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St Paul at his writing desk - Rembrandt
Bible study for Galatians 1:1-5
Galatians 1:1-5 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
Have you ever written a circular letter? Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a circular letter written to a group of churches in the region of Galatia, in what is now central Turkey. In this region was a group of churches which had been some of the first to be founded by Paul (Acts 13,14), including those at Antioch (in Pisidia), Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. He was particularly concerned for these churches and for the purity of the faith they lived and preached. At the beginning, when the churches began, there had been a great deal of opposition (Acts 14:19,20). At some point later on perhaps towards the end of the 40’s AD, Paul wrote to them with a pressing concern, and the result is the circular letter we now call ‘Galatians’.
We will find out the reason for Paul’s letter later on, but one thing is obvious from the very start; Paul was not happy. He had begun with the usual greetings found in a letter of those days (‘grace and peace’ – see 1:3), and went on to speak about the great salvation we have in Jesus (1:3,4,5), but if we compare this letter with others such as those to the Colossians or the Philippians, Paul’s words are lacking in warmth. He does not greet the church with words of congratulation or appreciation of their faith; indeed, tomorrow we will find that the letter launches straight into controversy (1:6f.).
We can also tell that Paul was not entirely happy, because the very first thing he wrote about was his own qualification to write to the churches of Galatia and address them. Paul wrote, describing himself as an ‘apostle’, but began an explanation of what he meant by this (1:1) in a rather defensive manner. We will look more closely at this later, but what Paul emphasised was his call by Jesus, personally, as a witness to the risen Christ. Paul wrote very cautiously, and each word was chosen with care. In his day, the apostles of Jesus Christ were all people who had lived and worked with Jesus, and yet Paul had not; though he had been called by the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9,15) to do the work of an apostle. It is almost certain that soon after the churches were founded some people had questioned his calling and the fact that he described himself an ‘apostle’, so his bold assertion of this right at the beginning of the letter was Paul’s way of calling the churches back to listen to him as the man God had used to bring them the Gospel. He challenged his opponents head on.
If this were not fascinating enough in itself, the rest of our reading contains a magnificent miniature description of the Gospel of salvation itself! The words ‘grace’ and ‘peace’ (1:3) were common Greek and Hebrew words of greeting, but in Paul’s letter, he did not merely write these as if offering a private greeting; he wrote them as ‘from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1:3). For Paul, to have peace with God was what salvation meant, and this salvation was available through the favour of God, that is, His ‘grace’, because of what Jesus had done in His life and death. Moreover, our salvation through Jesus Christ means that God has ‘rescued us from the age of the evil one in which we now live ...’ (1:4). In other words, God loves us so much that He has liberated us from dependence on the evil world in which we live and brought us into His own Kingdom through Jesus Christ!
So Paul was not writing to the Galatians merely about himself, but about the Gospel of salvation, and his opening message emphasised that as churches which he had founded, they should listen to what he had to say to them.
Galatians 1:1-5 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
We will have to look at each of the four main parts of this opening text in Galatians; issues to do with Paul’s apostleship, the churches in Galatia to whom he wrote and the background to the letter, and lastly the Gospel of salvation which Paul was so keen to preach and defend. It will become the central feature of the whole letter.
Paul’s apostleship
The word ‘apostle’ (1:1) means ‘one who is sent’. In the New Testament, this word is used exclusively as a description of the twelve disciples of Jesus (remembering that Matthias replaced Judas – Acts 1:21-26) who were commissioned by Jesus to take the message of the Gospel to the world (Matt 28:16-20, Acts 2 etc.), and also Paul. The word could also mean anyone who is sent on a mission or task and we could use it in this way today, but the Bible does not do this. If you look up the word ‘apostles’ in a Bible dictionary, you will find that it always refers to the highest calling of all within the church which was reserved for these thirteen people, and no-one today can lay claim to a higher calling than these witnesses to the life and work of Jesus. If they could, we would now be under obligation to heed them rather than the evidence of the original apostles which is found within the Bible, and this is a dangerous road on which to travel, because the evidence of scripture is uniquely authoritative for the Christian people. The mainstream evangelical heritage of the church has never accepted that the supreme gift of apostleship has been given to anyone other than these people; and in the light of this, the Church has traditionally used a different word for people who are ‘sent’ to proclaim the Gospel and build on the work of the ‘Apostles’; they are called ‘missionaries’ (the word ‘mission’ comes from the Latin word meaning the same thing, ‘to send’).
How is it then that Paul could call himself an apostle, when he had not witnessed the life and death of Jesus with the other disciples? Some did indeed say that Paul was not an apostle and should not use the term. But Paul always maintained that he had seen the risen Lord on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9f.) and been commissioned by Him personally to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. He also claimed that he had met the other disciples and gained their blessing for this unique call (1:18f.). Paul goes into the detail of this later on in Galatians (1:10-24), and he also speaks about this in some of his other letters (1 Cor 15:9, 1 Thess 2:7).
Because of the controversy Paul said at the start of the letter that his calling as an apostle was not ‘on behalf of man ...’ but originated from God the Father who had raised Jesus Christ from the dead (1:1). This was Paul’s testimony and justification for being called an apostle.
The brothers, and Galatia
Paul wrote his letter to the Galatian churches not only from himself, but from ‘all the brothers who are with me’ (1:2). What did Paul mean by this? It could be that Paul wrote from one church to another, and used the word ‘brothers’ to allude to the fellowship where he was staying. Certainly, ‘brothers’ was a word used by early Christians to describe a fellowship of believers (Acts 2:37, 7:2 etc). Many translations today understandably changed this word to ‘fellowship’ or some other word which includes all people, which is quite true of the first Christian fellowships.
However, Paul often travelled together with others in a group, and it is more likely that those he mentioned here in Galatians were simply part of his party. Paul wanted people to know that he was no ‘loner’. All his missionary journeys were shared with others, initially with Barnabas and then, after a sharp disagreement (see Acts 15:36-41), with Silas and probably Luke as well (Luke wrote Acts, and from Acts 16:11, he talks about what happened as if he was there too!).
The Gospel (1) – grace and peace
Paul greeted the Galatian churches with the same greeting which he used in most of his letters, saying ‘grace ... and peace …’. If we could travel back to ancient times this phrase would seem odd to those who heard it. The word ‘grace’ is the Greek word ‘charis’ which was used as a general greeting in the world of the Roman Empire, and it expressed favour and good will. However, in the Jewish world, as well as other oriental cultures, the normal greeting was the word ‘shalom’ meaning ‘peace’. By putting the two words together, Paul composed a greeting which brought together what for him was the ancient and the modern, the oriental and the Greek. It is possible that Paul was the first person to use this greeting, and it became Paul’s favourite greeting (Rom 1:7, 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:2, Col 1:2 etc.).
It becomes obvious that this greeting meant more to Paul than a mere pleasantry when we read on in verse 3; ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Paul spoke as if offering this ‘grace and peace’ from God! How could he do this? He did it because it was his mission and call as an apostle to bring the peace and grace of God to people. For Paul, ‘grace and peace’ was like shorthand for the Gospel of salvation (see above). What Paul was doing was intriguing and clever. At the very start of his letter he set out the stall of the Gospel he had preached to them when they were founded, most probably using these words because they were central to what he said and did. If you read Acts 13 and 14, you will find that Paul’s first sermons there were based on expounding the grace of God which offered salvation to Jews and Gentiles alike. Paul also brought peace (‘shalom’) to people by healing the sick (Acts 14:8-11). But what he said was received with much violence from which they just about escaped with their lives (Acts 14:19,20). Peace and grace were loaded words, which stirred up the memory of Paul’s founding of the churches to which he now wrote.
The Gospel (2) – rescue
Paul went on to say more, and for the same reason. However, it is hard for us to understand today what people believed about the world in which they lived; so we must look at this in order to understand what Paul means by ‘who gave Himself for our sins and to rescue us from the age of the evil one in which we now live, according to the will of our God and Father.’ (1:4)
In Paul’s day, Christians thought of themselves as living in ‘the present age’ which was the world in which they lived, as you and I still live today, dominated by evil and all the problems of the mortal world. They also believed that God had begun a ‘new age’ through the life and work of Jesus Christ, something the Bible sometimes calls the ‘Kingdom of God’. However, the ‘present age’ was dying out, and the ‘new age’ had begun but would not be complete until Jesus returned in glory! In this way of looking at things, salvation was a matter of being rescued, and lifted out of the ‘present age’ into the ‘new age’, whilst accepting that the two continued side by side, until ‘the end’. This imagery is quite clear within verse 4, except that Paul talks about the present age as ‘the age of the evil one in which we now live’, a phrase which sharpens up the awareness of ‘the evil one’ in the present age. You will not find this translation common, because most Bibles prefer to avoid talking about evil in a personified way, and say ‘the present evil age’. Paul, however, knew full well the dangers faced in that part of the world by Christians, and I believe this translation to be correct. In addition, this reading heightens our understanding of salvation, for by Christ, the power of the evil one has been overcome, not completely, but certainly through Jesus.
Sometimes we are very loose about what we mean by salvation. Paul was very clear. He says in this verse that we are saved by the free grace of God because Jesus died and rose again for us. This salvation brings us peace with God, because it breaks down the barriers between God and His people. Jesus has also ‘rescued’ us by lifting us out of the present age into a new ‘world’ or ‘age’ in which evil and sin are no longer dominant, and Christ is Lord of all. The triumphant conclusion has not yet come, but in the mean time, we may trust in Jesus for all things, and have confidence that He will make our salvation complete.
Galatians 1:1-5 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
These few powerful verses begin Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It is too easy for us to take the truths within this reading for granted because we are used to hearing them. I suggest that we should read these brief verses as Paul’s supremely condensed message of salvation, presented at the beginning of the letter to remind the people to whom he wrote of the true Gospel, the power of his preaching and the circumstances in which the churches were established. It comes as no surprise that Paul concluded this introduction with ‘to whom be the glory for ever and ever: Amen.’ After this introduction, Paul gets straight down to the reason for his letter in the nest verse (1:6).
How can we respond to this letter and what can it say to us? One of the important things it says to us is that we cannot forget where we have come from. It is fashionable today for people to begin new churches wherever they feel led so to do; churches spring up in various places attached to this group or that, and sometimes to none at all. However, all Christians must surely have one history which goes back to the Apostles, and unless this is so, we have no root to our church and fellowship. Neither is it adequate to simply say that we can read Scripture and connect with the true heritage of faith. The apostles passed on through the Church the true Faith, and this has been passed on through people and churches over two thousand years, building on the cornerstone which is Christ Himself (Ephesians 2:20). Indeed, each of us has been assisted to faith by others and we cannot exist as Christians without all those of faith who live around us. This is what the famous chapter, 1 Corinthians 12, means.
Paul faced the problems of individuals trying to manoeuvre the church into all manner of forms within his own day, and the pressures have never died down, for Satan is determined to damage the Church (God’s people) as much as possible. Let us not tear each other down, but with Paul, build each other up on the Gospel of salvation which is our heritage and which we share with all Christians of our own day, and who have gone before.
Galatians 1:1-5 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- How can we make sure that those who minister in the church have a call which has been properly tested?
- Look up a map of the missionary journeys of Paul and check out the churches of Galatia.
- Do you feel that you have been rescued out of this evil world?
Discipleship
This scripture is a challenge to us because we need to check that we understand each word of it before we continue! It is sometimes very important that, as a matter of Christian discipline, we should spend time with very condensed passages such as this and work our way through them. If you have the opportunity, try working your way through this text together with a friend.
Final Prayer
Dear Lord and Father, save us by Your grace, we pray, and by Your Holy Spirit, lead us into those truths of Your Word we so desperately need to know and put into practice. We praise You for Your love, Your peace and Your grace, which mean so much to us: AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 1:6-12
Galatians 1:6-12 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
What an astonishing passage! The first few verses of Galatians contained a brief greeting together with a hint of sensitivity on the part of Paul himself about his being an apostle (1:1,2), followed by a few words which summarised the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1:3-5). Now, having read this passage today, we can understand why Paul began his letter to the Galatians in that way! Paul wrote because it was his very clear concern that the Gospel he preached to the churches in Galatia had been changed or corrupted in some manner (1:6,7f.). With astonishment, he asked why a church founded on the Gospel he preached should change course ‘so quickly’ (1:6) in this way. Paul was also concerned that some people claimed that he, the preacher and apostle who had founded the church, had acted with purely human motives. It had been suggested that Paul was a ‘people-pleaser’ (1:10) and he was keen to refute the charge. He was also keen to state categorically that there was no other Gospel than that which he preached and which he had received ‘through a revelation’ (1:12).
Paul wrote to the Galatians intending to defend the one and only Gospel and explain it further, and also to defend his own reputation as a preacher and Apostle of Christ. As one charged with founding the Church, an Apostle together with the disciples who had been with Jesus during His ministry, he was not prepared to see the Gospel changed or altered in any way, and he insisted that it was his duty to correct what was wrong. To this day, despite the complex history of the Church and the way that it has grown and been led over two thousand years, what Paul said remains true. When he wrote to the Galatians, he most certainly had specific false alterations to the Gospel in mind (as we will see), but he also said that in general, ‘if anyone preaches a gospel different from what you have received, let him be cursed’ (1:9); so what he said applies to us.
The Gospel message has not changed since Paul spoke, and the testimony and preaching of Paul and the other Apostles has not changed because it is recorded for us in Scripture. So although we will certainly study why Paul wrote as he did to the Galatians, the general principles of the Gospel are unchanged today, and we must adhere to what we have received. In addition, the Gospel is holy not just because it is Scriptural but also because it has been proved over years by many faithful people who remain unrecorded in the annals of history. More than that, history demonstrates that where the Church of God or anyone else has attempted to change and manipulate the Gospel or the Apostolic Word of God through Scripture, the Kingdom of God is compromised and churches fade away and die; and we see this happening even in our own day.
Anyone who is used by God for the proclamation of the Gospel attracts criticism, and it was as true for Paul as it is for us now. The focus of the complaints against Paul were firstly that he claimed to be an Apostle (see yesterday’s reading; 1:1-5, and tomorrow’s; 1:13-24), and secondly that he made the Gospel too easy; but what does this mean? As we will increasingly discover in Galatians, Paul’s opponents were Jews who insisted that if Gentiles became Christians, they had to become circumcised. This was a tough and demanding requirement, so you can see that those who demanded it accused Paul of being a ‘people pleaser’ (1:10). Paul’s only defence against this was the truth of the Gospel he preached (1:11,12).
The whole passage speaks strongly about the Gospel and also reveals something of the problems found in the Galatian churches which were the reason why Paul wrote to them.
