Paul’s Letter to the Gauls (Galatians) – Intro

I had to choose between talking to the visitors or talking to the brothers and sisters in Memphis. I finally decided to talk to those of you who have come from out of the city and let Memphis just be your host. I’ve spoken on this subject one other time in my life; this will be my last time. When you get old, you can make statements like that. You know it’s the last…you don’t have time to do this again. This will be the last time I’ll ever speak on this.

Now, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I want to talk to you about something that is probably a need in all of our lives. Something that has to be taken out, something else put in. I’ll get to that in just a moment. But I’m going to ask you to do something with me. I want you to pretend. I’m going to ask you to pretend you’re a new Christian. You haven’t been a Christian for over three years. Two to three years. The next thing I’m going to ask you to do is I’m going to ask you to pretend you belong to a church that meets in a home in the land of Galatia, and you have just had a very unnerving experience, and you’re a little confused, and it’s about 48 to 50 AD. We’ll say 50 A.D. for round numbers. We’re probably off a couple of years. It’s around 50 AD. That means we are 20 years past Pentecost.

Now, here’s something else I want you to pretend. I want you to pretend you can’t read, and you can’t write, because most of the people in Galatia could not read and could not write. You are Gauls. Not that you have Gaul; you are Gaul. That means that you belong to a group of people who were very numerous 2,000 years ago. They ended up mainly settling in France, but at this time, there was a little enclave of them. They spoke the Gaelic language. By the way, they were later pushed out across the English Channel and ended up in the hills of what is now called Wales. And they inbred with the Franks, and they became France, and today they live in Wales. They still speak the language that you Gauls speak right now here in the land of Galatia.

Most of you are either slaves or you are sons or daughters of slaves or granddaughters or grandsons of slaves. The people of Galatia have been enslaved on numerous occasions when armies have moved in. Your people, your kind of people, have been traded as slaves all over the Roman Empire. Most of you are called Phrygians, which is another word for slaves. Illiteracy, the inability to read and write, is running among you at about 100%, but in this fellowship of believers that we are, we have four or five Jews who can read. We have four or five Greeks who can read. We have two or three Romans who can read. We got about 10 or 12 people out of 140 who can read. The rest of us cannot read, and you cannot write.

Now that doesn’t mean you’re ignorant. Nowadays, it means you’re ignorant, but in that day and age, it wouldn’t necessarily mean you were ignorant because the ability to read was considered a skill, and the ability to write was yet a different skill. You could read and not know how to write. That’s inconceivable to us. There were many people who could read who had the foggiest idea how to pick up a pen and write. Writing was like bookkeeping or accounting today. It was something that was very specialized. You went to that person and paid him to write for you, even if you could read. Not many people can read. Alright, are you getting the picture? Are you following me?

Here’s the next thing I want you to know: virtually none of you Jews. None of you has ever been to Jerusalem. You hardly even know where Israel is. You’ve hardly ever met a Jew in your whole life. You’re under the heel of the Roman Empire. There’s a government somewhere near you, and it’s Italians from Rome governing you. That’s fine with you; you don’t seem to mind. At least things are peaceful. You’ve been fighting for hundreds of years. You were converted only recently, two or three years ago.

Now, here is the thing that I want you all to get most of all. A piece of literature has come to you. It is 50 A.D., and you do not appreciate this fact in 50 A.D., but for a moment, appreciate it in 1987, would you? Now, listen to what I’m going to say because it is a very remarkable statement that very few Christians are aware of. This little sheet of paper that has come to you, about 150 sentences long, is the first piece of Christian literature ever written. It is the first piece of Christian literature ever written. Now let that soak in for a moment. It’s a short letter, 150 sentences long.

You have never heard of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The reason is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have not yet been written. You have never heard of the beatitudes because they have never been recorded. You have never heard of this, nor have you ever known that there existed a sermon on the mount, because it has never been recorded. It is now an oral tradition among the Jewish people in Israel, but it’s never gotten up as far as you. In fact, you’re the first Gentile heathens to ever believe in the Lord, and you have, in fact, only met in your entire lifetime…you have only met two outside Christians other than the ones in your town that got saved. They were both Jews.

Now, the other day, some other people came to visit you. We’ll get to them later, but as far as knowing anyone really well, you’ve only met two Christians in your whole life outside of your town. You have never read a scrap of Christian literature because there is no such thing, and if you had it, you couldn’t read it. You have never heard about the good Samaritan. You’ve never heard of Zacchaeus in the tree. You’ve never heard about the feeding of the 5000, unless those two Christians who came to visit you happened to be sitting around one night, around dinner, and spun a yarn and told you one of the stories which had been passed on to them.

The first piece of Christian literature ever to be penned is in your hands. You’ve got it, and you’re gentile heathens who’ve just recently been converted. Now, for just a minute, let’s come back to 1987. This gets really exciting. This is our chance in 1987 to find out what the very first crack open to us was of what was happening in the first century among believers. If I may, and I don’t even like to use this word, this is the first little opening we’ve ever possibly received ever, any evidence of what it was Christians in the first century were thinking and what they were taught, what they believed, what they heard, and what they knew. Open this little letter, and it’s the first archaeological evidence of what Christians were doing, hearing, believing, thinking, what kind of problems they had, what they were doing in their churches. This is the first peek ever in all of human history. Now, have you followed me up till now? Are you with me? There’s somebody in this room whom I have confused. I don’t know where you are, but get your hand up. I always do this. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. Where are you? Yes, sir, Carl. Can someone bring that sentence up here? I didn’t hear it too well. I’m standing right next to a fan.

Okay. Well, we’ve got the letter. The letter is the book of Galatians. It’s the oldest book in the New Testament. That’s what I forgot to tell you. You got it right there after the 1st and 2nd Corinthians. And you would think if it were after the first and second Corinthians, it was at least the third-oldest letter, wouldn’t you? The letter to the Romans is first in front of the 1st Corinthians, so it must be the fourth-oldest letter. Well, that’s something Martin Luther did to you. He wanted to confuse you and keep you in the dark about what church life looked like, so he mixed up all the books.