The David Spoon Experience 5-16-23 Part 2

1) As we journey into Galatians, Chapter 2, we discover that Paul returned to Jerusalem again about 14 years later. If you ask me, that’s a long time, but he went with Barnabas and Titus. And those were two very strong believers to give him back up. But the real strength of his decision to return to Jerusalem was that God revealed to him that he should do it. That’s the Holy Spirit leading him.

2) There was a concern that Paul had this is reflected, of course, in Acts, Chapter 15, that there would be some kind of disagreement as to what the gospel was. Paul was preaching to Gentiles while the church in Jerusalem was preaching to Jewish people. The irony is that it’s the same gospel. It’s just presented to two different groups of people who would receive it from two different backgrounds. Things went better than he thought. Things often do.

3) Then Paul doesn’t hesitate to pivot into the truth that there are so-called Christians. Then he calls them false Christians. They were people that claimed to be Christians, but they weren’t Christians. They just claimed to be Christians. And there are millions of those. They wanted to try and force Paul into a religiosity. But Christianity is not a religiosity. It’s a living relationship with a living God made possible through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. It’s not about church rules. It’s about the truth that God rules.