Galatians 1:6-12 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
This passage begins with Paul’s straight complaint that the Gospel has been altered, so we must enquire further what this meant and what was happening in the Galatian churches. Secondly, we must look carefully at Paul’s astonishing curse in verse 8 which is repeated in verse 9. Lastly, we will look at how Paul deals with the accusations made against him of being a people pleaser, and how this leads him to defend the revelation of the Gospel he received from Christ. This last point sets the scene for Paul’s great personal testimony found in tomorrow’s reading and beyond (1:13-24, 2:1-14).
Different Gospel’s?
It is fairly easy for us to say that there is only one Gospel. But if you try asking people to write down what the Gospel is, you will find an average congregation will produce a considerable range of statements, some of which will appear, at least on the surface, to be contradictory. So what did Paul think the Gospel was, and why was he so adamant that he had got it right? It is easy to see that in the early days of the life of the church when there were no scriptural Gospels or sacred writings other than the Old Testament, people debated what the Gospel was, and who Jesus Christ was. But this is exactly what Paul was keen to avoid, because Paul regarded such debate as a misunderstanding of what the Gospel was in the first place. The person and work of Jesus Christ was not a matter for debate, as if by having intellectual discussions, clever people could fathom the inner depths of the mysteries of grace! As far as Paul was concerned, there was no mystery about who Jesus was or the Good News about what He had done. Jesus was a man who was also the Son of God, who ‘gave Himself for our sins and to rescue us from the age of the evil one in which we now live, according to the will of our God.’ (1:4) In addition, Paul had already written a powerful summary of the Gospel in the previous verse. The Gospel was ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,’ (1:3) because to be at peace with God was to be saved exclusively by His grace, through the work of Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us.
It is impossible to read the letters of Paul found in the New Testament and find anything else at the heart of what Paul preached. True, he expressed it in different ways, emphasising the ‘foolishness of the Cross’ in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:18-25), for example, but virtually every letter of Paul speaks directly of the Gospel with these same recognisable features. This is put into perspective if we turn straight away to look at what other people said around the time the Galatian churches were founded. In Acts 13 and 14, tempestuous scenes surrounded Paul’s preaching of the Gospel, largely created by Jews who insisted that believers should be circumcised. The opposition to Paul was so strong that Paul had to go to Jerusalem and report it to the other Apostles. Paul’s opponents went as well, saying ‘unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ (Acts 15:1). A council was held in Jerusalem at which both Paul and his opponents put their case, and the future of the whole church of God lay in the balance; it was one of the most tense moments in the New Testament outside of the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection!
The result of the famous ‘Council of Jerusalem’ was that Paul and Barnabas were empowered to say to all the Gentile churches they founded, that circumcision was not necessary for salvation and the Gospel had ‘no further burden’ (Acts 15:28). Without doubt, this decision liberated Paul to evangelise and set the early church on a path of growth, free from the restraints of Pharisaic Judaism. In the mean time, some in Galatia continued to believe that circumcision was necessary and taught this whilst Paul was away both at Jerusalem and his later missionary journeys. As a consequence, Paul wrote this famous letter to them, calling the Galatian church back to its roots and dismissing those who ‘added’ circumcision to the Gospel. He most certainly had Apostolic authority to do this!
A curse on those who change the Gospel!
Whilst it is important to understand the reasons why Paul wrote so passionately about the Gospel and why it could accept no ‘additions’, Paul also realised that the battle he fought with the Jews over circumcision was the precursor of things to come. It is my opinion that verse 8 and 9 of our reading are prophetic, and Paul emphasised his point about neither adding to the Gospel nor changing it, because he saw the dangers of people doing just this in the years ahead. He certainly emphasised his point by repeating it, and cursing those who changed the Gospel, but by so doing, he also generalised what he was saying. This means that it speaks to us directly today.
Paul told the Galatians that not only should they not believe people who added circumcision to the Gospel (the original problem), but they should not believe anyone (1:7) who suggested any form of ‘change’ or preached a ‘different’ Gospel (1:8,9). The two Greek words used here are subtly different, meaning ‘altering’ and ‘adding to’ respectively. This means that we have no right even today to imagine that we can do either of these things in the name of making our message relevant to the cultures in which we live. We must preach the one true Gospel which Scripture affirms, and trust the Holy Spirit to interpret it to those who hear, without imagining that we have to do God’s work for Him.
To emphasise his point further, Paul told the Galatians not to listen to anyone at all who altered the Gospel, not him, or angels (1:1:8), or anyone else. However, the most stunning part of the passage is the amazing repetition of Paul’s point in verses 8 and 9. Nowhere else in all his writings does Paul do anything like this. He certainly writes at length, sometimes confusing his readers by the sheer complexity of what he says, but ordinary repetition is not his style! Generally, repetition is found in scripture (particularly the Old Testament) where something important is said, but in the context of Paul’s letters, this is unique. Perhaps Paul was writing in a unique way in order to to emphasise the uniqueness of the Gospel.
Paul concludes each verse of this incredible passage with a curse, and again, this is unique for Paul’s letters (the only other mention of ‘curse’ is a brief reference in Romans 12:14). For a Jew like Paul to utter a curse was no small matter, for by saying ‘let him be cursed’ (1:8,9), Paul spoke a pronouncement to cut someone off from the love and mercy of God. It was the exact opposite of a blessing, which pronounced God’s love and mercy over people (see Gal 6:18, Phil 4:21-23 etc.). That Paul should write in this way leaves us in no doubt about the importance of the unique and unalterable nature of the Gospel,.
The challenge to Paul, and his response
We saw above how the Jews could easily claim that Paul preached an easy Gospel because it did not include the physical hurdle of circumcision (for men), but people could easily level a number of accusations against him. Why should they accept what Paul said and not the word of other preachers of the Gospel? Surely Paul was attempting to build a reputation for himself?
If we can hear these criticisms in the back of our minds, then what Pauls says in verse 10 begins to make sense, and we can easily see how Paul answered his accusers directly by quoting what they said about him and throwing back answers at them. He was no ‘people pleaser’, but a ‘servant of Christ’, and although he does not elaborate on this here, we can read Paul’s thoughts about being Christ’s servant elsewhere in Romans 7.
The letter to the Galatians now begins to take a different turn, and we now hear about how Paul learned the Gospel he preached. From Paul’s point of view, he had no other defence than the truth of his calling and his personal experience of Christ. The heart of his claim was that the Gospel he preached was given to him by revelation from Christ himself (1:12), and tomorrow we will find out much more about Paul’s testimony. It is fascinating that Paul, the great debater and theologian, chose to defend his preaching of the Gospel by giving his testimony rather than by adding further detailed arguments, but it was surely right. The truth of why any one of us does something is linked up with who we are and all our life’s experience, as much as our ability to reason it or talk about it. Paul set out his stall, and said, in effect; ‘the Gospel I preach is a result of a revelation of God to me personally, and because I am specially commissioned to preach it, this is my life!’ We will read Paul’s full testimony tomorrow!
Galatians 1:6-12 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
To this day, you will find that people have markedly different views about the Gospel and what it is. Personally, after reading the beginning of Galatians, I am of the opinion that the Gospel is the good news of salvation which tells people that if they have faith in Jesus, then it is possible for them to be ‘saved’ from the consequences of sin and death by the gracious work of God, and so be reconciled to God who is both our Maker and our Redeemer. This is what Paul summarises in verses 3 and 4 of this chapter, and what he defends in all his letters, and it is what I feel led to proclaim and defend myself, as the authentic Gospel. There may well be different ways to express it, but I do not see how we can talk about the Gospel as anything other than the news that we have been saved by God through Jesus.
I have said this because in reading commentaries as part of my preparation for this study, I found that all of them agreed roughly with this basic understanding of the Gospel. However, one well known evangelical author insisted to my surprise that the Gospel was ‘all about building up the people of God on the foundation of Jesus Christ’ and by that, he meant the church. Now whilst I agree that what he said is part of how the Gospel works out in the life of God’s faithful, I would be hard pushed to say that this phrase about the church represents ‘the Gospel’, even though it does reflect part of 1 Corinthians 3:10f.. In addition, he went on to say that the Gospel ‘isn’t a system of salvation ...’! I could hardly believe my eyes, and I was left feeling deeply concerned. As far as I am aware, the Gospel most certainly does explain salvation and it is not a method of building churches as he suggests, however important that is.
I have explained this to let you know how difficult it is even today, to get to grips with what we mean by the Gospel. I do believe that Paul would say that the Gospel is the good news of our salvation, it can be preached in one sermon, almost everyone can understand it when it is explained well, and we all need to try to make sure we are united around the one Gospel, the good news of our salvation in Jesus Christ. That certainly, is where I stand.
Galatians 1:6-12 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- Do people add to the Gospel today, and if so, how?
- How can the church today show that God’s people are united in the one Gospel of God through Jesus Christ our Lord?
- What place does testimony have within your church and does its use help people know the Gospel by which they are saved?
Discipleship
The Good News of Jesus Christ is unique and historic, but it is very tempting to try and change it a little to suit circumstances. Indeed, it is quite possible that any one of us may have heard an inadequate version of the Gospel when we first responded to Jesus Christ! Scripture is our guide to getting these things right, so it would be a good exercise to start a notebook headed ‘the Gospel’, and jot notes in it as you go through Galatians. At the end, you will have a series of notes which you can whittle down to the basic Gospel.
Final Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, may we be so sure of our salvation that we can confidently say with Paul that we know the Gospel clearly and can proclaim it. Reveal to us the truth not so that we can make claims about our own abilities, but so that we can be effective in Your service, we pray: AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 1:13-24
Galatians 1:13-24 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
The passage we have read today is a famous testimony of Paul in which he talks about some of his life’s experiences, particularly the early years after he was converted from being a Jew. There are a number of places in Acts where Paul talks about his conversion (9:1f., 22:1-5, 26:12-17) and he also describes his experiences whilst being a missionary in some of his other letters, notably 2 Corinthians (2 Cor 2:12f., 10:1f.,11:16-33 etc). For each personal testimony, there is a specific reason , and the reason in our passage today is that Paul had to explain how the Gospel he preached was given to him by Jesus Christ, and was not ‘passed on’ to him by the other Apostles (the twelve disciples). Only as an independent witness of the risen Christ could Paul justifiably say that his Gospel was original and true, and not subject to any amendment.
Paul began by describing himself as a ‘died in the wool’ Jew, someone with such an extreme aversion to Christianity that he had become the church’s chief opponent in the years after Jesus death. As the strictest of Pharisees, the teaching of the Church which said that Jesus was the Messiah was completely anathema to him as was the Gospel. As a Jew ‘far more zealous’ (1:14) than others of his day, Paul appealed to his readers to understand that he had not thought out the Gospel from anything he found in his former life. It had taken a completely miraculous work of God to turn him round to being a Christian who preached the Gospel to Gentiles! Paul wrote in a most appealing way about how God was at work in him through grace ‘from my mother’s womb’ (1:15), long before his conversion (which he does not describe). For Paul, this grace of God alone gave rise to his preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles (1:16).
Paul did not describe his conversion in detail (see Acts 9) because this was not on his mind as he wrote to the Galatians; he was concerned only to make sure his readers knew that the Gospel he preached was not something learned or passed on to him by anyone, not even the other twelve Apostles in Jerusalem. So he said straight away ‘I did not immediately look for worldly, human advice’ (1:16), and indicated that he had not gone to Jerusalem to learn about the Gospel from those who were there. At the time, Jerusalem was the centre of the Christian church, but Paul sought a substantial time in private prayer, up to three years (1:18), staying in the Arabian desert regions to the east of Judea and also in Damascus. Some people suggest that Paul went to the southern Sinai regions of Arabia and to Mount Sinai itself in order to ‘find’ the Gospel, because this was where Moses had been given the Law. There was plenty of time for Paul to do this if he wanted; but if it was true, surely Paul would have made the most of such an experience. No, he was concerned to give us the strong impression that he simply spent time learning the truth from Jesus by himself, without any other aids.
The rest of the reading tells us of Paul’s limited contact with Peter in Jerusalem and also with James (1:18,19), and yet again he contrasts this courtesy call with his description of going to Syria and Cilicia, a long way to the north of Jerusalem. By this time, Paul was largely unknown by the mainstream churches of Judea except as the man who had once been a bitter opponent of Jesus but was now a preacher (1:23)!
Even now, I have often heard people talk casually about the way Paul went to Jerusalem in order to learn about the Gospel from Peter and the Apostles. This is not how Paul saw it and is certainly not true of either Acts 9 or of Galatians 1. Paul’s claim to be an Apostle rested on this one point; Jesus had appeared to him personally to reveal the truth of the Gospel. It had certainly not been passed down to him by others!
Galatians 1:13-24 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
Against this general backdrop, we will now explore what Paul said about his life before he was a Christian, about the revelation by which he was commissioned, and about the rather strange sequence of events which followed his conversion. It was many years after his conversion before Paul began work as a missionary. Surely, given all that had happened to him, there was much that he had to sort out before he was ready. But we get the strong impression that this was between him and God, and no-one else! His was a unique calling.
Life before Christ (1:13,14)
Paul was deeply affected by his former life, as we can see quite clearly in his other letters (1 Cor 15:9, Phil 3:6; 1 Tim 1:13). It is common today for Christians to refer to the way in which our sins are ‘wiped clean’ when we are converted, and some people suggest that it is as if those sins had not happened. This approach to past sin can be misleading, and the scriptural evidence is that for Paul, he knew that the power of past sin to condemn his soul had been broken by the saving work of Christ; nevertheless, he was fully aware of the terrible things he had done to his dying day. He did not seek to gain ever more meaningful forgiveness for his deeds, but he used his story as an illustration in his preaching, and indicated from time to time that he still felt something of the shame and the guilt of what he had done, and was not afraid to say so. His actions had been despicable.
Apart from reading verses 13 and 14 of our passage, the main source of our knowledge of Paul‘s early life comes from Acts 8:1-3 and Acts 9 and Acts 22:3-5. In summary, Paul was brought up in the deeply religious home of a Pharisee and was rigorously taught the Law according to the ‘traditions of my fathers’ (1:14). Our reading is a fascinating description of Paul’s estimate of his own former place within Judaism and his zeal for God. Paul claimed that he ‘progressed in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries’ (1:14, but what does this mean? The word ‘progressed’ in this sentence comes from a Greek word (‘prokoptow’) which has the general meaning of ‘cut through to the front’; a word which might aptly describe how someone pushes through to the front of a queue for example, or gets to the front of a crowd to see what is going on. This suggests that Paul had a great deal of inner strength, something which becomes clear in the rest of the sentence which describes his ‘zeal’ (1:14) in hounding those who he perceived as a threat to the Jewish faith in the One true God; i.e. Christians. Zeal is a good thing, but over-zealousness is dangerous, and before Paul’s redemption it made him a religious bigot and extremist of the most dangerous kind, murdering people with whom he had a religious difference.
God, however, already had his hand on Paul’s life and was about to change him completely.
