Title Aging Experience
Mature Galatians (4) Experience (Galatians 1:11-17)
<Don't go back to the past>
In verses 6-9, the Apostle Paul terribly rebukes the ‘other gospel’ and speaks of the ‘real gospel’ (verses 11-12). The other gospel is that works are necessary for salvation according to the will of man, and the real gospel is that we can be saved only through faith in Jesus according to the will of God. However, because many people gave up their freedom and returned to their old bondage due to the human nature of valuing works, the Apostle Paul emphasized, “There is no other gospel” with a feeling of frustration.
In Richard Bark's novel "The Seagull's Dream", Jonathan Segal the seagull teaches the seagull that follows him. “I am our freedom. Let go of anything that stands in the way of that freedom.” Then a seagull asks a question. “Then should we abandon law and order as well?” Then Jonathan answers. “The true law is what leads to true freedom.”
Many saints today have spiritual wings on themselves, but they want life in a cage and do not want to fly. Living in such deep bondage to the old legal acts is like receiving the gospel and then falling into a different gospel. Don't forget that the saints have gained great freedom in Jesus, and show their works 'as saved people', not 'for salvation'. In that way, after receiving the gospel, do not fall into other gospels, but start with faith and end with faith.
< Let the experience mature >
After speaking of the true gospel, the Apostle Paul testifies of the importance of grace through his transformation (verses 13-15). And when God called him by grace and gave him the vocation to preach the gospel of the cross to the Gentiles, he immediately responded to that call “without consulting with flesh and blood” (verse 16). What an amazing passion. Looking at that passion, it seems that he is going to do something big right away, but he did not immediately express the burning passion in his heart, but instead used that passion as a raw material to refine him into a being worthy of being used.
How did you do it? Instead of going to the capital city of Jerusalem, they retreated for a while in Arabia and Damascus, where they had “a three-year family at Arabian Wilderness Seminary” (verse 17). How desirable is it to transcend human emotions and thoughts? In order to do God's work well for a long time, first prepare to have a deep inside. It is not virtuous if you live your life of faith like the person who received the most grace because of a momentary hotness.
I had a friend in college. He experienced grace during the summer vacation of his third year. When he started school, he had turned into a passionate evangelist in less than two months of living a religious life. However, since he preached with only a burning passion, there were many scenes that made people frown. Even in the library, I preached out loud. would that be it? There was heat, but there was no balance and wisdom. Eventually, the heat faded after about six months, and after graduating from college, I left God for a while.
It would have been nice if he had had the period in the Arabian wilderness that the apostle Paul had. Passion is good, but don't lose your balance. If you prepare to support your passion, you can do God's work better for a long time. Don't be a religious adventurer who lacks depth and passion. Adventure is necessary, but it must not obscure the glory of God. So, experience alone is not enough, and the period of three years in Arabia is necessary to refine the experience.
Paul was able to become the Paul he is today because he matured his experiences during the three-year period in Arabia. As such, it is necessary to theologize the experience in the light of the words of the Bible. Faith and theology are both important. Don't ignore theology just because you have faith. A word-centered life is not about following a single, minor verse in the vast Bible. If you have such an attitude, you risk using the Bible as a means of rationalizing your attitude.
A personal maturation process is required in light of one's experience of faith in light of the words of the Bible. Experiential faith without such a process is likely to end up as a reed faith that shakes over time or a trivial belief. Through the three years of the Arabian wilderness, the process of maturation of experience, combine faith and theology, combine grace and truth, and have a burning heart and a cool head to become a well-rounded saint who does not lean to the left or the right. Before you can receive the blessing, you must remove the shaking of the soul so that the blessing will accumulate in your life one by one.