How can people live in harmony?
Text: Galatians 5:13-26
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2025 CrossTalk Global
Brian: Winston Churchill famously said that the story of the human race is war, and he might have been correct. The ancient world was constantly at war. There were the Greco Persian wars, the Peloponnesian War, the Punic wars, and the Gallic wars, which solidified Roman dominance over the Mediterranean and most of Europe. The Middle Ages saw the Crusades, which were waged by European Christians to reclaim the Holy Land, while the Hundred Years War between Britain and France devastated both nations. Meanwhile, the Mongol invasions allowed Genghis Khan and his successors to build one of the largest empires in history across major parts of Asia and Eastern Europe. Over the next four centuries, we experience the 30 Years War between Catholics and Protestants, the English Civil War, the Seven Years War, and the American revolutionary war. The 19th century was marked by the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, and the Taiping Rebellion in China, one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. The 20th century saw the first and Second World wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, while in the 21st century, we have seen conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and today's Russian invasion of Ukraine. It looks like Churchill was right. The story of the human race is war. But does that mean peace is impossible? Can people live in harmony? Join Nathan Norman, Vicki Hitzges and Kent Edwards as they explore the solution to interpersonal conflict that the world and the Church have been seeking for centuries. In the last part of Galatians, chapter five. Welcome to CrossTalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitzges and Nathan Norman continue their discussion through the Book of Galatians. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Galatians, chapter 5, verses 13 to 26, as we join their discussion.
Kent: Nathan? Vicki, have you known people who have fought in military conflict?
Vicki: Yeah, I think everybody has.
Kent: How did it affect them?
Nathan: It's interesting because I've had a number of family members on both sides of the family, but who have been in wars and conflicts of wars. And on the surface level, you know, they'll tell the fun stories about, you know, accidentally blowing up an alligator or something, but under the surface of there, there is. There's usually deep hurt and deep pain.
Vicki: I think there is, too. When I was a little girl, my grandfather fought in the war to end all Wars, World War I. And I wish I knew enough about the war and knew enough about conversation to Ask him about it. I never discussed it with him, but he had his leg almost completely blown off and he got a Purple Heart, and I never discussed the war with him. I don't know. He was of the generation that didn't discuss things much. But I would have loved to have known his story. How did it happen? Where did it happen? I've known friends that went to Vietnam and they were bitter when they came back to not be as they should have been rewarded for that. There are people that come back with post traumatic stress syndrome. I think war would be. I mean, duh. But it would just be a horrible thing to endure.
Kent: Horrible, unimaginable atrocities, pain, suffering.
Vicki: Absolutely.
Kent: Yeah. I don't think there's any way that anyone could be involved in a significant armed conflict without being permanently affected by it in one way or another. But wars are not only fought on the battlefield. Have you ever seen a church at war? Conflict exists, as Brian was talking about all through history, and people picking up arms. But have you seen similar actions within a church? People turning on each other either externally or internally?
Vicki: I was involved with a sweet church, and I left it. Not because I didn't like it, just. But I heard later that the church split, and I don't know all that went into it, but, oh, it broke my heart because people who loved each other are now enemies. And the two pastors, there was a senior and a junior, and they. Oh, they ended up. These were godly men and they ended up bitter against each other. And because they were, the church took sides. And I just. I can't imagine that church going that way, but it did.
Nathan: Yeah. Isn't that the story? I mean, that's the story. I have personally been involved with churches where exactly the same story you told Vicki were people who loved each other. All of a sudden it turned into this bitterness, and former friends became enemies. And if you see each other in the store, they would turn the other way and not talk to each other. It's horrible. And in fact, I know I've gone back into the community where a church split happened, and I wasn't primarily involved with it, but I was in the midst of it, right? And then, you know, I was staying at a friend's house overnight, and they were like. And I said, yeah, I'm going out for dinner, so I won't be around. And they said, oh, yeah, cool. Who are you going to go see? And I mentioned the person who I was going to go see, and that was a person on the other side of the conflict. It Just got awkward. And they were like, oh, okay. Don't tell him I said, hi.
Kent: Wow.