The revelation (1:15,16)
In Psalm 139:13, we read ‘You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.’ It is one of the high points of the Old Testament, describing the creative work of God which makes a man or a woman, and Paul alludes to this great Psalm as he declares that God had set him apart from within his ‘mother’s womb’ (1:15) for the task of preaching to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15, 22:15, 26:16-18). He believed most firmly that this was God’s plan for him and also that it was both similar to the call of Jesus’ disciples and also different.
Jesus had called his disciples to take the Good News of the Gospel first to the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 10:6), and then after His resurrection, to ‘make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19). For them, the call of Christ was to preach the Gospel starting from the early Jewish / Christian communities founded after Pentecost, and building on that. If you read the Acts of the Apostles, you will discover that Peter did just that. Notably, he made the essential breakthrough of preaching the Gospel to Gentiles when he went to the house of Cornelius (Acts 10:1f.), By fulfilling this prophetic call of Jesus, Peter opened up the way for the ministry of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, which Paul built upon.
Paul began his own ministry many years after his conversion by venturing out on missionary journeys firstly with Barnabas. After that, however, he retraced his steps on his second journey but did not base his work on the Jewish synagogues (Acts 16,17), boldly going where the Spirit led (see, for example, Acts 16:6-10). He was uniquely called to the Gentile ministry, and he was insistent that exactly the same Gospel preached by all the Apostles was equally capable of saving Gentiles as well as Jews, and he refused to let anyone attempt to alter or change this Gospel for Jews or Gentiles (see yesterday’s study). As he said, the Gospel was not something for which he sought ‘worldly, human advice’ (1:16). My own guess is that God made the heart of the Gospel clear to Paul very quickly, but it took Paul many years to work through its consequences and understand it fully by checking it against the exhaustive knowledge he already had of the Old Testament scriptures, before he felt it right to go beyond preaching in local churches (see Acts 9:28,31) and commence missionary work. The fruit of his careful and considered work through years of contemplation and personal study in Arabia, Damascus, Syria and Cilicia are found in Paul’s comprehensive theological works, such as Romans (and later parts of Galatians).
Life after the revelation of Christ (1:17-24)
There is a great deal of debate about where Paul actually went in his travels and personal ‘retreat’ in those years between his conversion (Acts 9) and the commencement of missionary work (Acts 13:1f.). Acts 9 appears to suggest that Paul began a peripatetic preaching ministry almost immediately after his conversion, but it concludes with Paul being sent away from Jerusalem because of antagonism from Jews (Acts 9:29). Here in Galatians, Paul says that he then spent up to three years in the Arabian Desert and Damascus, but how did Paul live? It would be interesting to know whether Paul had contacts in these regions, but we do not know. The only thing we can be sure of is that we know from later texts that Paul was a tent maker (Acts 18:3) and it is likely that he used this craft to support himself at that time. Whether or not he joined any local Christian fellowships or even Jewish synagogues we just do not know.
It was of course important that Paul should spend some time with Peter (1:18) and the visit of two weeks sounds like a courtesy. In the course of time, however, it became important that Paul and Peter knew each other. The controversies which arose about the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 15) would have been infinitely more difficult if the main people involved had not known each other. We cannot say much about Paul’s visit to James the brother of Jesus (1:19). Some say that this visit was added in order to strengthen the association of Paul with Jesus himself, but this contradicts the clear purpose of Paul in the first chapter of Galatians, which was to affirm that the Gospel he preached was something Jesus gave him personally and independently of all others.
Paul’s testimony was important, because it established his credibility, and his right to tell the church authoritatively where it was going wrong and what it should do to make things right. In verse 20, Paul made what is perhaps a crucial personal appeal; ‘I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie!’ Paul may have been totally confident in his Apostolic calling and the veracity of what he said, but he still had to work at persuading those who had become sceptical.
Galatians 1:13-24 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
It is interesting that even today, some people think of Paul’s letters as a part of Scripture which contains options. It is possible to hear people say ‘I agree with Paul’ on this or that matter, and the brief passages of Scripture in which Paul expresses personal caution about what he wrote is sometimes quoted as if it gives us permission to doubt his advice (1 Cor 7:12). This is not helpful, and we should admit that the Church has always accepted that Paul’s letters are as much a part of Scripture as any other part of the New Testament; indeed, Paul’s letters are some of the earliest documents which were kept by churches as writings regarded as holy. This was in no small part because Paul’s authority as the foremost leader and missionary of the early church was genuinely unique. His testimony was indeed accepted by the Church as Apostolic, and the Gospel he preached was incredibly important. It played a large part in stabilising the early church, for letters such as Galatians were copied and sent around the growing churches probably long before the Gospels appeared. The Gentile church then survived and grew largely on the basis of the things Paul wrote as well as preached, and because they were written down, they could be used as a reference to settle disputes and arguments about the true Gospel. It is interesting that although some of the letters in the new Testament do not identify an author (such as Ephesians and Hebrews), the assumed author of each of the letters is an Apostle (note that Jude was believed to be written by Judas, brother of Jesus, see Matt 13:55, Mark 6:3).
What we need to re-affirm today is our confidence that there is one Gospel in Jesus Christ, and that this is reflected in the Apostolic heritage of Scripture which testifies to this Gospel. Modern scholarship has whittled away at people’s understanding of the Gospel by placing a thousand queries against various New Testament writings, from the conclusion of Mark’s Gospel to the authorship of Paul’s letters, questioning his Apostleship and also the validity of what Paul says on cultural grounds. It is right to explore all these things, but to allow them to undermine our confidence in the unique nature of the Gospel is to belittle the heritage of faith we have received. If Paul were alive today, I do believe he would speak to us most strongly about accepting the testimony of those whom God has used to bring us our Gospel, including himself! Now, we may think him bold, but the history of the church shows him to be right. Scripture may be hard to understand and has problems we cannot easily solve; but it speaks of one God, one Gospel of salvation, and one Saviour. Jesus Christ our Lord.
Galatians 1:13-24 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- When our sins are forgiven by God, what happens to them?
- Why is it not possible for us to claim a complete knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? What makes Paul different from us?
- Why did God refuse to allow Paul to learn more from Peter and the other Apostles?
Discipleship
This reading speaks volumes about the importance of spending time with God and sorting out what we believe. We live at a time when if someone confesses faith, we place them in a public pulpit in no time at all if they are willing to speak! Consider the experience of Christian people you know and then write down a list of things you would suggest that a new Christian might do to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God.
Final Prayer
Plant Your Word within my soul, Lord God. Not so that I may be able to claim I know it any more than anyone else, but so that I may be able to benefit from its truth and incomparable wisdom throughout my whole life. Bless me by answering my prayer, Lord Jesus: AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 2:1-10
Galatians 2:1-10 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
The lengths people went to in an attempt to discredit Paul’s teaching and the Gospel he preached were quite extraordinary. Not only did his detractors say that he was not a true Apostle, they also said the Gospel he preached was different from that preached by Peter and the other Apostles! So, after explaining firmly that he was indeed an Apostle because the Gospel he preached came directly by revelation from the Lord (1:13-24), he now had to explain that his preaching was not a different Gospel from that preached by Peter and the other Apostles! Now, if you feel you are being taken around in circles, that is probably because this is what Paul’s opponents were trying to do; they were intent on stopping his preaching to the Gentiles by attempting to tie what he said up in knots!
Our reading today tells us that Paul’s personal development as a Christian which began as described in chapter 1 (1:13-24), continued for fourteen years (2:1). There was clearly a point at which Paul felt led to start preaching and begin his missionary work; and he went with Barnabas and Titus to check out his preaching with the Apostles in Jerusalem. There were some opponents of Paul around who sought to disrupt his visit (2:4,5), but Paul was delighted to confirm that the Apostles accepted what he said without question (2:7-9). Paul was indeed called to minister to the Gentiles, and although it was a very different ministry than that of Peter to the Jews, there was no difference in the Gospel! The good news of Jesus Christ was the same for Jews and for Gentiles; and that was what Paul wanted the Galatian churches to know.
It is important that we understand all this, because if you read books of Biblical theology today, you might conclude that some believe the Gospel to be different according to the book of the Bible you are reading, and different now to what it was when the books were written! Certainly, few scholars today would accept that what Paul wrote and preached bears much resemblance to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, for example. They would say that you cannot find the teaching of Jesus about the poor or the Kingdom, for example, in the letters of Paul; but the letters are full of discussions about the meaning of salvation which are quite different from what is found in the Gospels. What I would say is this; we should not read this passage in Galatians lightly just because Paul writes about a difference of opinion about the Gospel which is rooted in the past; between Jews and Gentiles. We should read what Paul says because it is here that he explains the connection between his Gospel and what was preached by Peter and the other Apostles (2:6-10). He does not give us a theological reasoning about why his preaching was the same as that of Peter, he simply tells us that both of them agreed, and that should be good enough for us. James, Peter and John honoured Paul by offering him the ‘right hand of fellowship’ because they recognised the spiritual truth of what he preached.
It is always possible to find logical inconsistencies between Paul’s letters and the Gospels, just as we can find quite different descriptions of parts of Jesus’ life in the different Gospels. But this has never prevented the Church from accepting that the spiritual heart of the Bible’s message is always the same, but described and illustrated in different ways in the different books of the Bible. I, together with many others, would argue that the spiritual truth of our salvation through the unique life and death of Jesus is the essential real truth which unites the Bible, not its lowest common factor. Indeed, if we try to explain any book of the Bible without reading it in the light of the one Apostolic Gospel of Salvation, then we will not discover its true value.
Galatians 2:1-10 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
This passage describes one of Paul’s visits to Jerusalem; but which one? He had been there before, of course, but we need to work out when the trip in our passage happened! Then, there was some intrigue about Titus, whom Paul brought as a Gentile, to the largely Jewish church in Jerusalem, and this highlighted Paul’s concerns for newly evangelised Gentiles. Lastly, the passage describes the Apostolic blessing which was given to Paul and his preaching. Doubtless, this gave Paul all the necessary authority to pursue his missionary career.
Coming to Jerusalem
If we read the Acts of the Apostles and compare what it says with Galatians, then the story of Paul after his conversion goes roughly like this. Immediately after his conversion, Paul began preaching the risen Lord successfully in Damascus (Acts 9:22). He immediately went back to Jerusalem and attempted to meet the disciples who were too frightened of him to speak with him (Acts 9:26). Barnabas however, spoke up for Paul and this enabled him to gain brief access to the inner circle of the Apostles (Acts 9:27), but shortly after this, Paul’s life came under threat because of Jewish opponents, and Paul had to leave Jerusalem and was sent back to his home town of Tarsus (Acts 9:30). It is assumed that after this, Paul went to Arabia and then Damascus (Gal 1:17).
After this, the scriptural records are not clear. Acts 11:22-30 describes a sequence of events in which Barnabas sought out Paul and encouraged him to join the leadership of the church of Antioch, which ended in the two of them going to Jerusalem with a gift for the poor (Acts 11:30). Now, either this was the visit to Jerusalem Paul described in Galatians 1, three years after his conversion, in which he spent fifteen days with Peter and James (1:18); or this was one and the same visit to Jerusalem described here in our passage today (Gal 2:1) which took place fourteen years after Paul’s conversion. Personally, I think the truth lies closer to this second option because it was both close to when the Antioch church commissioned Paul to missionary work, and also had something to do with giving a gift of money to the poor in Jerusalem, and both of these are hinted at strongly in our passage (2:7f. and 2:10)
In this crucial visit, Paul clearly had the intention of obtaining Apostolic agreement for his preaching. If we are right, Barnabas came with Paul as his ‘sponsor’. He was the official leader of the church at Antioch (where people were first called ‘Christians’ – see Acts 11:26) and had grown to value Paul’s incisive abilities as a highly trained Pharisee. Paul knew the law so well that he was able to argue with Jews that Jesus was the Messiah in a way which other Christians could not do; and that was probably just the beginning of his skills in evangelism. Both leaders needed to know if they had the blessing of Peter and the others in Jerusalem for Paul’s teaching as it developed in the Antioch church which was clearly thriving. The positive response they obtained was part of the preparation of the Holy Spirit for the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas which set off from Antioch (Acts 13:1f.)
As an aside, it would not surprise me if Barnabas wanted Paul to preach to convert Jews first, and then Gentiles, because of his knowledge of the law. I have always wondered whether the rift between Paul and Barnabas (see Acts 15:36-41), whilst set off by Paul’s rejection of Mark as a travelling companion (Acts 15:38), was far deeper because Barnabas wanted to mission the world through Jewish synagogues, but Paul, as his future actions show, clearly did not
False believers who disrupt the Gospel
Nevertheless, when Barnabas and Paul went to Jerusalem in our reading today, they took Titus who was a Greek and therefore uncircumcised. It seems that they took him as a ‘test case’ for their teaching, because the key point about which they needed clarification was precisely whether a Gentile such as Titus needed to be circumcised in order to be a Christian. The passage speaks in a rather ‘cloak and dagger’ manner about ‘false believers’ who attempted to undermine Paul’s case as it came to Peter and the Apostles (2:4,5). In the end however, Paul was able to brag that these people had not managed to persuade anyone that Titus should be circumcised (2:3), and spoke about these ‘Judaisers’ highly dismissively, as he does in many of his other letters. Paul described them as guilty of trying to enslave people whom Christ had made free. It was an extraordinarily bold accusation, but it was the truth!
Speaking to the Galatians, these words of Paul were loaded. He took every opportunity to dismiss those who sought to impose any restrictions on the early Gentile Christians; and when he called them ‘spies’ (2:4) and said ‘we did not submit to them even for one moment’ (2:5), he was making his position very clear to his readers. As far as the Gospel was concerned, with Paul there would be no compromise! In a remarkably candid addition to this sentence, Paul gave away what was probably the underlying reason for both the visit he originally paid to Jerusalem to have his preaching checked out by Peter, and also his reason for reporting it in his letter to the Galatians. Everything he did was ‘so that the truth of the Gospel might be kept intact for you’ (2:5). The purity and holiness of the Gospel meant everything to Paul
The meeting with the Apostles
From the way that Paul began his story about visiting the Apostles, it is hard to know what to make of what Paul thought of them. He spoke about them as ‘those who seemed important’ (2:6), and also, ‘those who appeared influential’, as well as ‘the reputed “pillars”’ (2:9)! It is quite clear from later on in the letter that Paul was speaking about Peter, James and John and the other disciples, and the way some of them gave the appearance of being more influential than others. But this hardly seems a very flattering way for Paul to talk about those who were spoken of with great admiration by other Christians.
The disciples, of course, bore testimony to the life of Jesus and of His resurrection, and their place in the early church was unique. Paul gave them due respect by consulting them, yet seems to have had a somewhat egalitarian attitude towards them. He said ‘whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows favouritism to no-one’! (2:6) But the more you think about this, the more you realise the spiritual correctness of Paul’s attitude, because his attitude towards their status was hardly different from that of Jesus. Before He died, Jesus had great difficulty in persuading the disciples that just because they were his followers, they would not necessarily have any priority in the Kingdom (Mark 10:35-45). Perhaps, now that Jesus had risen and ascended, other Christians placed the disciples on high ‘pillars’ (as people are wont to do) but the disciples themselves, mindful of what the Lord had told them, appear to have been cautious about accepting undue praise or honour.
