Galatians 2:12 And certain men came from James.
SHE SAID:
The “certain” men are Jews…nothing more than that.
MY REPLY:
He didn’t say “Some beloved brothers came from James.”
No. They were trouble makers.
He said “And certain men came from James.” (Clearly curt.)
They came in to spy out our freedom.
They had all kinds of DO’s and DON”Ts for us at Antioch.
They made us not love God anymore.
How could we? After they got done with us, all we could do was worry, worry, worry, about whether or not we had DONE things right?
With Paul, we were just awestruck with love at the grace of God and what was done for us on the cross of His beloved Son.
But our vision of all that melted away when “certain men from James” harassed us with this damn attitude of superiority.
It was incredible that all the brothers fell for it.
Except Paul… thank God for Paul… I thought he was going to get Peter into a Brazilian Juijitsu chokehold… and Peter would have deserved it.
There is no gracious attitude among those dudes from James. How could they be so wrong and not see it? They had tons of scriptures to give themselves heft.
But damn, it’s like our knees were shaking. Like we had offended the great God of the Heavens… and we were deceived in thinking He really loved us just as we were. And that the resurrection changed everything.
The more they talked, the guiltier we felt.
Thank God for Paul.
I hope never to see those certain men from James again.
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POST SCRIPT:
You have an amazing ability to justify the works teaching and make folks ‘ascared’ of grace.
You could probably teach a class on it… and of course, folks would line up for miles around ’cause everyone wants to earn God’s grace ya know.
The Ace Theological Company 