Today’s Scripture Reading (November
17, 2014): Galatians 1
Following
the American midterm elections earlier this month, President Obama was quick to
point at himself and take the blame for the defeat. In an interview taped for
the CBS television show “Face the Nation,” Obama said “It’s not enough to just
build a better mousetrap. People don’t automatically come beating to your door.
We’ve got to sell it. We’ve got to reach out to the other side and, where
possible, persuade.” Republicans might wonder at the President’s
characterization of his policies as a better mousetrap. It seems that that has
been the core of the problem – as much as the Democrats had been trying to the
sell their programs throughout the past six years, the Republicans just haven’t
been in a buying mood. And maybe as a result, neither have the American people.
And inferior mistakes like the problems with the rollout of Obamacare have not
helped Obama’s attempts to sell the “better mousetrap.”
It is
probably just the cynic in me that listens to Obama’s words and hears the
accusation “we gave you something better, but you just weren’t smart enough to
realize what wonderful things we have done for you.” But if Obama wasn’t really
saying that (and I still think that is exactly what he was saying), there is no
doubt that that was exactly what Paul was saying as he opens up the letter that
he is writing to the churches in Galatia. The apostle seems genuinely
astonished at the apostasy that is taking place within the Galatian Churches.
And it is not just that the Galatians are turning away from the faith, but how
quickly they are turning away from the faith.
From the
information that Paul gives us in the rest of the letter, it would seem that
the apostasy of the Galatians was a very specific one – the apostasy was toward
an increased Jewish legalism within the Christian Church. We are not sure how
close the writing of “The Letter to the Galatians” was to the proceedings of
the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), but it would seem that a group of Judaizers
(most likely Jewish Pharisees who had converted to the Christian faith) had
succeeded in doing away with advances of the Council and reversing the
Christian faith making it once again simply a sect of Judaism. The Judaizers argument
was that to be a Christian, a person, even if he wasn’t a Jew, must keep all of
the law of the Jewish faith – and this was exactly what James and the Jerusalem
Council had decided was not necessary for any of the Gentile converts.
And Paul
simply cannot believe that the Galatians are willing to trade what he had
fought for with the Disciples in Jerusalem for an inferior faith based on a legalistic
sacrificial system. The sacrifice of Jesus has resulted in a faith version of a
“better mousetrap,” but apparently the Galatians weren’t buying. But Paul doesn’t
hesitate to point his finger at the Galatians. If they aren’t buying, it isn’t
because he wasn’t doing a good enough job at selling – in this case, the blame
totally belonged to the Galatians
On a side
note, Galatians is the only letter of Paul’s that does not begin with a note of
thankfulness for the church that is receiving the letter. Evidently Paul is too
frustrated with the Galatians to bother with the pleasantries. He starts off by
driving his complaint home.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Galatians 2
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