Paul wanted to report to the Galatians the truth of what happened when he met the disciples, without giving them any undue status as people, even though they were Apostles. Status was not the point. In truth, said Paul, nothing had happened at the meeting! They ‘gave me no further advice’ (2:6), and merely ‘recognised the grace which had been given to me’ (2:9). Paul therefore received from the disciples what he wanted, which was their blessing and the evidence that nothing was wrong with his Gospel. This was proof that nothing more was required for someone to be called a Christian than acceptance of the saving work of Christ, certainly not any Old Testament legalistic ritual such as circumcision.
At the very end of the passage, Paul notes that the disciples did ask one thing of him in his evangelistic work which was that he should ‘be mindful of the poor’. If you make an assessment of the life of Paul and his missionary work, you will discover that he did in fact take this charge very seriously, and made it his business to collect money for the poor in Jerusalem during much of his active work (see 2 Cor 9; Phil 4:15, etc.).
Galatians 2:1-10 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
Paul fought hard to ensure right from the start of his ministry that the Gospel he preached was the simple Gospel of salvation in Christ alone, without adding any ‘burdens’ on those who responded and sought to follow the Lord. He maintained this throughout his ministry, and we should be very grateful that he did. For one thing, the consequence of his work is that we do not have to engage in circumcision! It was clearly not God’s will for His people, the Church.
What I do find staggering is the sheer number of things which we impose upon people who wish to become Christians today! Although many Christian traditions attempt to keep the requirements as basic as possible, for many, the discipline of a church denomination is just the starting place in requirements of service, teaching and theology which can sometimes be almost suffocating. There are churches today which ban women from office and require people to agree to this, or require speaking in tongues as evidence of the work of the Spirit, or refuse communion to anyone from other churches; and the list goes on, seemingly endlessly. Each requirement has its origins in some Scripture or historic practice, and each is a matter worth debating, but none is part of the Gospel of Christ by which a person is saved. These matters are secondary, and somehow, people of spiritual integrity in the church need to start making a noise about these things and dealing with them. The church is the community of people who have been saved by faith through the mercies of God and the life and death of Jesus, and this is where the emphasis must lie, on preaching this Gospel and making it real to the world which needs to hear it.
Sometimes I think we appear cautious about the Gospel, but bold about our denominational and theological opinions. Pray that God’s church will, like Paul, be bold about the Gospel and cautious about its idiosyncrasies!
Galatians 2:1-10 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- If the main division between Christians in Paul’s day was between Jews and Gentiles, what are the main divisions between Christians today?
- Discuss the relationship between Peter and Paul. Does this passage indicate a warm or a cool relationship between them?
- What does Paul mean by ‘the grace which has been given to me’ (2:9)?
Discipleship
It can be daunting to stand in front of others and have your faith and the way you express it criticised. Preachers who are trying to gain ‘accreditation’ know what this is like, as well as church leaders who have had to undergo trials in order to be accepted for training, for example. Nevertheless, checking out our faith is an important thing to do, as Paul did in this reading. How many Christians today ‘check out’ what they believe, so that they can know whether it is ‘Apostolic’? If possible or appropriate, try to begin a discussion about this within your church.
Final Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, may we keep ourselves free from sin by being obedient to Your will, serving the people around us and seeking to honour You through all we do. Then, when we fall foul of evil’s trickery and slip up on life’s way, may we have the courage to come straight back to you for your help and forgiveness. Keep us on the narrow way, Lord Jesus; AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 2:11-16
Galatians 2:11-16 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
You may find it hard to read this passage because it is very easy to become confused about what Paul is saying about what and to whom. Clearly, Paul was writing about something which happened when Peter visited Antioch (2:11), and it made Paul confront Peter and Barnabas (2:11-13). Paul spoke forthrightly to Peter, and it appears to have been a highly significant confrontation which raised some high emotions! Indeed, in the last verse, Paul repeated himself, mentioning the law, justification and faith in Christ Jesus several times (2:16). As he wrote about this to the Galatians many years later, he still appears to have felt very deeply about what happened.
Reading the passage carefully, the following picture emerges. Peter went to Antioch at some point when Paul and Barnabas were in leadership there, and before the two of them began missionary work (Acts 11:25f.). Peter was a leader of the church at Jerusalem and had been involved in the spreading of the Gospel to Gentiles after a famous incident recorded in Acts 10 and 11. The risen Jesus had challenged Peter to eat ‘unclean foods’ with a Gentile named Cornelius, and after Peter accepted this challenge, he advocated the cause of Gentile Christians in the church (Acts 11:1-18). This was important because Jews traditionally would not eat the same meal as Gentiles, so the common sharing of food was a significant sign of true fellowship within the early church. Though they believed in Jesus, some Jews found this all too much, and they were called ‘Judaisers’; their aim was to try and preserve the Jewish Law within the Christian Church.
What seems to have happened when Peter went to Antioch was that at first, Peter shared all his meals with all the Christians in Antioch. Some time after his visit began, some visitors arrived from Jerusalem who were ‘Judaisers’, and in order not to upset their feelings, Peter elected to eat with them alone, in the traditional Jewish way (2:12). Barnabas also felt that he had to go along with his honoured guest (2:13), but what Peter and Barnabas did broke the precious ‘common’ table of fellowship, and Paul was clearly furious. He challenged Peter directly by pointing out to him the hypocrisy of his actions (2:14). He went on to speak strongly about what it meant to be justified by faith in Christ Jesus alone and not by keeping the law, repeating himself for emphasis (2:16)!
Paul wrote about this to the Galatians for two reasons. Firstly, he demonstrated that he was able and willing to confront Peter, the foremost Apostle of Jesus Christ, because he had done something very wrong. Paul wanted to make it clear that although he submitted his ‘Gospel’ to Peter and the other Apostles (2:9) to ensure that his preaching of the Gospel was no different to theirs, he would not hesitate to stand up to Peter and point out when he had done something wrong. Secondly, what had caused the problems when Paul had to confront Peter was the influence of ‘Judaisers’ within the church. Now that Judaisers were also responsible for creating difficulties for the Galatian church, no one could be under any illusions about what Paul would do. He would confront the situation head on!
For Paul, the problem was that Jewish Christians who felt that Gentiles should be circumcised were not merely Christians ‘with a different view point’. What they believed struck at the heart of the Gospel, because it kept two classes of people apart within the church; Jews and Gentiles; and the implication was that if you added Jewish legalism to salvation through Jesus Christ, this somehow made you a better Christian. Paul would have none of it. Salvation and justification was through Christ alone, and nothing else; even the laws of Moses. Paul’s stance was essential so that the Gospel heritage could be kept pure, and Christ centred, as it is for us to this day.
Galatians 2:11-16 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
This passage forms an essential transition in Galatians between Paul’s discussion of his experience and credentials as an Apostle, and the key issue which he was writing about to the Galatian churches, which was the devastating impact on the church of the teaching of people who required adherence to circumcision and the laws of Moses for all Christians. This may seem to be something we can gloss over quickly, but it is a serious matter, because although people do not try and add circumcision to the Gospel today, they do try and add other things. We need to know the detailed arguments about how and why we should keep the Gospel pure.
The incident at Antioch
Any of us would love to have been a fly on the wall when Paul challenged Peter at Antioch! But we must not get carried away with Paul’s powerful and proper ‘put down’ of Peter; this is an example of what should happen when God’s people have a disagreement and need to resolve their differences! The matter was dealt with immediately and in the open. In some churches today we have built an ethos around some leaders which makes it virtually impossible for them to be confronted with their own mistakes. We should not distinguish between them, they could be telly-evangelists or bishops, local priests or lay preachers, for example. But no one is above correction about matters which lie at the heart of the Gospel, and no one should think themselves above correction. Here, Paul, a junior leader of a less well known but successful church, faced down the man at the head of the church; someone who had known Jesus personally and had heard Jesus say to him ‘who do you say I am?’ and had answered ‘You are the Messiah’! Surely no-one could question Peter’s judgement? But Paul did question Peter, and rightly so.
The fact was that Peter was wrong, and this was not the first time in his life that this was so! Peter had to accept the challenge of Paul in front of everyone at Antioch, and doubtless, the discussions went on long after the charge of hypocrisy (2:13) Paul levelled at Peter. Paul argued that because Peter had already made a choice to accept the fellowship of Gentile Christians, his collusion with the ‘Judaisers’ when they were present was two-faced; moreover, by siding with them at the meal table he implied that he accepted their demand which was that all Christians be circumcised! Peter’s position was untenable and Paul’s charge irrefutable.
Breaking the fellowship of the table
There is one other aspect of this situation which is worth bearing in mind. What Peter had done had broken the fellowship of the table at Antioch and divided Christian from Christian. In the early church, meals were shared not just as an expression of common fellowship (see Acts 2:46, 4:32f.), but as part of what we call ‘communion’. The common meal was the normal setting for the ‘breaking of bread’ by which the church remembered Jesus’ death and resurrection, according to Jesus’ own request (see Mark 14:22f. etc.). This is what happened in the church at Corinth, for example (1 Cor. 11), and was the general practice for the early church. So behind the charge Paul brought against Peter lay his horror that the ‘body of Christ’ should be divided by the scruples led by requirements of Jewish law.
Here in Galatians, we hear about this incident from Paul’s point of view, of course, so we do not know how Peter responded, but we can be fairly sure that Paul won the argument. Certainly, by the time of the great ‘Council of Jerusalem’ called after Paul and Barnabas had begun missionary work (see Acts 15), both Peter and James totally accepted the argument that Gentile Christians were fully accepted into the church without any addition to the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ alone (Acts 15:28,29). The Judaisers had lost, and circumcision was ruled out. It did not stop those Jews who believed in it from touting their opinions around the churches of Galatia and creating havoc, however!
The theology of salvation through Christ alone
The Greek of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is unclear at the point where verse 14 moves into verse 15. The problem is that Paul writes at the beginning of verse 15 ‘we who are Jews by birth ...’ sounding as if he is still writing about what he remembered saying to Peter; the ‘we’ being Paul and Peter, face to face! Some versions of the Bible follow this idea and include verses 15 and 16 as part of what Paul said to Peter. Alternatively, Paul could have been speaking about himself and other Jews like him in verse 15, and for this reason, other versions of the Bible have a paragraph break at this point and continue from verse 15 as if Paul is simply continuing his letter and speaking generally to the Galatians about salvation.
It seems to me that Paul wrote these words both recollecting what he had said to Peter, but with the Galatians in mind. What had happened was a serious and defining moment in Paul’s life and the life of the early church, and what was said would have stood out in his own memory. Certainly, we will discover later on in Galatians 3 why Paul has written so extensively about this incident and what it means theologically.
In verses 15 and 16, we can easily become confused because Paul writes one of those sentences which we can read several times over before spotting why it is written as it is! It mentions being ‘justified’ (using one or other form of the word) three times, ‘faith in Jesus’ twice, and ‘keeping the law’ (or ‘not keeping the law’) three times, and all in one sentence!
The sentence flows like this. Paul says that a true Jew who has learned the truth about Jesus knows that ‘someone is not justified by keeping the law but by faith in Jesus’. In this sentence, to be justified means to be put right with God, and Jesus made this justification possible by His death and resurrection, so we need to have faith in Him in order to obtain it. This much is straightforward and is the heart of the Gospel as preached by Paul or Peter. Paul then goes on to say that having come to know this truth, a person must act upon what they know; so he says ‘so we have now placed our faith in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by our faith in Him, and not by keeping the law’. This second clause restates the Gospel not as something merely known, but as something believed in and done, and it is only when we see this that the whole sentence begins to make sense. This was Paul’s frank way of saying to Peter that he had to both believe the Gospel and put it into practice! Lastly, Paul added an addendum to emphasise the irrelevance of the law, and this forms the last part of the verse; ‘because no one can be justified merely by keeping the law’. I believe it is best translated by placing it in parenthesis.
At the heart of all this is Paul’s jealous guarding of the Gospel! For him, the Gospel was not a religious system with rules and regulations; it was the way of being put right with God, of ‘justification’. Moreover, it was the only means of justification because it was to be found through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and through faith in Him alone. This was the Gospel, and everything else which Christians and Jews did was from his point of view, nothing more than forms of religion.
Galatians 2:11-16 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
Frankly, the common acceptance that Christians worship God in their separate churches and are happy to live as if all other churches did not exist or were not relevant, is a scandal of immense proportions by which many come under the judgement of God. Christ is not separated, and where we separate Him, we affront the Gospel, the one Gospel which all Christians share, the Gospel by which we are all justified. You may feel that the Christian church has developed with different theological emphases and practices which make them all a valid part of the one ‘body of Christ’, but I have always felt that that the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Peter, would look at our church structure today, including the vast number of independent churches which have attempted to ‘get things right’ because other churches have failed, and they would be horrified at our divisions. I also believe that Jesus feels rent apart by our divisions; and yes, I do mean that. I do not believe that all Christian people have to develop their theology and practices along the same lines, but as far as I can see from Scripture, there is one Gospel of Salvation, and this is through Jesus, and celebrated by a meal which we can and should all share. I frankly do not regard as ‘Christian theology’ any argument which cuts up the body of Christ, and I urge you to believe the same.
The reason why I have said this (and those who have read my work elsewhere will recognise this as one of my deeply held beliefs about the Bible and the Gospel), is because this is as close as I can get to taking my own stance with Paul against the corruption of the Gospel. If you feel this is presumptuous, then please tell me what kind of church or Christian theology can consistently defend the way in which some churches refuse to administer the sacrament of communion to Christians of other churches! Your only answer will be, those churches which think they have the truth alone and others do not have it! I am sorry, but nothing can persuade me that such arguments are right.
Paul jealously guarded the Gospel as God’s open invitation to have faith in His son in order to be saved and be at peace with Him. May we guard it as well; and may we yield to it and live in fellowship with all who do, whatever their ‘church’ background.
Galatians 2:11-16 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- Are there people in the church, or committees of it, which we tend to accept without question? Why is this so, and should we question them or it?
- Should Paul have shown Peter respect, and if so, how? Is it always right to challenge someone openly?
- Discuss verse 16. Does it contain an adequate summary of the Gospel of Salvation?
Discipleship
Take some time to write a list of all the different Christian churches of which you know, and write down some of the divisions which exist between them. Using the internet, find out the contacts for some of the major church leaders and organisations, and if you feel so motivated by this study, write to them and ask them why Christ has been divided between them, and why they present a divided Christ to the world. You may find a different way of expressing this, but you can still pursue a similar call for the unity of the Gospel!
