Vineyard Church | Weekly Update May 1, 2024

This past Sunday, we had a new term rise out of the soil of the Billings Vineyard lexicon. Just as the weeds sprout after the springtime rains, the term goat head gospel came bursting forth as a new descriptor of the antithesis of the Good News that God loved the world so much, He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him.

The goat head is aptly named Tribulus terrestris--makes me think of tribulation terrorists.… And that could be the title of an interesting blog on another day.… But back to goat heads. These weeds are self-seeding annuals that can grow in any clime and place. They are resilient, hard to kill, and leave thorns that are the scourge of kids’ bike tires and wind up in places that ensure the receipt of a double puncture: following the initial stab, you can expect a follow-on stab from the thorns protecting the sticker’s flanks. Each regional dialect has a name for this floral expression of the devil: puncture vine, goat head weed, southern lawn stickers, all suggestive of the current fallen nature of creation.

In the letter to the church in Galatia (and elsewhere, but for our current study, specifically in the Book of Galatians), Paul is writing to the several congregations about a thorny weed of a theology that threatened to choke the life from the church. The goat head gospel that Paul was confronting centered on the practice of circumcision, the outside marker that would demonstrate a person’s belonging to the family of God. Without this mark, one would not be accepted as a Jew and therefore would not be accepted as one of God’s children.

Goat head gospel testifies that free grace is actually not free at all. Something must be done in order to gain entry to the club that enjoys free grace. Circumcision as a mark exemplified much more than the cutting of skin, as it was a sign of ritualistically keeping the law with the understanding that God’s grace increases with the faithful actions of keeping the law. Put into current context, goat head gospel preaches that there is something that we must do or stop doing that makes us ready to hear the Gospel of Jesus, that we must achieve a standard in order to be worthy of the invitation to “free” grace.

Another way to say that is the lost must find themselves before they can be found by the church. Or one must rescue themselves before the rescuers are sent out. Putting it in these terms reveals the comparison of the double puncture.… First, what we need rescued from has punctured our soul, but then, as we become aware of the need to pull the thorn, we risk being punctured again by not being accepted by those claiming to be rescuers.

More than just being an impossible standard that contradicts Jesus, the goat head gospel exemplifies the weed because it is self-seeding and resilient. The goat head gospel thrives in nearly every culture, historical time period, and geographical location. The goat head gospel ensures that the lost will stay lost and that animosity toward the church will grow as the expectation prevails of a sinner saving themselves from their sin before they can be welcomed into the fellowship. Free grace isn’t free in the goat head gospel community.

Goat head gospel-preaching communities tend to build walls to keep the lost out rather than engage in the missional work of being the activity of the Living God in our time. The body reflected by goat head gospel testifies to fear of the lost, anger at the resistance felt from the lost, which leads to a posture of protection and defense. The walls grow higher as the weeds get thicker.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the goat head gospel, one aspect that Paul uses his own story to exemplify, is that it isn’t the goat head gospel that saved the ones preaching the goat head gospel. Paul, on the road to Damascus, experienced the Living God directly intervening in his life. Not predicated on preparatory work, Jesus revealed himself to Paul. From Paul’s own words, and through the testimony of history, Paul did not deserve or earn this intervention.

Having not earned this, how dare he set a standard for another to earn it? Paul’s point is clear…free for him, free for me. Free for me, free for you. Free Grace is the only herbicide that counteracts the Tribulus terrestris gospel. As we make our way through the Book of Galatians this spring, we will see Paul broadcast this herbicide by testifying to how Jesus saved him before he was worthy of being saved.

Adam Greenwell
Pastor | Billings Vineyard Church
www.BillingsVineyard.org