An Outward Circumcision

Well, we will continue on in the third to last lesson in Galatians here, I think, if I recall correctly, based on our breakdown. And I have this week and next week. And then, Roger, you have the last two verses. Actually, the last class is going to become an interesting thing. OK. No, Randy, you're to the next two. Then I'm going to wrap it up. Oh, you're doing one? And then he has a one. You have one more, Randy, I believe. Yeah. Then I take one. have the last class, actually the last, the 26th, if you're going to be here, we're going to do something different.

I'm going to actually speak in the main service. I'm going to do the summary in the main service. I thought we'd have just time to share on the table, whatever, what we've learned. So it'll be, we've got collations twice. So bring your notes. There'll be a quiz at the end of the main service for all those who are in this class. So we're going to take a look at 11 to 13 today.

This passage right here, and I guess I should go ahead and read it. It's always handy to have that context. This passage is definitely full of some good meat and content. Paul says, see with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. Boy, talk about the flesh. I don't believe they had the French term double entendre, but that definitely So Paul starts out with, see with what large letters I'm writing to you with my own hand.

Now this is one of those verses that I've heard taught a few times to reference Paul's vision problems. However, I don't believe that's actually the context for this particular little bit. He is written in a few other places a similar sort of thing. We'll take a look at those in a moment. What other possible explanation is there for this verse?

They didn't have underlining of phrases back then. So we figured this is the best emphasis tool I've got. I'll use it. They were getting older and they didn't have glasses for old age. It's alright, we'll keep going. Show me the trick. Just plug it in and re-plug it in. Any other thoughts? None? Okay. So here's what is believed to be the situation here.

Paul dictated most of his letters. And this was historically, contextually regular. This was not abnormal for just Paul to dictate his letters. Other people dictated the letters. This was normal. But the author, the person who had done the dictation, would personally sign the closing of the letter. And so there is some some reason to believe that this is the context for verse 11. So it's not just that he had some kind of vision problems, but it was that this was him closing out this letter. And in closing out the letter, it validated the authority of the letter.

Imagine, if you will, how many of you, now I work in email, I do this for a living, how many of you have ever received an email that looked like it was from somebody? but it actually came from somebody else. Okay, I'm hoping that all of you recognize when that happens. Because that's how phishers make extra money. They try to scam you. Sending an email as though they're one person, but they're really somebody else. There are technologies that exist to help authenticate that the email actually came from a server it said it came from, and the person it said it came from.

This is not a technology class. I won't go into those technologies with you. But when you have an authenticating close to a letter like this, it doesn't just say, hey, I heard this is from Paul. But there's no way to validate that. This comes from Paul and he closes it and he signs it. See, with my own writing, my large writing, yes, he might have had vision problems and so that may be part of it. But it wasn't just for that. This was a validation of Paul's sending the letter. So we want to take that into consideration. that he's closing it. I did cross-reference a few other places.

1 Corinthians 16, verse 21. And there you're going to see something that is very similar to what we just saw in Galatians. He says, this, or the greeting, is in my own hand, Paul. If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed, Maranatha. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all. In Christ Jesus. Amen. So he closes 1 Corinthians again with the same style. Hey, I'm writing this. This is Paul. This is a legitimate letter. It's from me.

Okay, so I had a few questions that I put together related to this verse. Contextually, what makes sense about this verse being placed here if this is a side note of Paul's eye problem? If Paul is trying to emphasize his eye problem, why does this make sense? He didn't want to beat a dead horse in the ground. They already know about his problem. He just wanted to let them know that the need continues, but he didn't want to wallow in self-pity about it. for him to emphasize his eye problems, it doesn't really make sense contextually. It's out of place.

But if this is here as him saying, I'm signing off on this, this is Paul, and he's just saying, look, see how I write with my... If you received a letter and the handwriting changed, you'd go, oh, okay. But he's saying, hey, the handwriting's changed, it's me, Paul. This is valid, it's here. If you're a believer who received the gospel from Paul, he went and traveled to Galatia, What would your thoughts be in finding this closing statement in Paul's own hand? If you had questioned anything that he had said, but you got this personal closing from Paul, this is going to be one of those details that is going to bring it home. This is Paul. It's authentically him. I came to know the Lord through his ministry. This is going to be an encouraging closing.