Final Prayer
Lord God Almighty, give us hearts which yearn to understand and know Your Word. May we look forward to reading it, be prepared to study it where necessary, and use it and remember it in our daily lives. By so doing, may we give glory to You, God Almighty. Thank You Lord: AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 2:17-21
Galatians 2:17-21 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
It is a glorious truth that when something really difficult happens to us we can, by God’s help, turn what was difficult into something very positive. I say this because our passage today can only be understood if we remember that Paul wrote it as a report about a face to face row he had with Peter and the ‘Judaisers’ (people who insisted that people observed parts of the Jewish law once they became Christians); for a fuller description of what happened between Peter and Paul, please read yesterday’s study. But this profoundly difficult experience led Paul to say some very important things about faith, even if he said them in the heat of the moment! Our passage today is Paul’s report of the last part of what he said to Peter, and it contains some pearls of Christian theology which were born of that strife. Preachers throughout the ages have used them to explain the change wrought in the life of the believer by the risen Christ; ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me ...’ (2:20).
Why should Paul spend so long (2:11-21) telling the Galatian churches all about his argument with Peter, several years ago in Antioch? He did so because similar Judaisers were now at work within the Galatians churches Paul had founded, and this grieved Paul immensely. Quite clearly, the words which had been said when he confronted Peter were etched on his soul; they were words which had persuaded the most senior figure in the church to accept that salvation by God’s grace through Christ was free of any requirement of the laws of Moses. They were good arguments and Paul wrote them to the Galatians as if to say, ‘This persuaded Peter to ditch the Judaisers, now it should persuade you to do the same!’
You may understand everything I have said, and also value the wonderful parts of this passage which have meant so much to so many over the two millennia of the Christian church (e.g. verse 20, see above), but there are few people who read either the Greek of this passage or any version of the English who find it easy to explain in detail what Paul says within it and why! If you go back over the passage and read it again slowly, you may well find that you become confused! What does Paul mean by asking whether ‘Christ is a servant of sin’ (2:17 – sometimes translated ‘Christ promotes sin’)? Yes, we can easily see that Paul is horrified at the idea that anyone could think this, but what is he talking about, and why? It is very unclear. Again, why does Paul say in the last verse ‘I do not set aside the grace of God ...’ We may agree wholeheartedly, but what kind of argument is Paul making and why?
In the main part of the study I will attempt to answer these questions as fully as I can, and I have written an extended paraphrase of the whole section to assist our understanding of what is going on here. I nevertheless suggest that the passage should be thought of generally as Paul’s attempt to argue with people who said that once a person became a Christian they needed to adhere to the laws of Judaism in order to be fully accepted before God. Paul was horrified by this because he could see that people were adding religious rules to the Gospel, and every sentence of this passage is an attack on such presumption from one angle or another. But in the process of attacking his opponents, the Spirit led Paul to speak about the Gospel with an appealing simplicity, and in a way which had not been done before, and has not been done since. Even though the whole passage is hard to understand, words like; ‘I have died to the law so that I might live for God.’ (2:19) have liberated thousands of people previously bound by religiosity. These are important scriptures.
Galatians 2:17-21 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
I have set my stall for what comes next. But it is also important to remember that although Paul was an unparalleled, church builder, evangelist and theologian, there are times when it is very difficult to understand what he has written. The church is not well served by those who take one sentence from Paul’s writings here and another from there, and use them as pegs to hand their own thoughts upon. There is no substitute for spending time with these great texts in order to understand them and use them properly.
A paraphrase
The following paraphrase forms the basis of our discussion, and it is best read by imagining that Paul is talking directly to Peter. I have taken the core words of the text but expanded them by adding some of the background which I have already described, and also some imaginative license to help the flow of what is said. This now offers you my interpretation of this passage in a manner far more eloquent than four or five paragraphs of explanation!
Now if those who have found a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ discover some time later on that they are still sinners because there is some point of ritual law which has been omitted, then what you are saying is that following Jesus alone has in fact made them sinners! Now that is ridiculous! You know well that the law only makes everyone a sinner in God’s eyes. I got rid of the law to be free in Christ, so I am not going to start accepting bits of it again only to find that I am condemned all over again! According to all the requirements of Jewish law, I am already a dead man, but because I accept this in Christ, I can now live for God! Don’t you see, I have died with Christ on the Cross and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me! Don’t misunderstand, I am not claiming that I am perfect, for while I am still alive on earth and subject to all its problems, I must live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Don’t accuse me of ignoring the grace of God just because I will have nothing to do with people with these views. Frankly, if the laws of Moses have anything to do with how we are saved, then Christ died for nothing. That is how important this is!
An explanation
Before we look at the important theology of salvation which is found in this passage, there are one or two more things to be said about why I have paraphrased the text in this way. Firstly, the phrase ‘Christ is a servant of sin’ is rather strange and nothing quite like it is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul used it dramatically to tell Peter that by allowing himself to be seen accepting the scruples of Jewish ‘Judaisers’, he was allowing both Jesus and the Gospel to become subject to the law, and because the purpose of the law was to expose sin, any such compromise meant that Christ was reduced to serving the same ends. Even the thought of this was shocking to Paul. The men who came to Peter from James (2:12) represented nothing but the slavery of the law, and Paul could not accept that there was any compromise between the Gospel and the law because Christ should never be compromised.
Secondly, verse 18 reads rather strangely as soon as you try to explore what Paul meant. Paul was probably parodying the Judaisers who were attempting to build up within Christianity the same Pharisaic religious system which had by the middle of the first century AD virtually taken over Judaism to the exclusion of all other traditions (such as that of the Sadducees, for example). Paul told Peter straight that he was not going to become a hypocrite and take this on board, since he had dispensed with it as part of his very conversion to Christ. For him, any compromise was hypocrisy.
Thirdly, one can almost hear the criticisms which may have been levelled at Paul for confronting Peter so aggressively. Surely, some might say, the ‘grace of God’ was big enough to encompass people of different opinions, and Peter was doing nothing more than extending friendship to the guests from Jerusalem? It is most likely that verse 21 was written in response to this kind of criticism, and Paul would have none of it. General bonhomie and friendship to all should not be mistaken for the principles of the Gospel; as far as Paul was concerned, ‘grace’ was about the saving work of God through Jesus Christ, not appeasement with those who thought that people could only be saved through legalism, and not grace!
The Gospel
What can we learn about the Gospel from this passage which is new? The straight answer is nothing, but it is all a matter of how it is expressed. The confrontation with Peter had raised a heated debate, and the force of it had made Paul crystallise his own thinking about salvation. The result was that the Holy Spirit created within Paul’s mind some of the words and phrases which he used and developed throughout his ministry to explain the Gospel. We are used to hearing phrases such as ‘I have been crucified with Christ’; but remember that this phrase is not found in the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. It is only found (or something like it) in Paul’s letters and later New Testament writing, moreover, Galatians is one of the earliest of Paul’s letters, so this incredible way of describing the reality of salvation probably originates here! This brief phrase builds on the idea that the Gospel is founded on Jesus’ death ‘for our sins’, removing the barriers between us and God. It expresses the profound personal effect of Jesus’ crucifixion, which liberates the soul from the power of sin; He won salvation for us, and we experience salvation in and through Him.
You could say that the next sentence is the result of the Gospel, rather than the Gospel itself, but I am not sure that Paul saw it that way; he said; ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ This is a miniature form of the theology which Paul expands and explains in other great works, notably the letter to the Romans. Paul elsewhere describes how the Gospel has the effect of a transfer of ownership in which we allow Jesus to ‘take over the reigns’ and become the director and controller of our life (see also Col 1:13, Romans 6:15-19, 8:9f.).
This is probably the most preached upon text in this whole passage, along with the sentence which comes next in verse 20; ‘I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ This, again, is very particular to the writing of Paul. Everything in this sentence is something which we can find within the Gospels, but it is crystallised here in a memorable and concise form which has been used in the church ever since. Jesus asked His disciples to have ‘faith’ in Him and He demonstrated His love for the disciples in many different ways. John’s Gospel in particular highlights both His love for the disciples and His command to them to ‘love one another ... as I have loved you’ (John 13:34).
The last part of the sentence is particularly concise and telling; ‘... and gave Himself for me.’ This brief phrase captures all of the pathos of the story of the Cross as well as the sacrifices Jesus made for His disciples as their Lord and their servant, and as their friend and their Lord. Jesus offered Himself for the sins of the world even though He had no clear evidence that anyone would accept the sacrifice He made for them, at the moment of His death. This was the ‘grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ which meant so much to Paul and which he speaks of in all of his letters.
Galatians 2:17-21 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
Yesterday I dealt with the matter of those who make religious legalism out of the Gospel and end up dividing God’s people, because it is the most heinous of the consequences of religious legalism today. There is one other aspect of this passage which deserves our attention which is the ‘grace’ of God through Jesus Christ. The word ‘grace’ means ‘favour’, and indicates the great blessing God shows to us when we place our faith in His Son Jesus Christ, and trust Him for our salvation. Reading between the lines of our passage today, it does appear (particularly in the last verse) that Paul was deeply upset by those who felt that the ‘grace of God’ was some kind of general favour towards people who generally believed in God. No, said Paul; grace was not to be mistaken for being friendly with everyone. Grace was the blessing of God through Christ alone, and those who attempted to add to it misunderstood the saving work of God.
We must be careful in what we make of the ‘grace of God’, as well. I have heard people argue that the grace of God is surely large enough to embrace people who do not really understand His love, for various reasons, or that God’s grace is large enough to embrace good people of other faiths. Oh dear, this sounds so reasonable, but I fear that these are yet more misunderstandings about the nature of salvation. The Bible teaches that there is no salvation except through Jesus, and through God’s grace offered to all who will accept Him. As I understand it, the Bible says quite clearly that people who do not either know or understand this are not beyond His care or righteous judgement (see Romans 1:19, 2:1-11), because God cares for all His creation. However, the evidence is that sin always presents a barrier to human relationships with God. His grace through Jesus Christ is not the same as His general love for the whole of His creation; God’s grace is given to us through Jesus, so that the barrier of sin might be removed and we might know His love and respond by faith. This is the only way by which our relationship with God is put ‘right’. However kindly or wrathful God might be (and we do not know) towards people of other faiths or those who have not yet understood the Gospel, they are not ‘saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.’
Galatians 2:17-21 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- Discuss in your group whether you understand the paraphrase of this text found in the study. What does this tell you which you cannot find in the text?
- What does it mean to you to say ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (2:19)?
- In what ways has Jesus Christ ‘given Himself’ (2:20) for you, the church, and the world?
Discipleship
Read through this passage and try to spot connections with other parts of Paul’s letters (there are a few hints about this in the text of the study). Look up some other passages such as Romans 3:21-26 and compare what Paul says there about salvation and what he says here. Would you say that this passage contains sufficient information about the Gospel? How much more needs to be said? I ask you this because it is by exploring such things that we learn more about our faith.
Final Prayer
Glorious Lord, deal kindly with us today, we pray. Open our hearts to people around us so that we become people of compassion, willing to hear and respond to those we meet with the same love with which You have paid attention to us and our needs. Make us more like You, we pray: AMEN.
Bible study for Galatians 3:1-9
Galatians 3:1-9 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
Paul was deeply distressed that the churches he had helped found in Galatia had been infiltrated by people who wanted Gentile Christians to show allegiance to Jewish heritage by becoming circumcised and following all the revelation of the Law as given to Moses. He had fought such people throughout his ministry (see 2:11-21) and preached in a manner which warned his hearers about the dangers of allowing anyone to divert their faith away from Christ, and Christ alone (see 1:6-9). Still, Jewish opponents of his, who we call ‘Judaisers’, seemed to follow Paul around; and when he had founded a church and then gone on his way, they then began to work away at changing people’s minds about the merits of obedience to the ancient laws of Moses. Paul was furious that this had happened at some of the most important of the churches he founded in Galatia on his first missionary journey (Acts 13,14); ‘You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?’ (3:1).
Previously, when Paul had dealt with a similar situation by confronting Peter at Antioch, the passions roused led him to speak about the Christian faith in a new and vibrant manner (see 2:11-21). Now, in his letter, Paul addressed the Galatians directly about the fatal problem of accepting the teaching of Judaisers, and with his passions aroused yet again, he wrote in defence of the true Christian faith in powerful new ways which had a very important impact on the life of the early church and Paul’s own future ministry. Although you will not necessarily find in this passage today some of the ‘purple passages’ of faith which marked yesterday’s passage, you will find that Paul’s arguments have become essential pillars of Christian theology.
Particularly important in Paul’s argument was the contrast he drew between ‘the Spirit’ (3:2,3,5) and either ‘the law’ (3:2,5) or ‘the flesh’ (3:3). This is the first time that Paul has introduced the subject of the Holy Spirit into the letter, and it is very important because as he continues in the letter, the Spirit becomes an important theme. It is generally well known that the famous ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ are found in Galatians (5:22f.). However, the inspiration of this passage is that Paul contrasts the Spirit with either the law or the flesh, and this contrast is something which we find in nearly all of Paul’s later letters, and in particular, the letter to the Romans (e.g. Romans 8:4f.). Paul appears to use ‘law’ and ‘flesh’ as meaning the same thing, and it is possible that by doing so he was being somewhat caustic. After all, the ‘law’ required Jewish males to bear a mark in their ‘flesh’ (circumcision), and this was what the fuss was all about in the first place, because it is what the Judaisers taught!
The other great feature of this passage is Paul’s teaching about the faith of Abraham. He identified from Scripture the fact that faith was essential to Abraham’s relationship with God (3:6f. see Genesis 15:6) before circumcision was required (Genesis 17f.) and long before the Law (Exodus 20f.); this makes ‘faith’ inherently more important than either circumcision or the law! This argument also proves that God has been faithful over thousands of years of life. He always responds to faith, and this does not change.
Almost everything before this point in Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been introduction, and largely about Paul justifying his attack on Judaisers. However, in rebutting their teaching which had become like a perennial weed within the church, Paul develops some of the most important foundations of Christian theology. In the passage we read yesterday, he gives a detailed description of salvation by faith in Christ alone (2:19,20), and in today’s passage, he describes the work of the Spirit and contrasts it with the works of the law and of ‘flesh’, he proves that faith is more important than law, and he proves the faithfulness of God across the centuries. All this is fundamental to Christian theology.
Galatians 3:1-9 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
Although it is possible to read this passage and understand roughly what Paul was trying to say, there are many details we have not yet addressed, such as what it means when Paul says Jesus was on ‘public display’ (3:1), or indeed, what he means by contrasting the Spirit and the flesh. In order to cover all these features, we will look at this verse by verse.
Verse 1 – ‘foolish Galatians’
Paul was not only very upset to hear that the Galatian churches had succumbed to Judaisers, he was furious, and he called them ‘foolish’ (also meaning ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’). Paul doubtless felt the pain of finding out that these preachers had overturned the good things he had taught, by promoting Judaism. The main argument he employed against these people was that the truth about God was to be found only through Jesus Christ His Son, which required faith. However, the Judaisers appealed to law, which by definition required human effort to do what it required.
