responsibility to now not continue breaking the law so that we don't get back to the same condition we're wearing. And therefore that says, but the doers of the law will be justified. You see, because now that we have been made right with God, we at the end of our life after baptism, we have to keep obeying the law so that ultimately at the end that we persevere to the end by putting on the new man, and at the end of that race, we will be justified. So, and that is the race you and I have to do. And God's law, therefore, is required. Oh yes, it is required. It doesn't justify us initially. We are justified freely by Christ's blood and what is done for us, but once we justify, we need to do our part in obeying God. And this is the patience of the saints as we read in Revelation chapter 14 verse 12. Revelation chapter 14 verse 12, because there we can see it's talking about the situation with Babylon, and we're going to talk a little bit about Babylon, this wall, this power that is going to come, even get worse with the beast coming out and a false prophet. So this Babylon will rise its head in great force, and we will be under extreme trials. And then he says, he has the patience, he has the perseverance that we have to stick it to the end, obeying God's laws, keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Holy Days.

He has the patience, the perseverance of the saints, those who keep the commandments, and specifically the Sabbath, and God's Holy Days, and clean and unclean foods. These are signs, in a sense, and they also have the faith of Jesus. They believe that we are justified freely by the faith of Jesus, so we have both. So, the faith of Jesus is this race. It means that, yes, we need to understand we are justified not by the ceremonial law, we are justified by crushed blood. But, once we are justified, we have to now make an effort.

We all occasionally fail unintentionally in our weakness, and we can repent again and ask God for forgiveness. But, our intent, our motivation, is that we are striving not to sin anymore. That's what we've got to be doing. That's got to be our motivation, our intent of our heart, and working and persevering. That's what it says. He has the patience, he has the perseverance of the saints, who keep the commandments and also have the faith of Jesus. So, it's both. Now, as we study this, and as we study the Book of Galatians, or in fact, as we do any Bible study, it's always important to understand the context. So, as we move into the Galatians, having understood the real challenge that was happening in the society at that time, it is important for us to understand the context. And the context, I am specifically referring, not just reading one verse before or one verse after, or read a whole chapter in one specific verse, but I'm talking about the context of the society at that time. Why was the letter written? Because the context, the situation, as we see, where these people were coming into church and saying, hey, you have to keep the Law of Moses, you are justified by the Law of Moses. So, the context is that context of the situation that was happening in the society. So, really, we're trying to understand a little bit better the first trials in the early Church of God. You see, this became an issue. We saw in Acts 15, there was a big argument, a big controversy. Imagine it's like sitting in a council of elders and being a big argument. Well, it happened with Paul. It happened there. So, these things happen, and we have to, as we try to do, hopefully we're really getting better.

We have to handle these differences in love and in kindness, in gentle, being careful how we speak to one another and how we talk to one another. And we need to understand the context in this case. And so, and this is the point, because God's way, as we know, as Christ said in Matthew 7, the way is narrow. The gate is narrow. Matthew 7, 13, and 14. It's a narrow road. In other words, it's easy to get to the left, or it's easy to get to the right. And maybe it's easy in the church to be pushed by some people which are like kind of right-winged, and maybe it's easy to get pushed by some people that are left-winged, quote-unquote. So, it's a narrow road. It's a balanced way of life. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7, which says that God is not even as a spirit of fear. So, let's just turn there. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7.

It says, okay, in verse 6 says, let's stir up God's spirit, God's gift, that we receive through the laying of hands. Verse 7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. The word for sound mind could also be translated as a spirit of moderation, a balanced mind, a sound mind, a balanced mind. So, what do we have?

In the early church, initially, and particularly in this case of Galatians, initially we had a pressure from one side, which are these people saying, oh, you have to stick to the ceremonial law. I'll just draw it like in an analogy, like a right-wing type version, just a stricter version, more of what let's call it like a phatocycle version. And that's where Paul came from, and he was called out of that, as we know. And then there was also another, let's call it left-wing influence in the church, which was affecting the church. So, once again, we have two clashing forces developing there. Let's first mention one scripture about what I'm calling this right-wing, this so-called distorted version of the application of the law of Moses. And just read with me John chapter 7 verse 19. John chapter 7 verse 19. And yes, it's Christ's own words. John chapter 7 verse 19 says, did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you gives the law. So, what Christ is saying is these people that were punting for the law, this kind of right-winged phatocycle group of people, they actually were not practicing it properly. They were not really practicing correctly what was inspired during the days of Moses. They had, let's call it, a twisted version, which was an application of Judaism, which Paul says himself. He came out of Judaism because he had this wrong understanding of what was prophesied and what the law was all about.

So, that's one pressure that was happening in relations. I've spent enough time talking about that. But now I want to talk about the other pressure, which I'm just calling it the left-wing. I'm sorry, the word left-wing might not be correct application, but it was an influence of Gnostic thinking, which had some sort of intellectualism that means mixed with. Synchrotism means mixing with. So, it was some sort of bright, intelligent, wise people, quote-unquote, wise in their own eyes, with their great intelligence, very bright, very intelligent people, right? But they were taking that intellectualism and changing paganism and bringing some of those ideas into the church and then creating another force which got bigger and bigger as the years went by as more Gentiles came into the church.

