Galatians 4:16 – Gideon’s Challenge

Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

Summary: Paul’s concern for the Galatians demands that he tell them the truth. He knows there is a risk involved. Some people don’t like hearing the truth.

In this passage, Paul asks the Question of the Ages: “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?”

You might be wondering, “What is wrong with telling someone the truth?”

The answer I would offer is “Nothing.” Nothing that is, as long as what you are speaking is actually the truth. The trouble begins when we offer people our opinion about the truth instead of the actual truth.

This concept leads us to more questions!

“Who decides what is truth?” is one of those questions. Another is, “How do we decide who to believe?”

These are important questions, and everyone who lives and breathes has to come up with an answer for them.

In the time of the Judges, when Israel first lived in the Promised Land, there was a young man named Gideon. His people were being oppressed by the neighboring people of Midian. God selected Gideon to be his representative for the people, and he sent an angel to Gideon to give him his instructions.

The story of Gideon comes to mind because Gideon was no dummy. He knew he was in uncharted territory when angels started showing up. Even though he had seen the angel with his own eyes, he wasn’t yet convinced that it was real. He wanted to know the truth.

To make sure he wasn’t deceiving himself, Gideon devised questions that only the true God could answer. God honored Gideon’s challenges and responded patiently to each one. With each interaction with God, Gideon’s confidence in the truth of what God told him grew stronger. Eventually, Gideon’s faith grew so strong that he was able to lead the Israelites into war with the Midianites.

Paul had set the Galatians on the path to truth, but somewhere along the line, they wandered from the path. Paul’s letter was all about telling them that they were going in the wrong direction. It wasn’t that God failed to make himself known to them. He sent them Paul! The problem was that they had failed to test what others said after Paul had left. They allowed themselves to be led down the garden path.

When Paul had taught the Berean Jews about Jesus, “they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11) The Galatians had failed to do the same, and Paul put everything at risk to correct them.

Application: The Galatians assumed they knew the truth. The Bereans and Gideon tested what they were told.

Food for Thought: How do you decide what is true?

6 Replies to “Galatians 4:16 – Gideon’s Challenge”

  1. How do you decide what is true?

    2 Timothy 3:16, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

    John 14:6, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

    John 8:31–32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”

    We will know the truth to the degree we live rejecting the ways of this world and living according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit will teach the truth to each as we study, pray and apply God’s Word to our lives.

    John 16:13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come.

  2. Good response R2T2.

    I agree. Jesus is truth (John 14: 6) and His word is truth (John 1: 1, 14; John 17: 17). Any truth claim must be put through the grid of scripture and align with reality.

    1. Thanks Rich!

      I like your grid: Scripture and Reality

      Both correlate perfectly, but only when we look through the lens of seeking truth.

  3. The world tells us that the truth is relative, a proximity to circumstance. Even in that concept though, one would have to recognize that there would be a ultimate truth, a culmination of all relativity. An absolute truth.

    What one person, or group of people, could ever possibly assemble and comprehend such an absolute truth? And even more so, the underlying question becomes, is truth created and added to the absolute, or does the absolute exist and is shared?

    Looks like that brings us to God. An omniscient Creator that is the living truth. Jesus, His son, who is the living truth. A living truth that shares Himself in His Word and His Spirit. An eternal truth that is infinite. Not an infinite truth that hold no hope.

    So, how do I decide what is true? I have found the truth in God’s Word. I have found the truth in God’s Spirit through His Word. Every relative circumstance I have ever encountered has been a mismatch and twisted version of what is in the Bible. The taking of the living truth centered on God, and reshaping it to serve man. Reading God’s Word and prayer is the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff. I believe a great litmus test for every relative circumstance we encounter is this:

    Mark 12:30-31 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

    Does it honor God? It is worship, praise, obedience?
    Does it open the door to allow Christ to shine from within us?
    Is it what love requires?

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