Paul was at a loss as to why people would not accept this essential point. True religion was bound up with God and what He had done, not the human effort required to achieve a set of pre-existent rules, however good they were. Paul displayed his frustration by chastising the Galatian churches with the astonishing words; ‘You who have already seen Jesus Christ put on public display as one who has been crucified!’ Paul seems to be saying, ‘Surely the crucifixion of Christ, which people have seen and you confess, is the proof that faith is based on what God does and not what people do! Why don’t you see that the law has nothing to do with it?’
Verse 2 – how did you receive the Spirit?
Now in the Early Church, it was generally accepted and taught by Paul (see Acts 19:1-7) that the evidence of the risen Christ in the life of the believer was provided by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it was expected that special gifts and signs accompanied the coming of the Spirit (as in 1 Cor 12), such as ‘speaking in tongues’. This would undoubtedly have been part of Paul’s teaching when the churches of Galatia had been founded. His question to them was therefore straightforward; ‘Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard?’ It was a rhetorical question of course, because the church knew that the answer was ‘by believing’.
By asking this, however, Paul contrasted the law and faith, both of which are human responses to God. However, keeping the law consists of human effort to control life according to what God has commanded; something which required a great deal of effort. However, believing in Jesus Christ, or having faith was not a matter of effort, but of placing ones hopes in God alone. The faith which Paul speaks of here is rather like the faith of those people who came to Jesus believing that touching Him would heal them (such as the woman with a haemorrhage – Matt 9:20f.). For Paul, such faith was integrally linked with the work of the Spirit.
Verses 3&4 – the contrast of Spirit and flesh
Paul went on to say ‘Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?’ and in this, he contrasts the Spirit not with the law, as in the last verse, but with the ‘flesh’. We are used to reading phrases like this in Paul’s letters (see above), but this is the first place (chronologically) where Paul uses the word, so why does Paul use the word ‘flesh’ and what does it mean? It is possible that Paul used it because it was a caustic way of referring to circumcision, otherwise described by the people of the day as a ‘mark of the flesh’. It seemed ludicrous to Paul that after the Jewish people had followed the ways of the flesh (that is, circumcision and obedience to the law) for two thousand years and failed to find salvation through it, that Gentiles should now accept it! They had received the Spirit of God through their faith in Jesus, so why did they think they needed anything more?
When Paul adds the question ‘Have you endured so much for nothing?’ it is not immediately clear what he means. But if you read Acts 13 and 14, you will find that the Galatian churches were founded in the midst of great controversy, and Paul and Barnabas had to work very hard to stave off physical attacks on the young church from local Jews who were jealous of Paul’s preaching. These young churches had probably suffered a great deal from persecution by Jews in their infancy, so it was somewhat paradoxical that they were now beginning to accept Jewish beliefs! Paul’s question was designed to remind the Galatians of the sacrifices they had made for their right to be free in Christ and receive the Spirit.
Verse 5 – the manifestations of the Spirit
In verse 5, Paul begins by speaking about God. It was essential for his argument that everything he said was rooted in God and in Scripture, so that it could not be said that his teaching was merely his own construction. Before looking at the question Paul asked in verse 5, it is worth noting that the beginning of the verse is in fact a description of God, as ‘the One who supplies you with the Spirit and works miracles among you.’ What a wonderful way of talking about God! Some translations of the Bible emphasise this by adding God’s name to the text (it is not there in the Greek), to say ‘the God who supplies you with the Spirit ...’ The Spirit of course, is God’s own Spirit, not just one aspect of God (associated with ‘gifts’ or fruit’!), or as John put it in his Gospel ‘God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit.’ (John 4:24). Here, though, Paul appealed to the Galatians to recall the wondrous work of the Spirit and the miracles which accompanied it. This was what the life of the church should be about, not theological arguments about the law and circumcision!
The question Paul asked the Galatians was whether God gave them the Spirit because of ‘belief in what you have heard’ or because of their ‘doing the law’. This is the same as the question Paul asked in verse 2, and is repeated for emphasis. The Galatians knew that they had the blessings of the Spirit because of their faith in Jesus. Nothing else needed to be said; they had a choice, the Spirit or the flesh? Christian faith could not co-exist with both.
Verse 6&7 – ‘people who believe are sons of Abraham’
Paul goes on to give a simple Biblical explanation for his stance that faith is more important than the law in our relationship with God, using the life of Abraham. Any study of Genesis will easily show that when God gradually revealed Himself to Abraham. He firstly made promises to Abraham and required nothing of him except that he be obedient and go to Canaan (Gen 12:1-3), and this is what Abraham did. What is interesting is what comes next. When Abraham questioned God about His commitment to His side of the promise (to enable Abraham and Sarah to have children), God reiterated His promise that Abraham would have children, and Abraham let go of his doubts and accepted God’s promises (Gen 15:6). God accepted Abraham’s faith and ‘counted it to him as ‘righteousness’. Being a story from the very earliest chapters of Genesis, this comes before any mention of circumcision (Genesis 17) or the Law (Exodus 20).
The remarkable step which Paul takes in verse 7 is to generalise Abraham’s experience and say that the faith God required of Abraham is no different from the faith He requires of us now. It is ‘people who believe who are sons of Abraham’, and these people who are the true Israel! Christians don’t have exactly the same issues that Abraham had when dealing with God, but Paul was insistent that faith was still faith. Just as God could count Abraham as ‘righteous’ because of his faith, our faith enables us to be put right with God; that is, we are justified.
Verse 8&9 – The faithfulness of God
Paul considered this to be God’s gracious revelation of the Gospel to Abraham centuries before it was to be found through Jesus Christ (3:8). Indeed, God had even given Abraham the great promise that through him ‘all the world would be blessed’ (Gen 12:3). Paul asserts this understanding of Genesis very boldly here in his letter to the Galatians, but the argument is put very briefly. His letter to the Romans says much more about Abraham and his place in God’s plan of salvation (chapter 4).
However, as far as the Galatians were concerned, the highlight of Paul’s argument was the conclusion that all those who believed were ‘blessed together with Abraham’ (3:9). The same God who raised up a nation from Abraham was now raising up a new people based upon faith in the one man Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Clearly everything had changed and some might have felt that the new church of Jesus Christ seemed radically different from the old people of God, the Jews; but Paul’s argument was that the one thing which held all God’s work together was faith; not circumcision, and not the Law.
Galatians 3:1-9 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
The flesh or the Spirit? That is the choice put before Christians. In some passages of Scripture, Paul develops this contrast in order to raise a question about Christian lifestyle and he asks, do you live by the flesh or do you live by the Spirit? Indeed, this question is found towards the end of Galatians in chapter 5. However, here in this passage, the question is not one of lifestyle, but about how we relate to God. It is a question about the inner motives which drive our relationship with God. It is important that we check out from time to time whether we really do have faith and trust in God through Jesus, because it is very easy to lose track of our faith. We can easily become consumed by doing the things Christians do, particularly in church, but when something happens to us which is unexpected, our trust in God evaporates. We find that despite our worship and expressions of faith when with others, we are not at all sure that we trust God. You may say ‘that can’t happen to me’, but I strongly suggest you refrain and accept that it could. We are all human and Satan will do everything in His power to pull us down this slippery slope. As a pastor and minister, I have come across many upstanding Christians who have found themselves very uncomfortably placed when life has not gone as planned. The wisest approach in my opinion is to accept that all of us are susceptible to fall and miss the mark of our high spiritual calling. We do all in our power to retain our spiritual integrity, but when we do fall, the first course of action must be to recognise this, and go straight back to our Lord in prayer and repentance. The Lord will always help us when we fall, but we need to have faith; and that is the point.
Galatians 3:1-9 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- Discuss in your group what you think Paul means by ‘the flesh’. In what ways is it different from ‘the Spirit’?
- What are the founding principles of your church which have disappeared over the years? Should they have been retained?
- Is Paul’s argument that faith (Genesis 15) came before circumcision (Gen 17) the only way of proving that faith is more important than the law?
Discipleship
There are many challenges within this passage of Scripture, because this is where Paul begins to get going with his thoughts about what was happening to the Galatians. One of the problems we all face with Paul’s letters is the problem of familiarity. This means that we can sometimes read what he says without taking in the true depth of meaning which is there. For this reason, take the opportunity to read over this passage several times, and allow God to speak to you through this process.
Final Prayer
Dear Lord; thank You and Alleluia! You are the source of all the joy, the love, the blessing, the wonder, the happiness and the glory which we find on the pathway of our life’s journey! In Your Name, we reject all the evil, the sin, the worry, the unhappiness and the despair which comes from the Evil One, and we revel in Your love! Glory to You, Lord Jesus Christ: AMEN!
Bible study for Galatians 3:10-14
Galatians 3:10-14 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
In this important passage of Scripture, Paul explains in a very condensed way how people are saved and brought into a relationship with God which is right and just. Most of what Paul says is well known to us; for example ‘no-one is justified before God by the Law ... for the one who is righteous will live by faith’ (3:11). He also talks about Jesus’ death on the tree as a curse which He bore for us (3:13), and he describes the way that ‘the blessing of Abraham’ is made available to Gentiles ‘in Christ Jesus’ and sealed by the ‘promise of the Spirit’ (3:14). Most Christians would feel happy to have grasped Paul’s general explanation of salvation and to have spotted the various quotes from the Old Testament which are used by Paul to back this up. But there is more beneath the surface.
The starting point for a deeper understanding of this passage and its great spiritual truths will come from an attempt to picture the circumstances under which this letter was written. We will certainly appreciate more of what he was trying to say if we understand that Paul shaped what he said to try and persuade his readers about the Gospel. Imagine you are writing to a friend about something controversial and you are trying to bring about a genuine change of mind. You would not just state blandly what you believe to be true for fear it would be rejected out of hand, so you would try to write in a way which explained your stance and why it was different from that of your friend, and therefore attempt to ‘win’ the argument. This is the style of this part of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
We know something about what the Judaisers in the church at Galatia thought because of other first century writings and other New Testament books. Obviously, they believed that people could only find a right relationship with God if they kept the laws given through Moses. However, they would have been rather annoyed at Paul’s insistence that what happened to Abraham was more important than Moses (3:6-9). Abraham was the ‘Father of the Nation’, but surely the greater revelation of God came later through Moses? In addition, most Jews accepted that they were unable to keep the law perfectly, but they believed that the sacrificial system gave them a perfectly adequate way to restore peace with God, and if all else failed, they thought that their circumcision meant that they were connected spiritually and physically to their forefather Abraham, who had been saved by God’s Covenant promises (Gen 15:1-6 and ch17). These were the strong arguments of the Judaisers which we easily forget today.
To argue against this, Paul turned to what was written about the law by Moses Himself, who said; ‘cursed be anyone who does not uphold ... the law’ (Deut 27:26 – see Paul’s paraphrase in 3:10). He insisted that the problem with the Judaisers’ position was that the law, however helpful it might be as a definition of what was right and wrong, could not make people right with God (3:11). Paul knew that the people he was writing to did call themselves ‘Christians’, even though many had added Judaism to their faith, so he now appealed to Jesus as the true source of faith. He explained that the great truth and mystery of salvation was that Jesus Christ had taken the full force of the curse of the law on our behalf so that men and women might not have to pay its price (3:13). Everyone and anyone could receive the blessing of a right relationship with God by means of faith in Jesus (3:14), and therefore receive the Spirit of God as the guarantee of that blessing!
In order to bridge the gap between himself and the Judaisers, you will see that towards the end of the passage, Paul did indeed accept that the blessing of a right relationship with God could indeed be found (by Jews) through Abraham (3:14), but it was only generally available to Gentiles ‘in Christ Jesus’, not ‘in Abraham’. This was his point.
Galatians 3:10-14 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
There is no doubt that this passage is one which has had a huge influence on Christian thought and theology, and it deserves our attention for that reason alone; it is the basis of a great deal of Paul’s theological thought about salvation. However, much of what Paul says comes from his analysis of the ‘curse’ of the law in the Old Testament, and Paul says that it was this curse which Christ removed on the Cross (3:13) to achieve our salvation. Going deeper, we will have to look at the subject of ‘curses’, and how this helps us understand salvation.
The curse of the law
The Judaisers did indeed have an argument when they said that the laws of Moses were a revelation of God. Elsewhere in his writings, Paul accepted that the law had a purpose, but he would only accept that its purpose was to expose wrongdoing (see Romans 5:20, 8:4, 1 Cor 15:56 etc.), and because sin and wrongdoing was endemic within fallen humanity, he argued that it was simply impossible for anyone to keep God’s law perfectly and therefore be justified. Some rabbi’s in Paul’s own day accepted this very point, but said (as we have seen above) that the sacrificial system and circumcision were designed by God to ensure that God’s Covenant people, the Jews, could be saved. This reasoning was responsible for the idea that Gentiles had to become circumcised. If they did, so the argument went, they could benefit from the Covenant blessings and salvation found in Abraham!
Paul knew all this, but he insisted that salvation for Jew or Gentiles was through Christ alone. In order to dispense with the rabbis proposition, Paul needed to make an argument against the law which did not include Abraham, and he chose to focus on the ‘curse’ of the law found in Deuteronomy 27:26. At this point in Deuteronomy, Moses issued instructions to the Israelites about what they should do when they entered the Promise Land. As a form of ‘Covenant Renewal’, Moses told the people of Israel to mount a set of stones on Mounts Ebal and Gerazim, two large hilltops near to the later city of Samaria. On Ebal, the stones were to have curses written on them against those who disobeyed the law (Deut 27). On Gerazim, the stones were to have blessings written on them for people who kept the law (Deut 28:1-7). If you read this whole passage of Deuteronomy, however, you will discover that by far the majority of it is about Moses’ concern that the people of Israel would not keep the law or the Covenant and would come under curse and condemnation as a consequence (Deut 28:15-68). The one sentence which captures this pessimism on the part of Moses just before he died is quoted by Paul here in this passage, in verse 10; ‘Cursed is everyone who does not observe all the things written in the book of the law, and do them.’ This is almost word for word the same as Deuteronomy 27:26, but Paul has added the word ‘all’. Both Moses and Paul, in different ways, demanded that the law had to be kept in every way if it was to be effective; any failure to keep any part of the law by those to whom it was given, meant failure.
Although Paul’s argument that Abraham’s faith came before the law (see yesterday’s passage) is well known, this argument was in fact more effective. Someone only had to break one small part of the law, and they had, in effect, broken it all; and Paul was able to say that this was no less than the general opinion of Moses!
‘The righteous will live by faith!’
