Galatians 2:11-16;
3:26-29
St. Jerome once said that whenever he read the letters of the apostle Paul he could hear thunder. Thunder! It is a short book of only six chapters and 149 verses, but there is a thunderstorm on every page. If Galatians was a weather report, it would say “tornado warning!”
Galatians — probably his first letter — is different from any other book Paul wrote. In most all of his other letters, he begins with a long and usually ebullient thanksgiving to God for the congregation to whom he is writing. To the Philippians, he wrote, “I thank my God on every remembrance of you.” But there is no thanksgiving to God for the Galatians. As soon as he introduces himself, he begins very bluntly, in 1:1-2.
He begins by that amazing statement in 1:6, “I am astonished” — strong word, bowled out of my mind — “that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are returning to another gospel, a different gospel, a strange and false gospel. He goes on to say, “If anyone preaches to you any gospel other than the gospel I preach to you, let him be eternally condemned!”
I am reading from the NIV tonight, and I like the NIV, but you know in all of our efforts to take these old translations and dust them off and make them nice and palatable, we lose something. I am not a King James Version only preacher, but I am a King James Version often preacher. Because often the KJV gets it right. Let him be anathema, let him be condemned, let him go straight to hell! That is the unvarnished Greek.
Look at 3:20, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Again we have kind of cleaned it up a little bit. It actually says, “You idiots! Who has cast a spell on you?” They are under a spell, he says. He calls them idiots. There is thunder in this book, all the way through.
Come over to chapter 5:2 “Mark my words!” Unvarnished translation, “Shut-up and listen to what I am saying…pay attention, you idiots.” Then, come down to 5:12. Paul writes about those who are preaching the false gospel, and he calls them agitators. He says, “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.” Now if it says that in the NIV, if you really want to know what Paul says, you can read my commentary on Galatians. Some things cannot be said at a pulpit — even some things that are in the Bible. This is one of them. Thunder! There is thunder in his voice. There is a tornado warning sounding off.