What if you're a second generation convert? What if Paul wasn't the one that led you to the Lord, but you're in Galatia and you receive this letter and it's signed by him? I was thinking about this and I really think there would be an emotional, personal impact. Paul was obviously an apostle. That's a big deal. If you think about that, this person was commissioned through the Holy Spirit to go and preach the gospel and go out to these places. there's a sense of intimacy and relationship that comes from that.

This is Paul closing off a letter with intimacy and if you're a first generation convert you're reminded this he started out with hey I left you with this and now he's closing with Hey, I left you with this. If you're a second generation convert, and Paul wasn't the one that led you to the Lord, there's still going to be a sense of respect for the position of Paul, and he's going to have an impact, and this signing off is going to be a reminder of that. I'm going to try not to fill with this thing in my ear, but I've lost my mind again. a lapel wouldn't help. So let's move on. We'll take a look at verse 12.

Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. So Paul Paul here is writing about something. He's talked about circumcision before. This is actually the third time he's brought up circumcision specifically, or the word circumcision, to the Galatians. This was obviously a big deal for the people that were there. This is one of the rare times where I get to teach about circumcision and my mom's not in the class. So that's always a little comforting. It's like, oh, good. Mom's not here.

But let's take a look at Galatians 5 verses 2 and 3. Would somebody else mind reading Galatians 5, 2 and 3 out loud? Behold, I, Paul, say to you, that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law. So here we have this really explicit and clear message about circumcision. And he had said previously in chapter 2 verse 3, But not even Titus, who is with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

So this is the third time he's brought up circumcision. Why were the Jews so obsessed with circumcision again? I know we've been over it in this class, but it's been a couple of weeks, a couple of months actually. Why were they so obsessed with this principle of circumcision? What was circumcision a sign of from the Old Testament?

The covenant with Abraham. And God reiterated it with Moses. He said, we're going to have this. But how did Abraham's circumcision differ from the Mosaic circumcision? Abraham's was more or less a membership card. The bylaws came with Moses. Yeah, Abraham already believed and the circumcision came afterwards as an outward sign of an inward faith.

With Moses, how old were you supposed to circumcise a baby? How many days? Eight days. So there's a difference between Abraham's circumcision and Moses' circumcision. Moses' was by law. And Moses' circumcision was one that all the Jews had. Did you have to have faith at eight days? How much believing are you doing at eight days old? It would be hard to testify to the veracity of your faith at eight days. So when Paul is attacking circumcision, he's attacking circumcision in both of those cases where the idea that was held commonly was that circumcision was tied to sanctification and salvation and justification. If we're saved by outward works, what do we get? We have law. We also have an entirely difficult situation.

Phil Mills stopped by my house this week and we were talking about circumcision because he asked how Sunday school was going. I said, well I've got to teach this weekend, I've got to talk about circumcision. Normally we don't bring up circumcision, so I just wanted to give context. That was awkward, I apologize. That's going on the internet when I talk about the film. But what you have here is you've got this situation where if you look back in the Old Testament context there was a massacre of an entire community when Dinah was raped in part through the technique of we're going to use the pain of circumcision in adults to put them out of commission. So, when we look at this context here, I'm sorry, I am going somewhere with this, I'm not just telling stories about dying of rape and circumcision.

As you go through the progress of this, you have this situation where these Judaizers had convinced believers within the church, because these people here, he doesn't seem to be talking about the Judaizers themselves, but actually believers within the church who had been compromised, they were trying to woo people into circumcision.

Come on, you've got to be circumcised. We've got to compromise and embrace the law. Come on over here and do the circumcision thing. There was going to be physical adult pain, and there was going to be embracing of something that they weren't called to. Why are they wooing them into circumcision as adults?

Why would they do this in the Galatian context? Well, a lot of it had to do, I think, with Jewish tradition, because that's just how they lived their life. And it's kind of like, similar to the statement when Paul said, I more than most, because I come from the tribe of Benjamin, and then he makes this big long list of why he's a good Jew. And in modern day, if you ask somebody, you know, if they're saved, they say, well, of course, I came from a saved family.

My father and mother went to church all the time. When we were kids, we did all these things. We were confirmed, we were baptized, we did all this. And so, obviously, they're saved, right? Because their parents were saved. This is kind of the same concept. If you were a good Jew, it followed all the way back to Abraham. It was a genetic salvation, and also one by works. Yeah, the analogy, I think, to baptism in a mainline church is really a better comparison, isn't it? Yeah, well we've got these set of special holy sacraments and things that we do that make this particularly righteous and special believer.