Paul now had to find a passage of scripture which justified his understanding of the connection between faith in Jesus Christ and being placed in a right relationship with God. He found it in Habakkuk 2:4, which reads; ‘but the righteous live by their faith’. The prophet Habakkuk spoke at the time of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem when the people of Israel were probably at their lowest point, and it was commonly recognised that the great dynasty of David in Jerusalem had fallen because of centuries of sin on the part of the people of Israel and its rulers in Jerusalem. Habakkuk’s cry was that of a just man seeking to find answers to the terrible catastrophe which had befallen Israel and Judah, and in that brief moment, amidst the prophet’s gloom at the terrible things happening all around him, he had a momentary vision of God’s solution to the eternal problem of sin and lawlessness, even amongst God’s people. The answer was ‘faith’.
Paul uses this quote from Habakkuk in his famous definition of salvation in Romans 1:17; ‘for in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written; “the one who is righteous will live by faith”’; and the same passage is also quoted by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews (10:38). What is interesting, however, is that Paul does not present this quote as some kind of ‘proof text’ to make his point here in Galatians. Rather, it makes the point for him about faith, which he then goes on to explain, by talking about what Jesus has done for us on the Cross. Faith, for Paul, was not just some abstract attitude or hope about God; it was about the human response to a historical event; the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. In addition, faith was a spiritual response, not a physical activity such as ‘doing what the law requires’ (3:12). Human activity had been found wanting as a means of coming close to God.
The curse of ‘one who hangs on a tree’
Paul spoke out boldly; ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.’ (3:13). Whilst most of what Paul had discussed up to this point was not new to theologians of Paul’s day, this statement was. This is Paul’s explanation of how Jesus managed to do the work of salvation; he did it by taking on himself the curse which should have been ours, and in so doing, He has set us free!
There are two parts to this great explanation of faith. Firstly, Paul used the idea of redemption which has a long pedigree within the Old Testament. For example, Isaac’s life (upon whom the future of all God’s people depended) was redeemed by the offering of a lamb on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:13,14), and God’s work of saving the people of Israel from Egypt required an act of ‘redemption’ by which the life of animals (lambs) were exchanged for the life of the people of Israel on the night the Angel of Death travelled through Egypt (Ex 12:29-32). Paul does not talk about Jesus as a lamb ‘who takes away the sins of the world’ as does John in his Gospel (John 1:29f.), but the sense of this is here in this passage. Jesus died as a sacrifice on behalf of us and for our sins.
Secondly, Paul confirmed that the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross for the redemption of all people was scriptural, by quoting again from Deuteronomy; ‘anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Deut 21:23). There is no doubt that Paul was purposefully using quotes from Moses, the author and mediator of the law and champion of the Judaisers who were disturbing the Galatian churches; Paul was using words from ‘the Law’ to destroy the arguments of those who were using it inappropriately! You can look at this passage from Deuteronomy and say that it has little to do with Christ and his death, but circumstantially, we must acknowledge that both ‘curse’ and ‘dying on a tree’ are not mentioned very often in Scripture and here they occur together. Their occurrence in this verse leaves it open for use by Paul to declare that the words of Moses prophetically foreshadowed the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross!
Galatians 3:10-14 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
Christians today live with the precious knowledge that they have access to the Father through Jesus Christ, at the price of His death on our behalf. On the one hand, the consequence of our redemption is that we have great liberty, and God can use this by His Spirit to do great works for the Kingdom of God through us, who without faith, would be condemned as sinners. On the other hand, we are left with a sense of great debt, because Jesus has done so much for us. Surely we must yield everything to Him who has given everything for us! In addition, we may respond to the amazing work of God through Jesus Christ, by seeking to honour God through everything we do, hoping to reflect something of His holiness and sacrifice within every part of our lives, as a testimony to what He has done for us.
These are some of the admirable motives for Christian work and worship within the life of God’s church today. However, it does not take much to find that despite Paul’s rigorous defeat of the idea of religious legalism, there is something about ‘keeping to laws’ which still persists in human nature within the church. Although we no longer argue about the laws of Moses, churches still argue about rules and regulations to do with religious practice, and the intensity of some of these arguments would put a Pharisee to shame! One reason for this may that Satan loves to repeat the sins of past generations on present generations, in such a way that they do not recognise what they are doing, and I would love to say that God’s people were watching to guard against such sin. But they are not. Most Christians today have little knowledge of the past and are wide open to Satan’s temptations to create churches which forever split over trivial issues, for example, and often set down rules about church practice, especially unspoken ones, which dominate the worship and service of God’s people.
Let us not replace one set of laws with another! Let us rejoice in our spiritual freedom, our redemption and our organic, natural unity in Christ Jesus. Let us try out what it means to have complete faith and trust in Jesus Christ our Lord, and live by the work of the Spirit of God within us! We are justified by faith; not by the church, or the law, or any Christian leader, or by any version of the Bible, or any bandwagon or movement within the church today. Let us have confidence in that faith.
Galatians 3:10-14 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- What part does the law of the Old Testament have in the life of God’s people today?
- Discuss in your group how faith in Jesus Christ can place you in a right relationship with God. Each one of you comment in turn.
- If Jesus was ‘cursed on the tree’ (3:13), how did God remove that curse, and how do we know it?
Discipleship
This passage of scripture is one which truly celebrates the work of Jesus Christ in winning salvation for us. Use this passage as an aid to write a prayer of praise and thanks to God for the love of Jesus Christ which took away the curse of sin on the Cross, for all people who wish to find salvation through Him, for all time. Use the prayer yourself for a few days; change it if you feel it helpful, until you have a form of it with which you are satisfied.
Final Prayer
Give us humility, Almighty Father, in the face of the great truths of the Gospel. May we handle them with dignity and care, and always remember that we are dependent upon You for everything, including our wisdom and understanding. Guide us in all truth, Almighty Father; AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 3:15-22
Galatians 3:15-22 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
Sometimes, as we read the letters of Paul, its seems as if he writes the same things over and over again but with different emphases and angles; and this is largely true; Paul is completely focussed on teaching that salvation is found by faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is fairly obvious that something so profoundly simple was open to many forms of misunderstanding, and most of Paul’s writings address one or other of these misunderstandings. But crucially, he will not waver from repeatedly affirming the truth of the Gospel for the Gentiles in as many different ways as it takes to counter false religious beliefs. Salvation was to be found by faith in Jesus Christ alone.
In this passage, Paul continues to address the objections of Judaisers within the churches of Galatia who believed that as well as having faith in Jesus, it was necessary to keep the laws of Moses. He had already explained that God’s promises to Abraham were made on the basis of faith (3:6-9), and that the law itself could not save anyone because this was not its function (3:10-14). But Judaisers would have quickly retorted to Paul; ‘that may be so, but God’s revelation to Moses came after Abraham, so the law now covers everything, including the Covenant with Abraham.’ Paul was having no more of this than anything else the Judaisers said. How could he get through to them that salvation, as he had constantly maintained in his letter and all his teaching in Galatia, was to be found by faith in Jesus Christ alone?
The route Paul chose on this occasion was to use a legal analogy, likening the promises given to Abraham as a legal will which could not be ‘added to’ of ‘cancelled’ (3:15 & 19). His point was straightforward; you cannot just lump together the inheritance of Abraham with the revelation of the Law under Moses (3:17,18). The promises given to Abraham were eternal. Paul also managed to appeal to the remnants of faith in Jesus Christ which were still part of the belief system of the Judaisers with whom he was arguing. Basically, what he said was that the promises of God to Abraham (mostly in Genesis 17:1-10), were given exclusively to ‘one’ descendant, Jesus Christ, through whom the promises would be made available to all people (3:16). It is easy to see that this is what Paul says, but the nature of the argument is awkward, and we will therefore have to study it further, later on.
In the middle of our passage, Paul makes one very important comment. He tells us what he believes to be the purpose of the law (3:19). This is very important, because without this verse within Galatians, we would be left thinking that there was no room for the laws of Moses in Paul’s view of Christian faith; and this would not be true. Briefly, Paul said that the law had a purpose, which was all about ‘transgressions’ (3:19); in other words, the purpose of the law was to reveal sin. The rest of Scripture agrees that this is an important role for the Law; it is God’s moral and spiritual guide for living in this world, even if it does not represent the ultimate spiritual truth and goal of salvation through Christ.
Paul wraps up this passage with some comments about the law and the way in which it was given. We may be a little confused in verses 19 and 20, because Paul speaks of the law as being ‘mediated’, and coming through angels, and this does not make sense to us who have read Exodus and Deuteronomy and read about the law being given to the people through Moses on Mount Sinai. However, in Paul’s day, it was thought that angels ‘mediated’ the law from God to Moses, and Paul’s final point is that salvation is not mediated through angels, but directly through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Paul was again making the same point; salvation was to be found through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It was not mediated by angels!
Galatians 3:15-22 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
These arguments are relatively easy to follow, but the passage does have some important features which we have not mentioned. Also, nearly every verse has some part of it which is not as straightforward as may seem. Nevertheless, Paul’s persistence in arguing the case for the unique nature of the Gospel message in Christ is fascinating, and very effective!
A legal example
Paul’s example of a human will is helpful, but not exactly straightforward. Another more literal way of translating what Paul says is this; ‘once an man’s covenant has been ratified, no one can add to it or cancel it’ (3:15). The words Paul used were loaded and important; firstly, the word for ‘will’ or ‘covenant’ was indeed the Greek word used for a person’s ‘last will and testament’, as we say today. It was also the word used to translate the ‘Covenant’ of God in the Old Testament, a word full of meaning for all Jews as well as Christians, because the Covenant was shorthand for all the promises of blessing which God intended for His people. In the Old Testament, the blessing was given in the form of national growth and prosperity, and also the inheritance of the land of Canaan on which God’s people lived. Paul, however, knew that such material blessings were only a physical example of God’s intended spiritual blessing of all the nations (Gen 12:3), through the salvation of souls found in Jesus Christ (3:16). Nearly everything he said was intended to illustrate this truth.
Returning to the legal example, Paul knew well that in Roman (and Greek) law, a will could be changed and amended before someone’s death, but after they had died, it was set and could not be changed. To begin with, Paul may have intended us to infer that once Abraham had died, the great promises God gave him were now fixed; nothing could change the promises, not even the arrival of the law, 450 years later (3:17). However, once Paul introduced the idea that God had in mind one descendant of Abraham as being the one through whom the promises would be fulfilled (3:16), we are faced with the possibility that Paul may have viewed the death of Christ as the one death which fixed God’s will. In other words, in arguing against the Judaisers, he was saying, ‘you cannot add anything to the inheritance of faith, now that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for us’. Paul does not say this directly, but it easy to see that he may well have wished the Judaisers to pick this up from what he was saying.
Christ, the one ‘descendant’ of Abraham?
The main problem most people have with verse 16 is that from a literal point of view, what Paul says is not a very good argument. He says (literally) that God gave His promises to Abraham and his ‘seed’, which we have translated as ‘descendant’. However, the singular word ‘seed’ is one of those words which in English and Hebrew and Greek, can be used in the singular and include the meaning of the plural as well (for example, if a farmer talked about his ‘seed’ for planting, then he would be describing a large number of individual ‘seeds’). Paul simply says that because the word is singular then it means that the promises of Abraham are fulfilled in one man Jesus Christ, which is an argument which grammatically, does not work!
It is essential to understand that here, as in other places, although Paul was a scholar who knew the details of language and philosophy, he regarded revealed spiritual truth as more important. The reason he made the case from Genesis 17 that God had Jesus in mind as the one true descendant of Abraham, and the one fulfilment of His promises was undoubtedly because this is what Paul firmly believed. The scriptural argument was secondary for him, and the revealed truth of salvation through Jesus Christ was everything. This is the reason for the rather strange verse 18, which in the light of what we have just said, is Paul’s roundabout argument which says something like this; ‘if the salvation we have through Jesus Christ comes from the Laws of Moses, then God’s promises to Abraham are irrelevant (as you Judaisers seem to suggest). However, it is obvious that it does connect with the promises of God to Abraham; therefore the law has no function in our salvation!’
Paul would not let go of his main point. Jesus Christ alone made sense of the history of the Jewish people, because through Him, all the great Covenant promises of God through Abraham were made available to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, according to God’s original promises (Gen 12:3), and also His intention ever since the fall of humanity (Gen 3).
The purpose of the law – and the ‘mediator’
Paul appears rather disparaging as he describes the law as an addendum to the Covenant ‘will’ of God, describing it as ‘added because of transgressions’. This is an important statement about the place of the law within Christian faith (see above), but we should not forget that Paul simply would not give the law any place of importance within his preaching. He regarded that as far too dangerous, whatever the general purpose of the Law. In general, the impression we get of Paul’s attitude towards the Law is that it was temporary, something necessary to help people know what God’s will was. The reason Paul was cautious was because the Law as a whole forms a systematic religious system which sets out to define the relationship between God and people. Paul felt that if someone was saved through faith in Jesus Christ, the law no longer performed this function because people could access God directly through Jesus. Its role was informative and advisory, not definitive.
These sentiments lie behind what Paul says in verses 19 to 22. Paul chose to illustrate the secondary nature of the law by describing the way in which the law was given, and although this does not tally with our picture today, he certainly reflected what was believed in his own day. The common understanding was indeed that it was not God who had met with Moses to pass on the commandments of God, but angels. This was because people believed that no one could see God and still remain alive (a sentiment found in a number of places in Scripture – Ex 33:20 etc.), and they concluded that Moses must have encountered God’s angels on the top of Sinai, just as Abraham had met God through angelic visitors (Gen 18:1f.) centuries before. Moses, then was the ‘mediator’ of the Laws of God according to Jewish thought, and this is what Paul refers to (3:19).
In verses 20 and 21 Paul indicates that although the law which was mediated by Moses is not as important as the promise which has come directly from God, it is still part of God’s revelation. But the law contains nothing by which anyone can be saved; he says; ‘if a law had been given which had the power to give life, then righteousness would indeed originate in the law’ (3:21). Indeed, Paul daringly says that Scripture itself, by which he means the Old Testament, ‘has kept all things captive under the power of sin’ (3:22) because it contains the written record of the law. In his mind, even Old Testament Scripture was secondary to ‘faith in Jesus Christ’ which was the fulfilment of God’s promise of salvation.
Galatians 3:15-22 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
What Paul was doing throughout this passage was fighting to ensure that ‘faith in Christ Jesus’ remained at the heart of Christian experience and the life of the church, in the days before the New Testament existed. It was not long before the Gospels and some of his own letters would come to be regarded as the ‘scriptures’ of the early church, and by the fourth century the structure of the New testament as we know it was generally agreed. The whole of the New Testament speaks of the singular importance of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the primary revelation of the nature of God and the means of salvation, and the New Testament has been the standard spiritual reference book for the church from its earliest days until now. Its value, I believe, lies in its constant call to all who read it to return to faith in Jesus Christ, just as Paul preached to the churches he founded and argued in all his letters.
