Reading Galatians With John StottSample

False Teaching Causes Turmoil

False teachers had thrown the Galatian congregations into a state of turmoil—intellectual confusion on the one hand and warring factions on the other. It is interesting that the Council at Jerusalem, which probably met just after Paul wrote this letter, would use the same verb in their letter to the churches: “We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said” (Acts 15:24).

This trouble was caused by false doctrine. The Judaizers were trying to “pervert” the gospel of Christ. They were not just corrupting the gospel but reversing it, turning it back to front and upside down. You cannot modify or supplement the gospel without radically changing its character.

So the two chief characteristics of the false teachers are that they were troubling the church and changing the gospel. These two go together. To tamper with the gospel is always to trouble the church. You cannot touch the gospel and leave the church untouched, because the church is created and lives by the gospel.

Indeed, the church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule, and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel. They are the ones who trouble the church. Conversely, the only way to be a good church person is to be a good gospel person. The best way to serve the church is to believe and to preach the gospel.

From Reading Galatians with John Stott by John Stott with Dale and Sandy Larsen.