See, initially the church in the first few decades was mostly Jewish. And so, when Gentiles started coming in, this Jewish version of justification was kind of the first pressures they had. But as Gentiles came in and these Gnostic ideas came in and they became bigger and bigger. This became a bigger force. Overall, into the following centuries, became a bigger force that impacted the church. So, what we have is two forces here initially, one from the side and the other one from this side. And these are the first trials of the church of God in its infancy. All right? So, let's talk a little bit about this intellectualism, or let's call it Gnosticism, as people call it today, which is basically human reasoning apart from God. Think about it. It's human reasoning apart from God, which came from Greek philosophy apart from God. So, that's interesting. Or to put it in a time frame, that was what they called the Hellenistic period. It started with, basically, think about it, pagan gods all the way from Babylon. See, so it was pagan gods all the way from Babylon. And this was an influence in the Greek Hellenistic way of thinking, run about the sixth century before Christ. That means about 500 or 600 years before Christ.

So, putting it another way, it was a pagan reformation in Greece, a pagan reformation in Greece.

I'm going to put it in a different way. This was Satan's way, because he knew the Messiah was coming. He knew Daniel had been prophesied. He now realized, haha, he had an idea of what was going to happen now. And therefore, he had to take paganism and reform it and adapt it and modify it in a way that, with this modification, would be a very effective way of creating deception to what Christ's sacrifice would do. So, in the sixth century before Christ, we see a pagan religious reformation in Greece. And this was a reinterpretation, or a time in which there was a reinterpretation of various religious mysteries from Babylon. So, these Babylonian mysteries, the maraud, samaramas, etc., were reinterpreted, adapted, tweaked, modified, which changed the whole world's thinking all the way from Europe to India. And it actually, over time, infiltrated the Roman Empire and also infiltrated and affected the Jewish community. That's why this thing of noticism was also coming in from Jewish people as well, and later affected the Church of God. So, these Hellenists, this Greek philosophy, started with people like Theles of My Letters and other sophists, or let's call it philosophists. Sophists. Philo means like or love. Philo. And Sophia means to be wise. So, philosophy is the love of wisdom.

So, what do we have? He's highly educated intellectuals going into what we would call today universities or schools of higher learning, teaching those people which were in better financial conditions, let's call it the upper class of Greek youth, teaching them the art of skillful persuasion to win arguments. So, that was kind of the whole background of this.

But through this, they started changing paganism as well. And so, what they, this philosophy, was making what was worse appear to be better in the argument. So, we had this human reasoning, apart from God, of twisting what was bad and making it good. Now, I want you to read Isaiah chapter 5 verse 20 and 21.

And it says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, and who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes. Brethren, this Gnosticism, these very clever, intelligent people going into universities or schools of higher learning and influencing the upper-class Greek youth.

Isn't that what's happening today in our institutions of learning?

You know, brethren, nothing is new under the sun. Satan uses the same tricks. And what this is, is human reasoning apart from God. And so, we have then people like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and many others that developed, came up out of this environment, and led to reformation of paganism with ideas of the mortality of soul and the return of the soul to heaven to be released from its bodily prison. And so, we have these concepts of going through different planets, which is called astrology, and from the earth all the way to different planets and different layers and things like that. And you have different ideas and different thoughts of that, of this paganism that developed. And another thing that in this whole Greek concept is that there were four basic elements. There were four basic elements.

It's like we'd probably call it the periodic table or something like that. But if, and they were fire, air, water, and earth. And these were called the rudiments of this world.

And therefore, these basic elements were part of, in these religious ideas, were controlled by spirits. It was demons. And so, these rudiments of this world, of the world, that's why you see them being described in Galatians 4, verse 3 and 9, are the so-called beggarly elements.

And in Colossians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, talk about the basic principles of the world. And so, really, all this is tied in into this Gnosticism and this Hellenistic ideas, which are known other than demons supposedly controlling these elements like tapas of gods. So again, this Hellenism was basically Satan preparing the the pagan world centuries before Christ to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And this Hellenism created, therefore, an incubator, let's just call it that, for a reformed paganism which originally came from Babylon. So it's no more, it's nothing else, but Babylon. But yeah, maybe with a different face, but it's Babylon. And this, therefore, became a way to allow these ideas to infiltrate or to mix or to synchronize this paganism of Christianity. And therefore, it became a Christianity that was not holding on to the faith. Once delivered. And so what we have today is many speak of Christ, but are deceiving others. Look at Matthew 24, verse 4 and 5. Matthew 24, Matthew 24, verse 4 and 5. It says, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying I am Christ, and will deceive many. So there'll be many deceptions. Many speak of Christ, but they are deceiving people. They are deceptions. Then we read, for instance, in Acts chapter 20. This is Paul, when he was talking to the people in Ephesus, Acts chapter 20.

