Galatians - To The Churches In Galatia
Week 2 - Not The Gospel

In week one we started by talking about what the Gospel is, who Paul was writing to, and Paul’s apostleship and authority. People have now arrived in the area of Galatia who are trying to tear Paul’s teaching down by saying he was a secondhand apostle and wasn’t actually sent by Jesus.

• When you think of the Apostle Paul, what comes to mind?
• How do people who are sent by someone else typically act when talking about the person who sent them?

These false teachers were telling the people they got their power and authority for what they were saying from Jerusalem, from the ‘original’ apostles (like Peter and James the brother of Jesus). This is why Paul states, at the start, his apostleship and commission to preach this Gospel, and to build this church and family came from Jesus Himself. The Gospel is the announcement that Jesus, the crucified Messiah, is the exalted Lord of the whole world and is calling into existence a single worldwide family.

• What is the Gospel?
• What about the Gospel message first captured your heart?
• Where are you tempted to add something to the gospel, other than Jesus?
• Have you experienced a belief in an “imitation Gospel” to be your guide (salvation)?
• What did/does that imitation gospel look like?

The Gospel is for everyone
Paul is not excluding anyone from salvation; he is inviting everyone in. Jesus has done everything for our life and salvation; there is not another work we must do to enter relationship with God or be adopted into God’s family. The false teachers that Paul will call out are the ones excluding people from the church and God’s people.

Read Galatians 1:6-9.
• What reactions do you have when you hear that the Gospel invites everyone?
• Who do you have a hard time believing that the Gospel invites, and is good news for?

Today there are 3 basic epistemologies (methods or sources people use to figure out what is true):
1) We think the intellectual authority for what we believe is what our tribe, family, news source, or church says.
2) We think our feelings or looking inside our heart will guide us.
3) We view everything through the lens of what Jesus did (the Gospel).

• How does focusing on the Gospel shape what we view about ourselves vs. God and His goodness?
• Which of the three epistemologies do you find yourself in today:
› Family, online news, church
› Feelings/looking inside
› The Gospel, and lens of Jesus
• How can you better turn to the Gospel to be your guide?

The Bible’s answer to the need for belonging and justice doesn’t shy away from the problem of human sin. According to the Apostle Paul, every person—rich or poor, male or female, black or white, religious or secular, right or left has the same dilemma. Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Evil can’t be reduced to a color, a gender, an economic problem; it is a human problem, shared by everyone, everywhere.

• Which of the false gospels we talked about (religion, moralism, prosperity, self-help, signs and wonders, therapeutic, American gospel, social justice, etc.) have you believed and or are tempted to lean into?
• How does understanding our tragic group identity as sinners lead us to be better advocates and grace extenders to all other people?

What is the result of the Gospel?
Read Ephesians 2:13-14 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…this is what Jesus does through His death and resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection not only brings restored relationship between God and humanity, it can also restore relationship between people. This is the result of the true Good News!

• How does the Gospel inspire us to see history more accurately?