And it's unfortunate. And all those create boasting, don't they? He's going to lead into that, yeah. Now this is something, I'm asking this rhetorically or hypothetically because I don't know. But how would a Jewish man be validated on this? I mean, where are you in a social circle where you're like, hey, are you circumcised? Yes. Okay, I'm going to take your word on that.

Personally, that's about as comfortable as I get. I don't work for the TSA. But the thing is that... I apologize. I shouldn't have said that. But the thing is that as you... I'm a little distracted by the TSA. Actually, the Lord has mellowed me out the last couple of weeks. It took me a while to... I had to rest my hand. Yeah, anyways.

So with this situation, what we have here is we have Culturally, the Jews already had different sects that they were part of. So when you went to the synagogue or you went to the temple, there were already different groups. Okay, we already know about the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but even within that, there were smaller groups where, you know, it's kind of like the equivalency today where we had different denominations and we split hairs and we're like, oh, you know, I go to Bible church, I'm a Baptist, I'm an Episcopalian, I'm a Methodist. So there were even the different sects that were in there.

But here's the thing, if you can get everybody to be circumcised, and you can just pass yourself off as a sect of Judaism more than Christian, then you're going to offload some of that social pressure. You're going to get rid of that. So come on, just get circumcised, that way we can reduce the social pressure. What that is, and so really I've got some questions here, is it's a movement to compromise.

Under the law, you need to be circumcised. Under grace, you do not. It's politically correct Jewish. Right, yeah. But if we can just all get circumcised, these Judaizers will lay off us and we'll be able to relax a little bit and we can just go about our business. Except for that you can't. Why? We have to follow the law. Yeah. How much of the law? All of it.

You're going to be like, great, you got circumcised. What are you doing with that bacon? You know, they're going to find something else in the law that you're breaking and then it's like, all right, let's bring this, you know, you can't get away from it. Donna?

I just think how subtle the old man is. I mean, that's really the point here, is just to get that old man in there so that there's something for him to do. So great, you go through the discomfort of an adult circumcision, you make it through, and then you can boast on it, you can brag on it.

This is no different than when you want to join any group and the popularity of being in that group. I mean, it's almost like, you know, going back to high school and you have certain things that you're supposed to do if you're going to be, you know, an athlete or if you're, I guess, if you're a cheerleader or if you're part of you know, some small select group, you're going to wear certain clothes, or you're going to talk a certain way, or you're going to be doing things that make you part of this group that shows that you're part of this group. And it's a popularity contest. From a marketing principle, it's the psychology of bandwagon thinking. Come be part of the special group.

Use this device. Drive this car. Eat this cereal. Wear those shoes. Whatever it is, those things come in there. In this case, it's circumcision. That's a little bit more personal than what car you drive. You get a one-shot deal with that. But these things come into play.

It's compromise. Now, let's ask this. Why do people use compromise for ministry purposes? Because that's what they were saying. Come on. This is for ministry purposes. You're going to be able to reach out to these people with the wonderful message of our altered gospel, which is a problem. So Paul's already corrected that. But just compromise. Just get the circumcision and then you'll have this ministry opportunity.

Why do people do that? Because it's not like this only happened once. This happens today. It's visual and you can boast about it. Okay. It is physical or visual and you can boast about it. If it's compromised, is there such a thing in Galatians? Is there a compromise that works? Well, it's an event. Well, exactly. But why do people do it though? I mean, the thing is that People justify it, not scripturally, but they justify it all the time.

But to compromise would indicate that you don't understand the grace that's been given, right? Well, true, yeah. But under the legalistic systems, why do people compromise? Fundamentally, that's the question that you asked is really the question. Is there compromise?

No. There's grace and you may not know that you're Experiencing it or not, but but there's grace Yeah, because they don't understand the gospel message, which is that we are to be Like God and we're supposed to strive to please him and it's not that we're supposed to comply with the law The law is just an instructor teaches us and then our goal is still to please God to be like God to strive to be you know, more like him. That's the goal through faith and it's not through the works or focusing on this list of things that you have to do. Could you modify that maybe Stan and say that because of what God has done for us in Christ and as we realize who we are in Christ that then we please God from there rather than pleasing God the goal It's more of a benefit from knowing who you are? I think pleasing God is really important because if you do a word search and you look up, you know, those who please God, they were a lot of the people in Hebrews chapter 11. And how you do that is through the power of the Holy Spirit who convicts you of how you're supposed to live. You know, we now have the Spirit. They had the law, but we have the Spirit now.