Nathan: Don't tell him where you're staying. Right. And it's just. It's so hard. I was speaking at a church that I was involved with as a young person before I was an adult. And so I was going back, and I was speaking there, and I just announced it on Facebook. Hey, by the way, I'm going to be at this church. I'm doing a sermon there. And I got a private message from someone who left after a church split. And he said, oh, yeah, I'm glad you're in the area. I wish we could be able to go see you.
Kent: Ooh.
Nathan: And he just felt that it's so bad. The split was so bad, I can't even go back. I can't set foot in there.
Kent: You know?
Vicki: Oh, that's terrible.
Kent: These are tragic stories that affect everyone. And I wonder if it would be inappropriate to reframe Winston Churchill's quote, the story of the human race is war. To say is the story of the church war. Think back through the centuries. The schisms, the fights, the breakups. This isn't just a modern phenomenon. This has gone through the whole history of the church. In fact, we can see, according to the Apostle Paul, the Galatian churches were experiencing significant internal turmoil, turmoil that was caused by false teachings about the role of the Old Testament law in the Christian life. Vicki, let's pick up what Paul was saying about the division in the Galatian church in Galatians 5, starting verse 7.
Vicki: Okay. He says you were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. Oh, that's a good image. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.
Kent: Hmm. So they were running a good race, but things went wrong. Nathan, what's the backstory here?
Nathan: Yeast is very small, and every time I have to buy yeast at the grocery store, I know it's in the baking section. I'm up and down that aisle 75,000 times. I know the package is small. I can never find it. And then I ask about a dozen people, and finally one person can show me where it is, and it was right in front of my face the whole time. That's not what you were asking about, though.
Kent: That's a different kind of conflict. We're not going there. This is not shopping controversy.
Nathan: So they were joyfully following the gospel. They were running a good race. And then these Judaizers came into the church and they said, well, if you want to really be loved by God, if you want to be super Christians, then you also have to follow the Old Testament law. Men, you get circumcised, everybody follow dietary laws, follow all these other rules, and then God will really super duper, mega love you and accept you.
Kent: Wow. Okay.
Nathan: And Paul is saying, are you kidding me? You accepted the Gospel of grace, the free gift of Jesus, salvation and eternal life, and you were doing well with that. And then what in the world happened?
Kent: So it was these teachers of the law, these false teachers that were introducing means of salvation and intimacy with God beyond justification by faith. They're the ones that brought this confusion then. Right, right, right. So that's a confusion. And the result of this theological confusion regarding, as you mentioned, the role of the Old Testament law and the life of the New Testament church is described in verse 15. Look at these words.
Vicki: If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Kent: Wow.
Nathan: It's ironic, too, because part of the Judaizers were asking them to follow the dietary laws. And so he uses this cannibalism image.
Kent: It's a book. No, he's saying that this false teaching has resulted in a huge conflict. I mean, those words are significant. Bite, devour, watch out or you will be destroyed. I mean, to your point, Nathan, I was interested to see that actually devouring each other is common among the animals. I read that male lions and even monkeys will kill their infants in order to make their mother sexually receptive and eager to mate. Male rats, mice, and gerbils are known to eat their young for the same reasons as do wild dogs, meerkats, leopards, and bears.
Vicki: Whoa, back up. How does that work? They eat their young to make their mother's more sexually receptive because then she doesn't have a baby.
Kent: Right.
Vicki: Whoa.
Kent: And so then the hormones start working, and they're more interested in having sex so they can reproduce and have another child, if you will, another offspring.
Vicki: Wow. Okay, go ahead.
Kent: So in the animal kingdom, animals eat animals. Well, Paul is saying here is because of this teaching, people are killing people. They're destroying them. He describes their behavior in very stark terms in verses 19 and following. I mean, look at the list.
Vicki: He's been stark. He says the acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. And I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Wow, what an ugly list.
Kent: And this is describing the churches. And this came as a result of that false teaching. Nathan, have you ever seen a contemporary congregation that comes anywhere close to this kind of description?
Nathan: All of it, all at once?
Kent: No, probably not all at once, and probably not all the churches had all these attributes. Remember, Galatia is a region, so there were a number of churches in that.
Nathan: But I would say maybe not necessarily Christian churches, but near Christian, like a Unitarian kind of thing. If I include those into this list, I probably could put a list together of churches I've run that could, you know, grab some of these. Maybe not the orgies.
