Michael Youssef - Leading the Way Through Galatians

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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Leading the Way Through Galatians

Copyright 2013 by Michael Youssef

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Youssef, Michael.

Leading the way through Galatians / Michael Youssef.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-5166-1 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5167-8 (eBook)

1. Bible. N.T. GalatiansCommentaries. I. Title.

BS2685.53.Y68 2013

227.407dc23

2012031473

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

To all faithful preachers, teachers, and Christian leaders who seek to accurately expound the Word of God from pulpits or in Sunday school classes or in home Bible study groups .

I want to offer all my thanksgiving to the Father in heaven whose Holy Spirit has laid on my heart the writing of this series for the glory of Jesus. I am also immensely grateful to the Lord for sending me an able and gifted editor and compiler of my material in Jim Denney.

Special thanks to the entire team at Harvest Houseand especially to Bob Hawkins Jr., LaRae Weikert, and Rod Morris, who shared my vision and made this dream a reality.

My expression of thanks would not be complete without mentioning the patience and perseverance of Robert and Andrew Wolgemuth of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc., for managing the many details of such an undertaking.

My earnest prayer is that, as I leave this legacy to the next generation, God would raise up great men and women to faithfully serve their generation by accurately interpreting the Word of God.

Contents

Galatians 1:1-9

Galatians 1:10-24

Galatians 2

Galatians 3:1-14

Galatians 3:15-29

Galatians 4

Galatians 5:1-14

Galatians 5:14-26

Galatians 6

G alatians has been called the Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty, the Battle Cry of the Reformation, and Pauls Fighting Epistle. I like to think of Galatians as Pauls Declaration of Liberation.

The message of Galatians is the good news of our spiritual freedom in Christ. It has been nearly two thousand years since the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, set forth this amazing declaration of Christian liberty. Yet the message of Galatians is as relevant today as when the ink was still wet on the parchment.

People today worship at the altar of so-called freedom, yet they are ignorant of what it means to be truly free in Christ. They demand their personal liberty, yet they reject knowledge of the true Liberator. The more they indulge their freedom, the more enslaved they become to sin and addiction. In Galatians, youll learn what it means to be truly liberated, and youll learn how to communicate this message of freedom to those around you who are slaves to the law, slaves to the flesh, slaves to their own self-destructive impulses and desires.

Pauls letter to the Christians in Galatia is very different from most of his other letters. Whereas most of his letters were addressed to either individuals (Timothy, Titus, Philemon) or churches in specific cities (Romans, Ephesians, Philippians), Galatians is addressed to a number of churches across a wide region. Ancient Galatia was a region in the Anatolian highlands of present-day Turkey. In Acts 13 and 14, we find that the Galatian churches were planted in the region by Paul and Barnabas on Pauls first missionary journey.

Paul and Barnabas encountered severe resistance during their travels through Galatia. They were persecuted in the Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconium, and Derbe. In Lystra, Paul and Barnabas were initially welcomed as gods: Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker (Acts 14:12). Later, persecutors arrived from other cities and stirred up the crowds against Paul. The crowds stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city. Though Paul seemed dead, he later rose up and went on to Derbe with Barnabas. Despite intense resistance to the gospel, Paul, led by the Holy Spirit, planted a number of churches in that region.

On Pauls second missionary journey, accompanied by Silas, he visited the churches he and Barnabas had established in the region. During that second journey, he spent considerable time recuperating from an illness. Paul refers to this illness here in his letter to the Galatians, and his wording suggests that his illness probably had to do with his eyes:

You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me (4:13-15).

Pauls feelings for the churches in Galatia were intensified by the strong emotions of his experiences in that region. In Galatia, he was persecuted, stoned, and nearly killed, yet he was also loved and cared for by the believers in these young churches. He suffered from a bodily ailment that, in some way, was a trial for the Galatian Christians to endureperhaps because Pauls ailment made him unpleasant to look at. In spite of his affliction, the Galatian Christians treated him as if he were an angel from God.