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Galatians 5:7-12 (JDV)

Galatians 5:7 You were running well. Who interrupted your being persuaded about truth?

Galatians 5:8 This persuasion does not come from your inviter.

Galatians 5:9 A little fermented dough contaminates the whole batch of dough.

Galatians 5:10 I myself am persuaded in the Lord you will not accept any other view. But whoever it is that is disturbing you will pay the penalty.

Galatians 5:11 Now brothers, if I were still preaching being circumcised, why am I still persecuted? In that case the trap of the cross has been eliminated.

Galatians 5:12 I wish those who are disturbing you might also let themselves be castrated!

interrupted race, defiled loaf

Paul shows his frustration with the group of heretics who are throwing the Galatian congregations into confusion. He expresses what is going on by describing it as an interrupted race. The goal of the race is not some new tidbit of truth. The believers in this region are trying to become persuaded of the truth they were already taught. This new additional teaching of the heretics was interrupting their progress.

It was doing more than that. Paul changed his metaphor to express the fact that the new teaching was defiling the congregation just like fermented dough permeates and changes the loaf. If left unchecked, the result will be a congregation of lost souls.

Lord, give us discernment, and a strong desire to run toward truth, not away from it.