And he called those elders, which came from areas around Ephesus, which surely came from Galatia as well. In verse 28, he says, Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock.

among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. In other words, to look after as a shepherd, to look after the sheep, and to shepherd the Church of God, which he, Christ, purchased with his blood. He redeemed us from death with his blood. That's how we justify for I know that after my departure, says Paul, I know that after I leave and I turn back and now I'm leaving and I'm not going to come back. Goodbye. This is the last time you see me always saying to these leaders in Ephesus, but they came probably also from Galatia, from that area. And he says, I know this is after my departure, savage wolves. These people are not sheep, they're wolves in sheep's clothes. And they went ministering the Church.

We'll come in among you, not sparing the flock. And they say, verse 20, also, from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things, probably based on Gnosticism, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Whoa, to the shepherds that scatter my sheep. Whoa, to those shepherds. So, Paul was even saying, they came out of us. Look at 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, verse 18 and 19.

1 Little children, in the last hour, it is the last hour, and as you've heard, the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour, that they went out from us. But they were not of us.

They went out from us. They were in the church of God, but they left us to other fellowships.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be manifest that none of them were of us.

Wow, that's very powerful. Look at 1 John chapter 4 verse 1.

Brethren, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits. Don't believe these people of these ideas and all the things that come there and tell you things. Yeah, particularly talking about the spirit of man in man. These people, their ideas, their vibes, what they come, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets, many false spirits, many false prophets, many people that are not truly in the church have gone out into the world. And by this, you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that Jesus confesses, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God. I'm going to talk about that in a moment, because that's talking about docetism. But I'll talk about that in a moment. Look at 3 John 9 and 10.

3 John 3 John 9 and 10.

I wrote to the church that diatrophies, who love to have the preeminence amongst them, does not receive it. You see, diatrophies prevented Paul to come into that congregation, prevented Paul. And this I've seen a few years in the congregation, one of the ministers went in, and somebody else says, no, you're not allowed to come in yet. It's a bapin in modern time, only a few years ago, maybe not too many. And then he says, therefore, therefore, if I come, I'll call to mind his deeds, which he does, prating against us with malicious words, and not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. Wow! So, in summary, what we have is the outcomes of Gnosticism of this thinking are basically this reformation of paganism, is that the world is evil. Therefore, anything that is materialistic is evil. And therefore, we have some ascetic ideas, or asceticism, which says, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, like in Colossians chapter 2 verse 21 and 23.

Another idea I touched a moment ago, which is Gnosticism that comes from Gnostic belief. What is Gnosticism? It is that the world which became Christ, the world was in the man Jesus, but was not the man Jesus. And therefore, the world left the man Jesus before Jesus died. And so, that is basically what it says here in 2 John 7, which says, 2 John 7 says, For many deceivers have gone into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. That's Gnosticism, that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. Oh, it was a man, but the world was just kind of just possessing that man temporarily, but just before he died, he left. That's not the case. The world died. Christ died.

So, you see, that's Gnosticism. Another is the teaching of the transition of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. And what they do is they say, well, using that, they say, well, the Old Covenant therefore is old. We have a new, which puts all the way. And therefore, they say, all Hebrew-based, which is based, including what the Old Testament says, which we believe includes what the Old Testament says, it says, anything like that is evil. And therefore, they say, the Sabbath and the Holy Days and laws of clean and clean meat are not necessary, because those are a continuation of that Old Law, the Old Covenant, from which they say they freed. You see how this Gnosticism, this intellectualism kind of twisted through Christianity and how this thinking was generated. And therefore, paganism came into Christianity, but just dressed as something else. And you see, that's why many religions today don't refer to the Old Testament, but they only use the Old Testament as quote-unquote, nice little fables or stories to tell children.

That's why these people became more spiritually enlightened.

And that said, well, Christianity reformed with Pauline doctrine, which means, well, Paul had a better version than what Christ had, because Paul didn't change what Christ said.

So this is how people changed through Christianity. And that basically undermines the Bible, because you shall live by every word. Matthew chapter 4 verse 4, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. All scripture is given by inspiration.

In Revelation 22 verse 18 and 19, right at the end says, if you take anything out of this book or you add anything, you will be punished. Can't do that. And in James, clearly says that we got to keep all the commandments. If you throw one away, you throw them all. So you got to keep them all. So this is the context I wanted to give you before we go into the Book of Galatians. You can see there was like a double punch, a left punch and a right punch affecting the early church. These are some of what we call the first trials of the Church of God, which basically are the trials that we encounter today in the Christianity of this world.

A punch of Judaism, self-righteousness, maybe phatocycle type version. I'm not saying that being the Jews or anything wrong with the Jews. I'm not being anti-Jew, please. I'm just talking about this distortion of the true religion. And on the other side, this distortion through human reasoning apart from God, let's call it Gnosticism, of changing paganism into a way that became more adaptable into Christianity. And that's what we have today. And so this thinking has become really entrenched in modern Christianity. In the next study that will follow, we will then see some additional roots of this false teaching in the New Testament. And then with this contextual background of the situation that was happening at that time, we will then begin delving into the book of Galatians. Thank you so much, Brethren, and have a good night.