So if you know Him, though, and you know him intimately and personally, you would want to, right? Right, exactly. The relationship, as it grows, it leads to that. It's one of those logical imperatives. Well, of course you're going to please the Lord because you're in a relationship with him, but it's not the It's not right. I see what you're saying. Yeah. You know, it's it's the step two. Right. And I understand. Yeah. Well, I think we're just saying the same thing. Right. So we'll just make a quick point right in the the issue of circumstances. It was credibility, wasn't it? I'm sure he used that to some extent to bring the new Jewish believer into correct perception of this whole issue, and he's doing that here.

In addition, circumcision still takes place readily in the Western world today, right? Circumcision in its own right, the issue here is being constrained or compelled to be circumcised, right? And circumcision in its own right has, there's no flaw there. It's what perspective you put on circumcision. Here it's, you know, being compelled. Is there any sanctification or spiritual development that comes from it? Yeah, and so his argument is clearly no throughout the entirety of the book.

But I get a feeling it was a ticket into some arenas for him, having had that history himself. He went to the Jews first at the temples and the synagogues. Or temples, there's only one temple. He went to the Jews first at the at the synagogues when he went into town because he knew that they would know the Old Testament scriptures that would prophesy the Messiah that was coming. So the second question we've already been over.

Why would Paul be critical of them being afraid of persecution? Well it says later that he wore the marks of Jesus Christ which was the suffering that he went through And God's in charge. God's got a plan. And if part of that plan is suffering, well, then you just go through it.

And to avoid it is, you know, wrong. Well, the question is, you know, why is persecution wrong? Because if the idea is that we're going to do the circumcision to avoid persecution, this persecution is bad and wrong, and let's just get out of it. rather than the biblical context for trials and suffering. I mean the persecution here would have come to them because of political correctness, right? Yeah. I mean it was totally irrelevant to what the truth is. Sure. I mean this is entirely flesh motivated, isn't it? Yeah.

Doesn't it say in Hebrews that you have not, how does it go, you have not suffer to the point of the shedding of blood, right? So in other words, their suffering is great, but still not to the place of death. And so that was one of the purposes of writing the book of Hebrews, is the fact that they were under persecution. You just have to endure it. Don't compromise. The funny thing is that these people who were influenced by the Judaizers were actually pressuring and persecuting, even if it was on a lighter level, the other newer believers saying, come on, get circumcised. Let's give you social pressure so we can avoid the larger social pressure. but it wasn't biblical justification.

And the thing is that one thing I found about persecution, and I've only been under the mildest sorts, but one thing I found about persecution is that it causes you to go back and look at what you believe and why. What does God's Word say about this? When it's a trial, you look at your convictions. Do I really believe this? Oh, yeah, I do. Do I really believe this? Oh, wait a minute, Scripture doesn't say what I thought it said.

Because I've had people, when they come and attack a doctrine, they'll take me to task. And I've had a much smaller number take me to task on Scripture, but when they do, I have to go back and I have to look at Scripture. And you know what, sometimes I've been wrong. Now, it's been a while since some of those, otherwise I'd have Randy, wasn't that the purpose of the 613 laws that they added?

You can either go to your convictions as you were talking about or the Jewish people would go to the law and they'd say if we're suffering then we must not be complying with the law well enough. So we will just add some more things here to make sure that we don't It's funny because they were complying with all the wrong parts of the law. They picked the ones that were difficult from a works-based standpoint, but relationally they were confused. They didn't understand the relationship with God.

Like walking extra distance on Sunday. I mean, what does that have to do with your relationship with God? I mean, I understand why it's there because Sunday is supposed to be the Sabbath. But walking an extra two feet is going to make a difference as far as... Well, they've figured out how to get around that though. I have a story. When I was a kid, no, no, when I was a kid, I had Jewish neighbors, two houses down.

And every Friday night, the son would start heading down and their mom would call them in, because Sabbath was going to start. So they'd ride their bikes home, get into their house. And then her mom would realize, oh shoot, I'm out of whatever, pick something, it doesn't matter. And she would send her kids.

