Is the Bible enough? Ever since the serpent asked, “Has God indeed said?” in the garden, God’s Word has been under attack. Today the fight is over whether it’s sufficient. In Galatia, nobody was throwing Jesus out. The false teachers were preaching Jesus plus. Paul’s answer: the gospel he preached…
Picture an old balance scale. On one side sits the standard. On the other, whatever you're testing. The standard never moves. The standard decides. For the church, that standard is the Word of God. Every tradition, every teaching, every prophecy, every sermon gets weighed against it. The trouble starts when…
Everybody has traditions. Tamales on Christmas Eve. The same seat every Sunday. Most are good, harmless, even precious. The problem starts when a tradition picks up authority and sits next to the Bible as its equal. Paul was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. His world had two camps.…
Paul had just called down the curse of God on false teachers. Twice. Then he stops and asks the room a question about himself: do I seek to please men? This is the Bible study companion to Sunday's sermon. We take one verse slowly, hear what the scholars say, and…
Paul had just called down the curse of God on false teachers. Twice. And the very next thing out of his mouth is a question about himself: do I seek to please men? Somebody had called him a people pleaser. In one verse Paul answers the charge, and in answering…
Paul says it twice: let him be accursed. So who has the right to change the gospel? Nobody. Not the man who brought it to you. Not an angel from heaven. Not anyone who comes after him. This is the Bible study companion to Sunday's sermon. We slow down on…
If there is only one gospel, then somebody has to be in charge of it. So who signs off on it? Who has the authority to bring it current, or soften it a little, or make it fit the times we are living in? That is the question these two…
The Danger of Desertion | Galatians 1:6-7 | Bible Study In the one letter where you expect a thank you, Paul writes a rebuke instead. A church that had the real gospel is walking away from it, and the word he reaches for is the word for a soldier who…
Paul opens every other letter with thanks. Not this one. He goes straight to I marvel, and in his world that was the opening line of a formal complaint. They knew from the first word that something was wrong. What was at stake was the gospel itself. They had the…
How far did God go to rescue you? Paul answers that question four times in one sentence. In this study through Galatians 1:3-5, Pastor Brian Overturf walks the four answers: the price Jesus paid, the prison He broke open, the Father's plan that was older than the world, and the…
Paul says hello and cannot stop there. He sets out to write a greeting, grace to you and peace, and before the sentence is over he has told the whole gospel. Four answers to one question: how far did God go to rescue you? He gave Himself. That is the…
A verse-by-verse Bible study through Galatians 1:1-2, going deeper than Sunday's sermon with the commentaries open. Paul answers one question before he argues anything else: when the Bible tells you something you don't want to hear, who says you have to listen? His answer comes in three parts. This word…
When the Bible tells you something you don't want to hear, who says you have to listen? Imagine two pieces of mail. The first is a flyer you glance at and toss in the trash. The second is a certified letter. It's official, it's signed, and it came from someone…
Galatians is going somewhere. Before we get down on the ground and walk it verse by verse, we take it from 30,000 feet. This is Part 2 of the introduction, the Bible study companion to Sunday's sermon. Six chapters, three legs, one destination: chapters 1 and 2, the gospel revealed,…
Where We're Going — Galatians Introduction, Part 2 Before we walk Galatians verse by verse, we take it from thirty thousand feet. Six chapters, three parts, one destination. Paul opens by telling his own story, because someone had walked into these churches and told them his gospel was second hand.…
Almost nobody walks away from Jesus. They just add to Him. One word, "unless," is what nearly cost the Galatian churches the gospel. This is Part 1 of a two-part introduction to Galatians, the Bible study companion to Sunday's sermon. Before we go verse by verse, we go back to…
Paul planted a church on grace, then watched false teachers try to add "Jesus plus" circumcision and the law until the whole gospel was almost lost. In this first introduction to Galatians, we trace the story in three parts: a gospel planted, threatened, and defended by a man who would…
Talk about the end times is everywhere right now... and for most people it's either entertainment or fear. But when Paul wrote about the Rapture, he ended with one command: "Therefore comfort one another with these words." In this message from 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, Pastor Brian walks rapid-fire through seven…
The last word in James isn't a goodbye... it's a job. When one of us drifts away from God, slow and quiet until nobody notices they're gone, what does He ask the rest of us to do? In this final message of our James series, we look at the wanderer,…
When you can't take it anymore, the prayer you think is too weak to matter is the very prayer that moves the hand of God. In this second half of "When You Can't Take It Anymore," Pastor Brian closes out James with two final answers: trust the power, and take…
Every one of us reaches a point where we can't take it anymore. So what do you do when you get there? In this message from James 5, Pastor Brian walks through the three things James tells us to do when life gets to be too much: take it to…
Paul's last letter opens by remembering two women — a grandmother named Lois and a mother named Eunice. From a Roman prison cell, on the edge of his own execution, Paul traces Timothy's faith back to the women who handed it down. In this Mother's Day message, Pastor Brian asks…
The waiting is hard. But what you do while you wait reveals everything about what you actually believe. In part two of "The Judge Is at the Door," Pastor Brian Overturf continues in James 5:7-12 with the final two things God asks of His people while they wait for justice.…
James 5:7–9 | What do you do when justice is delayed and the wrong people keep winning? Last week James pronounced judgment on the wealthy oppressors and ended with one phrase that wouldn’t let us go: “He does not resist you.” So what are God’s people supposed to do when…