Kent: Well, then there's, you know, TV shows that we may or may not be familiar with to talk about the lives of Mormons or people who have been associated in some way with the Mormon Church in the past. But, you know, Nathan, you and I have seen a church in Asia that has ended up having fisticuffs in the church and half the church.
Nathan: No, no, no, not even in the church. It spilled outside on the street, picked up on YouTube. Yep.
Kent: Shown around the world.
Nathan: Just horrible.
Kent: And you think that's unusual? And I. Gosh, I'm glad it's not too common, I hope. But I was in a church recently as I was ministering for crosstalk, and that church was undergoing a massive split with one pastor and a number of the group of the congregation refusing to come into the sanctuary, sitting outside doing their service, and would not come in. No, this is the church, like countries, has found themselves in the midst of conflict over and over and over again all through history. And Paul is pointing out the cause of this. He's pointing out the cause, and he's looking at the false teachers. And the irony here is, to me, it's just absolutely overwhelming. Nathan, as you recall, the false teachers claimed that obeying the law would make people holy. Right?
Nathan: Right.
Kent: We want to be holy and holiness will be achieved as we obey all of the Old Testament Levitical laws. Correct. So the argument of the Judaizers was that the doctrine of justification by faith would lead to lax moral behavior. It would lead to sin. And to be fair, there is a risk there. Right, sure. What's the risk?
Nathan: Well, the risk is saying, oh, well, I'm saved, so I can do whatever I want now. Right. I mean, that's what James was railing against.
Vicki: God's going to forgive me no matter what I do.
Kent: Yeah.
Nathan: So I can do whatever I want.
Kent: I can sin. And then all I have to do is pray, a silent prayer to an invisible God and all of a sudden it's clean. So I may as well go sin again tomorrow and I can get that wiped off. So it's easy to see justification by faith. Or it's possible to see justification by faith as an excuse for sinning. And Paul mentions that in Romans 6:1, doesn't he, Vicki?
Vicki: Yeah, he's horrified by that idea because he says, what shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?
Kent: Yeah. So there is a possibility, not an inevitability, but a possibility that some could misuse the doctrine of justification by faith and walk into deeper sin. But the irony here is that the these false teachers requiring people to try and earn their salvation by keeping the Old Testament law. What was happening was that things were way worse. The irony is Paul is making the point here. It's the false teachers who were encouraging sin. Paul points out that those listening to them could not obey even the most basic of the Old Testament laws. He mentions that in Galatians 5:14.
Vicki: He says the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you fight and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. This is the opposite of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Kent: The simplest command to understand, love your neighbor as yourself. No one was doing it. In fact, the teaching led them the opposite, to bite and devour one another. Paul is saying willpower will not and cannot sanctify you. You people who are trying to use your human effort to save yourself can't even obey the most basic command. You know why that is? Well, verse 17, he makes it very clear.
Vicki: He says, for the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.
Kent: What does he mean there, Nathan?
Nathan: Here Paul is saying, they're telling you to follow these rules in order to gain righteousness. And so you're trying to do it in your own power. And in your own power you are failing to follow the rules. And you're also falling into these sins. You can't do it. You need to rely on the Spirit. And you can't be relying on the Spirit if you're relying on these rules.
Kent: Because what's wrong with the flesh? He says the flesh, well, it's all.
Nathan: Been messed up by sin. We've been infected by sin. Entirely. And so, apart from Christ, we can't overcome that basic sin desire that we have.
Kent: So every part of who we are has been affected by sin.
Nathan: Right. Even the part that tries to be holy. Even the part that tries to do good.
Kent: So because every. Everything in us has been twisted and distorted by sin, we cannot live a holy life. So that's why the problem's there. In fact, the metaphor that comes to my mind is, well, Vicki, you live in Dallas.
Vicki: Yes.
Kent: How far away are you from the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America or. I don't know what it's called anymore.
Vicki: Whatever it is right now.
Kent: But there's something south of you. A big body of water.
Vicki: I'm pretty far, but I've been to it. And my parents also lived on the Atlantic, so I've been to the ocean many times. Why?
Kent: So if you're standing on the shore and you pick up a decent size rock, maybe the size of a softball.
