Preparing Our Minds And Hearts

 For you have heard of my former conduct

in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God

beyond measure and tried to destroy it.

And I advanced in Judaism beyond many

of my contemporaries in my own nation,

being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions

of my fathers.  But when it pleased God,

who separated me from my mother's womb

and called me through His grace,

to reveal His Son in me, that I might

preach Him among the Gentiles,

I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,

nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were

apostles before me; but I went to Arabia,

in return again to Damascus.

Galatians 1: 13 -- 17

            Paul never sought the glory of men, for he did not need to be "patted on the back" so that he felt pious.  Paul never aimed to please men.  There are a couple of things in the Scriptures that we should consider before we continue on, in this letter to the Galatians.  First, Paul reminded the Galatians that he was well-known for his religious fervor as a Pharisee and those things he did in his attempt to destroy the new Christian sect.  Paul held to the tradition of the Jewish religion and by this time, many of those traditions were simply man made traditions and not the traditions given to them by Moses.  The second thing of interest: the fact that Paul was called by God before he was born in that which occurred to him upon the road to Damascus when Jesus appeared to him to set him apart actually in time and was not the calling.  Paul was now ready mentally and religiously to become the apostle that Jesus wanted to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles.  Now comes this fact that Paul went into our Arabia and far too many people do not understand the geography and wonder how was it that Paul could go to Arabia and then to Damascus.  There has been much discussion over this fact that Paul went to Arabia and if we consider Arabia in maps to day we would then lose exactly what was being taught and understood in the days Paul. Paul said in Gal 4:25, that Mt. Sinai is in Arabia. This is a huge problem for those who believe Mt. Sinai is located at Mt. Musa in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula. First they argue that the Sinai Peninsula is not controlled by Egypt or part of Egypt. This contradicts the Bible in Gen 15:18, that says the Wadi el Arish is the border between Egypt and Israel. When this fails, they appeal to ancient geographers and maps to show that the Sinai Peninsula was called Arabia. Although this sounds convincing, the fact remains this contradicts history because when Paul wrote Gal 4:25, it was at least 50 years before the Sinai was first called Arabia in 106 AD, when the Romans annexed this land. Totally stumped, they finally they pull out an ancient map and say, "See! The land east of Goshen in Egypt was called Arabia." The problem is that they failed to look at the map themselves and notice that the Gulf of Aqaba is missing and the Sinai Peninsula does not exist. This is because the Gulf of Aqaba is missing and the Sinai Peninsula were not understood until about 1800 AD.  I've included an ancient map to give us some aid in our understanding and one must notice that the island of Crete was also included in the land of Arabia.

I tried to insert this old map but was not able to do so:

Hildburghausen, Bibliograph. Institut 1831-40
Steel engraving, hand colored in outline when published. This antique map shows Asia Minor with a small part of Arabia. Inside the map are many place names, rivers, etc. At the bottom of the map we see small inset map, which shows the island Crete. In the lower right corner is a inset map, which shows the mileage scales. 21,4 x 27,1

            I've taken the time to do this so that we can get past these controversies and get into what Paul actually wrote and why he wrote the way he did to the Galatians.  Paul was commissioned by Jesus Christ's to preach the gospel in this to the Gentile nations.  As was written in former blogs there was many practices being performed that were in contradiction to the commands of God in what had been preached to them by Paul.  Furthermore, there were those who were attempting and had done so in some way, to turn the Galatians to another gospel that was not the gospel at all.  Paul began after showing that he was a true apostle to endeavor to impress upon the Galatians there since of their guilt and forsaking the gospel way of justification.  Paul does this with mildness and tenderness towards them, and represents them as being drawn into it by the arts of some that troubled them.  Paul was reproving them so that they would return to their faith and be faithful, and this is true of us that we should also be gentle, and endeavor to restore those who have fallen away in the spirit of meekness.  These letters and epistles were not just written in some sort of vacuum, they were written to current problems, actual problems, and methods that Christians should use to keep the congregation clean and to help others to also walk in the way of truth.  This is also your commission, and mine, so we must ask ourselves: is this what I'm doing?

He who rebukes a man will find

            more favor afterward

then he who flatters with the tongue.

                        Proverbs 28: 23

Walk in the way of integrity

Richard L. Crumb