Now you cannot step more than, was it 20 steps or something away from your property. So here's what you do. You grab an armful of stuffed animals, And you walk 20 steps, drop a stuffed animal. Oh, there's your property. 20 more steps. And so she would send her sons over. And I remember one time, this was a classic moment of we must be Gentiles. They walk over and they drop all their stuffed animals. And they get to it and ding dong, knock on the door.

Oh, hi, why are you here? It's Saturday. Do you have a skillet or a pan that you have not cooked pork in? Or bacon? Or anything else? Because my mom needs a whatever. So, it was like the ultimate, I mean, then they would have to carry the heavy pot and pan and start collecting the stuff. But we didn't have one because we like bacon. They could have just left it there. Yeah, then they wouldn't have to drop them next time.

But the thing is, when you come up with these laws or these rules, then you come up with ways to get around it. You know, the problem with the law is it did not remove the need for the believing Jew, the saint that had a relationship with God, From walking in relationship and fellowshipping with God and recognizing the situation they were in, in context, David broke the law a number of times running away from Saul. Well, he broke the law when he wasn't running away from Saul. He broke the law because he was a human being. But even so, when Christ is chastised for gathering the grain of wheat, do you remember that? And they said, oh, that's work. And he said, well look at David. David did it, and he's one of your holy men that you point back to, one of your fathers of Judaism. And they really couldn't answer that. He was right, and they were mad.

But we have the situation of when Paul is critical of them being afraid of persecution, it's because they didn't recognize God's hand. in standing up for what is true. If what you believe is true and something God gave to you, and I believe the Bible is something God gave to us that we can hold on to as true, then being persecuted for it is not being persecuted for something stupid. I will never be persecuted for the Colorado Rockies, but I will be persecuted for God's Word.

One has eternal value, one not so much. When I get to heaven, the Lord's going to say, oh man, you should have been a fan of the Nationals. And I'm like, oh, I missed it. No, that's not how it is at all. But the eternal value and the persecution were linked because this is God's message, this is grace. How much grace do we find ourselves in? We're in 100% grace. We're in God's infinite grace. So being persecuted for grace is worth it. Being persecuted for the law, not so much. Especially as believers since we died to the law. Alright, we'll keep going. Last question here.

How does this passage tie into our needing to have an eternal perspective? How does persecution tie into an eternal perspective? Depends on where your focus is. If you're going to focus on the here and now, which is where the suffering is, or like it says, life is but a vapor, so it's only temporary, focus on the eternal.

And by the way, the Rockies are eternal, they've got two Lewitsky now. For ten years, unless he gets wounded. That's a rabbit trail on this little stuff. But the thing I wanted to point out is that with an eternal perspective the suffering is temporary. If I were to draw a line all the way across the board and say that's eternity, not only would that be false because eternity is longer than a two-pointed line, but even if I were to scratch a tiny line through it, that is a tiny poor reflection of the finite nature of the suffering. If you have an eternity that we'll be growing in the grace of God, He's going to be revealing His grace to us, even into eternity. This time and the suffering that comes with it is in that context. Setting your mind on things above, those things tie together. So let's take a look at verse 13.

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. I think it's funny that Paul nails them to the wall, if you will, with the idea that they don't even keep the law themselves.

How many of you, I mean I just shared the story of my Jewish neighbors, but how many of you have found your own situations where you know somebody who's super legalistic about whatever, doesn't pick any topic, and yet they have that point where they just cross that line for one thing. Oh, I can't believe what's on television. Did you see that latest movie? Which one is it?

If you're going to be legalistic, let's toe the line. It starts with kids. know the rules but don't apply to themselves. We had a rough day with our daughters yesterday and it was that same kind of thing where it's just like she hit me well after you scratched me well yeah but you took my toy and I'm like oh my gosh this started 15 minutes ago we're just finally hearing about it. Yeah you cross those lines and you do those things but Paul nails these legalists Paul speaks from personal experience with this.

We have already mentioned several times in this class that he was a Jew of Jews. He was persecuting Christians because he hated anything that wasn't Jewish so much. And this was such an abomination to Judaism, these crazy Christian ideas. Of course, the Lord helped him have an eternal perspective on that, and he changed his mind on the way to Damascus. And Randy, how many times did he bring up covetousness? that seemed to be his log in his eye, because every time he started talking about sin, or following the law, or all this other sort of thing, he would always say, and covetousness, because I think that was one of his really pronounced problems in his life, as a Pharisee, and as a Jewish person, and worked under Camille, and he probably had sufficient money at one time in his life, and he was probably desiring these things, and it came down to the fact that He could not get on top of covetousness in the law.