The greatest dangers which face the church come from those who think that religious freedom comes when the human mind is set free to explore spirituality and faith; when in truth, people are only set free when they find their humanity in their Creator through Jesus Christ. It seems paradoxical, but history shows this to be the case. Where people have been given their heads to do with church what they will, they have made a mess, and it does not take much to look around and see the consequences of this today. Evangelists appeal for money to fund their own lifestyle on Satellite TV with such cringing shamelessness, it beggars belief; but people are taken in. In some churches, ministers and priests administer the sacraments without themselves believing that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and is the unique and only way to the Father; and people wonder why their churches decline.
Certainly if Paul was with us now, he would encourage us to do nothing less than let go of all our religiosity and rules, and return in penitence to the risen Lord Jesus. Through Him we inherit the promises of God and receive the Spirit who builds God’s church! We have nothing to fear when we place our trust in Him, and in Him alone.
Galatians 3:15-22 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- What are the promises of God, and how have you received them through Jesus?
- Discuss how Christian people today can best use the ‘Law’, which is part of our scriptures.
- Discuss in your group how Jesus may best be honoured in each of the various activities of your church with which you are involved.
Discipleship
To what extent is the risen Lord Jesus central to the life of your own church, whether it be the denomination (such as Methodist, Independent, Baptist or Anglican etc.) or the local congregation? Try this for an exercise. If possible, obtain a publication from the church of which you are a part, and read through it noting when Jesus is referred to, and how. Is He talked about as Lord? Is He mentioned in the course of discussions? Is He mentioned at all? You will have to draw your own conclusions from the results of your research!
Final Prayer
Save us, O Lord God, from the corruption of our minds by things around us which draw us away from faith; the pursuit of leisure, alcohol, the luxuries of life which we enjoy, or the temptations of money, sex or power. Keep us firmly on the path of the Gospel of truth and make us constantly aware of our salvation through the death of Jesus Christ. AMEN
Bible study for Galatians 3:23-29
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Review
(consult Dictionaries)
Paul continues to give examples of the relationship between law and faith, which is the main thrust of this part of his letter. This passage begins with two illustrations of life under the law, firstly imprisonment and secondly that of a ‘minder’ responsible for the discipline of a child. Both examples present obvious possible conclusions for the life of faith, firstly freedom and secondly ‘growing up’. However, when Paul begins to describe the meaning of real mature faith in a positive way, probably for the first time in his letter to the Galatians (all the previous explanations of faith being the result of his attacks on the Judaisers), he speaks with power and inspiration. From verse 26 to the end, Paul writes a series of short, pithy statements about what it means to have faith in Christ Jesus; each of which are of profound importance to Christians individually, and also to the life and practice of the church.
The first of these is the powerful statement ‘you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’. Faith has made the difference between the young child and the young adult (3:26) so that the Christian, according to what Paul says here, has a mature relationship with God the Father; not a relationship bound by rules and regulations, but one of faith and trust built on love. Following this, Paul talks about the ceremony of baptism which marks the transition from non-believer to a man or woman of faith; he likens the ceremony to being ‘clothed’ with Christ. There is enormous power in this picture of all encompassing faith and the ever present power of Christ which Paul does not explore here, but which is found elsewhere in his writings (Rom 13:14, 1 Cor 15:53, Col 3:12). Alongside baptism it emphasises the sense of complete commitment and the life-changing consequences of having faith in God through Christ Jesus.
In verse 28, Paul continues in the same positive way, confirming a principle of faith which is so fundamental, it is profoundly shocking to almost every civilisation and culture which humanity has ever created or dreamt up. Paul’s words; ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ (3:28) state the principle of the universal equality of humanity before God. It is too easy for us to look at these words and regard ourselves as ‘covered’ because the constitution of our own country (hopefully) embeds these rights, but Paul is not talking about rights. He is talking about the reality of the standing of all individual people before Almighty God. In his own day, issues of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, were pertinent (as they remain in some cultures today). But the principle Paul speaks of means that every form of inequality and injustice between people is intrinsically wrong in the eyes of God. The one inequality which glaringly defaces the image of God today, for example, is the gap between rich and poor. By this, I mean that a tiny number of super-rich people in the worlds of industry, finance and politics, control the lives of almost everyone else on the planet. This is not a conspiracy theory (I wish it were just this!) but a commonly accepted truth which is an affront to God. Now, each of the inequalities mentioned by Paul are important, because degenerate humanity always falls back into racism, sexism and the manipulation of the poor in slavery; but we must also see how the principle of equality before God needs to be applied now.
Paul’s conclusion is that those who have faith are all ‘one in Christ Jesus’ (3:28), and as such, we are the true descendants of Abraham, and heirs of God’s promises of blessing and peace with God our Father. We are made right with God not through the law, but by faith. As people of faith, we therefore have to uphold the highest standards of God’s morality.
Galatians 3:23-29 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
We have only just scratched the surface of this passage. It is rich with meaning, and almost every word offers us a route into a deeper understanding of what is by any measure, a stunning passage of scripture. One of the reasons why it is so important is because it draws together so much of what has lain dormant within Paul’s writing whilst he has been attempting to demolish the case of the Judaisers. Let loose from that intellectual struggle, Paul’s reflections are set free to express the profound truths of the Gospel.
Freedom from being held captive
In verse 23, Paul uses two verbs to describe his first illustration of the law. The first of these is translated ‘confined’ but comes from a Greek word (‘phroureo’) which was usually used for the setting of a guard to watch over someone or something. So, for example, after Paul had been converted and incurred the wrath of the Jewish community in Damascus, a guard was placed on the city to keep Paul in it, and prevent him from escaping (2 Cor 11:32, Acts 9:24); he only managed to escape by being lowered down from the city wall in a basket at night! Perhaps Paul had such experiences in mind as he explained faith to the Galatians!
The second word translated ‘held captive’ (Greek ‘sungkleiow’) means shut in or enclosed in a general sense, for example, trapped as fish in a net. By using this word, Paul exposed the obvious about Judaism; Jewish people regarded themselves as separate from others, and not equally part of the ‘human race’ with others. For them, the law revealed by God was part of their history, and they had developed it to define their own culture as distinct from all others. Unwittingly, they had placed themselves not, as they thought, within Gods love, but inside their own exclusive, cultural prison. We should not ignore the implication of what Pauls says which is that defining a religious system according to laws and regulations cuts people off from one another, and as not what God wants for His people in Christ. The only way out of this is through the freedom of faith in Christ Jesus which is open to all people, as are the out-reaching arms of God the Father, and the offer of a place in His kingdom.
Released from the minder
In contrast to those who are entrapped by the law, Paul describes all those who have faith as ‘sons of God’ (3:26), and I have translated this using the word ‘sons’ rather than ‘children’ because the Greek word used here means a son who had grown up and is no longer in need of being guarded or watched over as a little child. As we will see (later) this is not a ‘sexist’ issue which precludes girls or women, but a way of describing the eternal relationship of a man or woman with God the Father. In our language today, it would be more correct to interpret Paul as saying that by faith we have an adult relationship with God.
The word for ‘minder’ which I have used is also a little controversial; in Greek it is ‘paidagogos’, which is sometimes translated ‘teacher’, but the ancient concept of ‘teacher’ was not the same as today’s; in those days the teacher’s prime responsibility was to instruct a young child in the disciplines of life, not to impart knowledge. Knowing this, it is obvious that Paul’s intention was to show that the law was like a disciplinarian teacher for the infant people of God; but as Paul says in verse 24; ‘the law was like our minder until Christ came’. Now He has come, Christ is not our teacher, in the sense that his teaching sets before us a code of conduct, He is our Saviour. He has died so that we might be free to have faith in Him and therefore have a mature relationship with the Father. All who have faith in Christ Jesus are ‘sons of God’ (3:26)
Baptised and clothed in Christ
This whole train of thought surrounds the idea of change from the infant to the adult, and from the Jew to the Christian. So Paul puts these two together in a rather fascinating way. Firstly, and naturally, Paul likened what he was talking about to baptism, because this was the act, by the command of Christ, which symbolised a person’s entry into the Christian life, the change from the bondage of the law to the freedom of faith in Christ Jesus. Here, Paul’s thought is very similar to that found in Romans 6:3-11, which contains a fuller explanation of the meaning of baptism as symbolising the death and resurrection of our Lord.
Secondly, Paul talked about being ‘clothed’ with Christ. What Paul had in mind was this. When a young boy entered manhood at the age of about 12 or 13, he was allowed to wear for the first time the full garment of a man, rather than a child. This was something like a ‘toga’, a cloth which draped all around the body. We can imagine what it felt like for a young boy to wear the adult toga for the first time! But this was what it was like to become a Christian, said Paul!
Now we know that at some point in the life of the early church, when people were baptised, they were clothed with a white cloth like a toga just after they were baptised in order to signify that they had become a new person, and their life was now bound up with Christ. It is uncertain when this practice took hold, though some would say that it happened independently of Paul, it is at least worth considering that the practice began as a practical expression of what Paul wrote both here and in his other writings about baptism, such was the influence of his letters.
United in Christ before God
Verse 28 speaks for itself, in many ways, and I have already mentioned some of the important consequences of what it says. Primarily for the letter to the Galatians, however, Paul’s conclusion drawn from everything he has said in this chapter of his letter, is that once freed of the boundaries and enslavement of the law, and its false distinctions before God who loves all people, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek ...’ It is as if Paul attacks the Judaisers in the churches of Galatia by raising the game higher and higher. For Paul, this is not a little local difficulty in resolving the nature of the church; it is a fundamental principle to do with the nature of God and salvation. All stand before God in need of a Saviour, and Jesus Christ, although he is a Jew, is nevertheless God’s means of Salvation for all.
Paul talked next about the division between ‘slave and free’, and certainly, slavery was a terrible feature of the Roman Empire and something which the Jews abhorred. What Paul did, however, was not to try and capitalise on this as an issue which divided Jew and Gentile (which it undoubtedly did), but simply insist upon the rightness of the principle. He knew, as we all do, that unless people generally accept the principle that all are equal before God, then there will always be those with wealth and means who take advantage of the poor to enslave them. Even today, despite anti-slavery laws in almost every country, widespread slavery is practiced because people think that they can get away with it due to their wealth or criminality, and behind closed doors if necessary. This can only be altered by changing people’s hearts, and the way to do this is through the proclamation of the Gospel which holds every man and woman as equal before God. Human sentiment is not enough to change this evil.
Finally, Paul says something which would have stood out above almost everything else in the whole paragraph. He said that in Christ, there is ‘neither male nor female’. Well, you may have been led to think that Paul was endemically sexist in his attitudes, largely because of a few parts of his letters which express his views about the place of women in the church. Few people properly understand the cultural issues Paul was dealing with, however, and all too often, we fail to realise that much of what Paul said was profoundly liberating for women in his own day. Few cultures today can claim to look down on Paul on the issue of sexism, for the evidence is that women still suffer the most incredible prejudice in almost all, even so-called modern cultures. It is still radical to say that male and female ‘are one in Christ’; they stand equally human before God and in need of their Saviour, Jesus Christ. That is the truth of Scriptures.
Recipients of God’s blessings!
The crowning statement of this glorious passage of Scripture comes at the end (3:29). All who respond to Jesus Christ by faith are the true descendants of Abraham and the recipients of the promises God made to him. In the total context of the book of Genesis, what God did by choosing Abraham was to begin a process which would lead to the possibility that anyone could regain a right relationship with God, something which was broken by the ‘fall’ (Gen 3). Now, God chose to begin this process through Abraham because He had to show that His love was specific, constant, unfailing and non-judgemental. The trouble was that although the law had been given to Moses in order to help Abraham’s descendant’s grow as His people, the law was no substitute for the eventual salvation which was to come through the one descendant of Abraham who ultimately, was completely faithful to the Father. That is, Jesus Christ.
There was no reason why God’s new people, the church, should go back to dependence on the law. Christ alone was sufficient for salvation, and a mature relationship with the Father.
Galatians 3:23-29 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Application
How easy it is for us to read all this, agree, and reckon that we have no more obligation to the scripture. The closer we look at this passage, the more it reveals problems in the church today. You will have spotted a few that I have chosen to highlight by way of illustration as I have discussed this passage. One or two more are worth considering because they are important.
You may well come across some Christians today who insist that the Jews are God’s special chosen people, and they should therefore receive special attention from the prayers and affection of the Christian Church. It is of course true that the Jews are God’s chosen people even though the Jewish people to this day are those who have rejected Jesus Christ. We should be careful, however, because the New Testament insists that there is neither ‘Jew nor Greek’ before Almighty God. So any interest group which seeks to promote the state of Jewish people worldwide is indeed a worthy subject, but not, before God, in advance of any other Gospel or mission interest. The Jews are Gods special people because having rejected the Saviour, God has indicated that He will somehow bring them to glory, but that is far beyond our competence or knowledge. We must stick to Scripture; there is no distinction in Christ Jesus.
I close with a comment about baptism. There are many quite disparate practises of baptism today, and each new church feels that it can develop its own practices according to the circumstances and cultural needs of the people to whom it ministers. We do well to notice the many features of baptism which the New Testament indicates as helpful indicators of the truth of our transformation in Christ. One of these is the practice of being clothed with a white garment after baptism to signify being ‘clothed’ by Christ. As well as providing a powerful illustration of what Christ means to us, doing this links us together with people of the past, even people of the earliest days of the Christian church, for whom this was a very special part of their entry into the church. We are one in Christ across time, as well as culture.
Galatians 3:23-29 (get text) Study links: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- In what ways do we mark the differences between childhood and adulthood today?
- Discuss what it means to you to be ‘sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’.
- What forms of human inequality should be exposed by the Gospel today, and how?
Discipleship
What does it mean to you to be ‘clothed’ by Jesus Christ? Consider the different things which make up your daily life, and ask the question, how is Jesus involved with me in all this? The question is difficult to answer, but from time to time, it is one we need to consider. It is also helpful to check this out with a friend, a husband or a wife. Consider how a garment you wear is with you all day long and is itself affected by what you do, or consider how what you wear relates to your work or leisure. There are many ways of approaching this task.
Final Prayer
Your love, O Lord, draws me onwards, through the fears and doubts, the trials and temptations of life. Your love draws me to the Cross where, inexplicably, I have nothing left to give You from my mind or my heart; I am empty before You. But in Your love, You fill me up with resurrection joy and happiness! All praise be to You, O Lord most High! AMEN
Bible study for Galatians XX
Galatians XX links to: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship / get text / consult dictionaries /
Review
(consult Dictionaries)
Galatians XX links to: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship / get text / consult dictionaries /
Going Deeper
(consult Dictionaries)
Galatians XX links to: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship / get text / consult dictionaries /
Application
Galatians XX links to: / Review / Going Deeper / Application / Discipleship / get text / consult dictionaries /
Discipleship
Questions (for use in groups)
- I
Discipleship
W
Final Prayer
Y
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