Thoughts From Galatians 4 - Part 3

 I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong. 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, 14 and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15 Where, then, is your blessing of me now? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Gal. 4:12-16

             You have probably seen the videos on X or YouTube where the latest mega church is striving to pack the house hopefully for a good reason like presenting the Gospel. They will use anything from a sword swallowing fire blower to Harry Potter flying through the air in a circus like atmosphere. And now that the people have been drawn in, let's introduce you to the pastor and his wife. The pastor is buff and looks like he could bench press you and is definitely not going bald. He has $500 Tennis Shoes on, and his clothes are not from Sam's. The wife is beautiful and every woman wants to be her. She definitely has no visible aging.

       

             It's easy to pick on this "low hanging" fruit, but if a "show" brings people out to hear the gospel and even one gets saved that wouldn't have gone to a traditional service, all the mockers on X can mock all they want but it was worth it. Having worked with youth some and seeing my son do it in Silicon Valley where Church isn't a big draw, you can get a bit of empathy for these Mega shows but here's the point- in Galatians 4, Paul talks about how he drew the crowds in when he showed up to their town. He drew them in with strong Biblical supernaturally empowered teaching from the Word of God!

           Can you imagine that? Actually, don't you crave that? I do. How did he look? Frankly, he was hard to look at. You ever see someone with acne so bad that it's hard to look straight at them. His eye infection was kind of doing that number and it probably was even giving off an odor. He didn't come in nice clothes; in fact, he probably needed help getting changed into what amounted to his hospital gown. He wasn't buff or physically fit but rather pudgy, out of shape and ill. What drew the crowd was his exposition of God's word! Man, give me that any day. Who needs bells and whistles, I want the real thing.