Vicki: Yeah.
Kent: And you throw it into the water, what's it going to do?
Vicki: It's going to go to the bottom.
Kent: Why?
Vicki: Because it's a rock. I mean, dumb question. No offense.
Kent: No, it's a dumb question.
Vicki: Rocks don't fall. Float.
Kent: Rocks don't float and they can't float. What if the rock didn't want to sink? What if its supreme desire was to stay on the surface and swim to shore?
Vicki: Could it be too bad it's still a rock? And as you said, rocks don't float.
Kent: But that's what Paul is saying. With our own ability, our bodies, our own willpower, our own strength, we decide we're going to be holy. We can't do it. We can't swim to the surface. We're never going to get to shore. Because the essence of who we are is sink.
Vicki: We're going to sink.
Kent: We're going to sink. And so look at what Paul says has been the consequence of the Galatians. Fleshly efforts to use the law to.
Vicki: Become holy instead of being godly. He says the acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition. That one is hard for me to say. I identify with that one. Dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Kent: So if you try to save yourself, you will not live a holy life and you will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Vicki: Instead of going up you're going to sink.
Kent: You're a moral rock who will always sink deeper into the depths of sin. No matter how hard you try to swim to the surface, you will always fail. An internal conflict is one of the inevitable consequences of that attempt. So is holiness possible? If I'm a rock, and I am a rock, I'm a sinner. I have had every part of my soul and body affected by sin. Is it possible? Is it possible to live, to be.
Vicki: Accepted by God, to be holy, to go up? And the answer is yes. That is only because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Kent: Tell me about that.
Vicki: He paid the penalty for my sins. And if I put my trust in that, and that alone, I don't have to do anything. In fact, I can't do anything. It's done. It is finished. As Christ said on the cross.
Kent: Paul would agree with you in Romans 8. In fact, he will go on to say, not only has he forgiven us, but he gives us a resource. Doesn't he, Nathan?
Nathan: Yeah. In Romans 8:1 4 he says, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit, who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Kent: So when we are saved, we are not only declared righteous, not only are we justified by faith, but the Holy Spirit indwells us. The moment we are justified, we are also filled with the Spirit. Paul is saying the difference is because of justification by faith. The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in our bodies and he's a Holy Spirit. A Holy Spirit that changes our nature, that we are no longer moral rocks. But because of his presence inside of us, we are transformed by the Holy Spirit. We're no longer living in the flesh. We are living in the power of the Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit in us, that changes our behavior. Right?
Vicki: Yes. And the fruit of the Spirit is beautiful. When you see people walking with Jesus Christ, here's what it says. It says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions. And desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking or envying each other.
Kent: What Jesus did for us on the cross was a game changer. He not only forgave us, but he empowered us. He gave us the gift of His Holy Spirit. And while we can't make ourselves holy, the Holy Spirit within us will help us live a holy life. He will transform us in ways that we could never transform ourselves. What a gift. What an opportunity. I think Winston Churchill was right when he said the story of the human race is war. But that does not have to be true of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit that dwells in us also transforms us, changes our nature and makes holiness achievable. He gives rocks the ability to swim and enables Christians to live together in productive harmony to the glory of God. Let us always remember the encouraging words that Paul wrote to the struggling Galatians that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. When we do that, we display the image of Christ for the world to the world. We prepare ourselves for a life with him in eternity. And we can transform our culture by being salt and light and living demonstrations of the grace of God.
Brian: Struggle with sin. Feel like you can't overcome it? You can't. But if you belong to Jesus Christ, you can because you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, a gift of our salvation and the Spirit can overcome our sinful nature. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and serve as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the Word, but doers. Together, let's bring God's Word to life, to our lives. This week. The crosstalk Podcast is a production of crosstalk Global equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. we're getting ready for crosstalk events in Southern California and Moldova this month help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we conclude our journey through the Book of Galatians. You won't want to miss it.
Nathan: I feel like our prayer is worn off because we were talking for so long.
Vicki: Let's do it again.
Nathan: They're only good for a half hour. Father, bless our time, bless our conversation. Help us to glorify you with the recording of this podcast. In Jesus name, amen.
Kent: Amen.