That's from the Ten Commandments. But the funny thing is that if you take the earthly perspective that a good relationship with God equals physical blessing, material blessing, then not having those physical blessings means that I must be doing something wrong.

I've got to try a little harder so that I can get those things. Then I'll stop being covetous. It's a play. It's self-compromising. He knows that. Paul writes this, they don't keep the law. How does he know they don't keep the law? Because he did it. He knew, I can't keep the law, not all of it. Not all 613 laws flawlessly for any extended period of time.

So this thing where he says, They're boasting. Who are they boasting in the flesh to? Each other. Each other. If they go before God, are they going to be able to boast to God? At the most, they can say, I complied with the law. But they don't get to leverage. You don't get to negotiate with God and say, well, I got 9 out of 10. That guy got 8 out of 10. Come on. What's my extra special bonus? So the boasting is to one another. It's boasting in the flesh. It's certainly not boasting that anyone could take to the Lord.

Well, there's the Jew on the outside and then there's the Jew, the true Jew on the inside. The true Jew on the inside, yeah. And we already asked this, but which covenant does a circumcision belong to? It was the old covenant and it was not for the believer. Exactly. I saw this. I saw this.

Why or why not would circumcision pacify a Pharisee? If you're going to talk about boasting, you're going to boast to the flesh, you're going to boast to other people. I'm sure they were boasting to the Pharisees, that would have been the primary group in Galatia. Why would or would it not pacify the Pharisees?

Because it's a metric for human performance. But it's only the tip of the iceberg. That was unintentional, I apologize. It said in Acts that Paul was actually accused of, the Pharisees actually accused him of speaking against the law and Jewish customs and traditions. And that was one of the big charges against him.

So in one way that this would satisfy the Pharisees is the fact that, okay, well Paul says that we've died to the law, but this is still valid. And we still do this. And this man can't be talking against all our customs and all that other stuff, because this is really important. It shows our genetic relationship to Abraham, blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff.

They accused him actually of speaking against Jewish customs, that's pretty big. Sure, well, and they had created a much larger system than the 613 laws, with all the buffer laws around that. In the end, this would pacify them, but only temporarily. They would be excited now, but now, oh great, you've got 612 left. Alright, we've got one. Let's work on the rest of them. Because Paul said it earlier, and we read it in chapter 5. When you embrace the law, you get to embrace all the law. You don't get to embrace just part of it. You can't get the nine commandments. You can't get 412 that I like. You know, I've got about 200, 199 that... I'm not a big fan of those. I like lobster. I already mentioned bacon.

But the thing is that as we look at this, Paul levels these arguments against the Pharisees and the legalists that are there, and they have no room to squirm. Most of you know Jeremy Doan, right? Jeremy Doan actually sent me a link to a guy who has created a commentary on the Book of Galatians that is pro-law. He somehow manages to go all the way through Galatians and come out with, the law applies to believers.

I can't fathom reaching this far into the book and still saying, yeah, the law is for believers. You just have to understand what Paul really meant. Which seems pretty explicit to me, but apparently we don't understand. It's hard to fathom. If someone is embracing the law, you cannot persuade them with fleshly arguments. It is only the power and authority of scripture that you can go to. And they can still ignore that. They'll do songs and dances. They'll say, this doesn't apply to me. Or you're, you know, I don't interpret that that way. That's a good one. I choose not to do that. Why? I don't interpret that. OK. But what do you mean then? Anything but that.

So as we close down with this section, we're going to keep going. Next week, Paul's going to tell us why we shouldn't boast in any of those things. He's boasting in these things. Yay! Not really. That's not boasting. We'll look at that next week. As we close here, this is Paul's personal appeal to them. This is his closing in his own handwriting to them. This is the third time he's talked about circumcision and it's the umpteenth time through Galatians where he says the law is wrong. The only way that we can handle failures in the flesh outside of the law is through grace.

And so hopefully as we continue on we'll take a look at that and we'll see what we can really boast in and it won't be the works of the flesh. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time that we have had to take a look at your word and look at circumcision and legalism. Lord, I just ask that you would, in our own walks this week, draw our hearts and minds to things above so that we wouldn't be distracted by earthly things and earthly performance. Lord, thank you for your grace and thank you that we're swimming in it. We just praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.