Premise: The Apostle Paul likely received one or several letters to which the Apostle responds with Epistles to several churches and certain important persons.
Who wrote to the Apostle Paul?
Think about this —
Paul and other Apostles come into your town or city, proclaim some Good News, build a church of Christ followers, establish some local leaders. AND then after some time these missionaries leave to go somewhere else into all the world.
ACTS of the Apostles details some of these encounters which occur after numerous encouraging visits of various apostles sent out to them.
Although we have no preserved documentation of any messages or letters delivered to the Apostle from the Gentiles, I suspect that Paul perceives a crisis of faith in the churches of Galatia — a crisis conveyed to him by faithful disciples of the risen Christ and perhaps even believers considering IF they should abandon The Way of the Lord for a more prevalent cultural Judaism.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The Apostles, including the Twelve and Paul, James and other church leaders communicate in person and by messenger by the Spirit who has sent them out into each mission.
Who are the Galatians?
In Paul’s day, the word Galatia had two distinct meanings. In a strict ethnic sense, Galatia was the region of central Asia Minor (modern Turkiye) .. a Celtic people who had migrated to that region from Gaul (modern France) .. (in) 25 B.C. when Galatia became a Roman province, incorporating some regions not inhabited by ethnic Galatians (e.g., parts of Lycaonia, Phrygia, and Pisidia). In a political sense, Galatia came to describe the entire Roman province, not merely the region inhabited by the ethnic Galatians.
Paul founded churches in the southern Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14–14:23).
Commentary of John MacArthur – BlueLetterBible.org
You will recognize these Galatian cities from Paul's early missions into all the world.
WHY did Paul write to the Galatians?
Regardless of who founded any of the Galatian cities in the A.D. first century Roman Empire, every town had an ethnic challenge common to all churches established by the apostles in every Roman province.
Proselytes – Judaizers fleeing Persecution for the Cross of Christ
The covenantal culture of the Jews opposed the pagan practices of peoples of other cultures. SO the Jews insisted on certain traditional identifications of Jewish men such as circumcision.
Who are these proselytes?
Even as Paul, Barnabas, Silas and other apostles had encountered opposition from Jews seeking their own disciples, so had the Lord Jesus.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Gospel of Matthew 23: 15 LSB
The Lord Jesus Christ describes the culture of Judaizers rejecting their own Messiah
An Apostolic Urgency to Write to the Galatians
PAUL must urgently address the concerns of those men in Galatia struggling in the faith
AND like all Christians, pursued by the Jews.
TWO QUESTIONS HERE:
- WHO represents the earthly authority of GOD?
- IF it is CHRIST, what is PAUL’s authority over the JEW and non-Jew?
Later, I will get to a Twenty-first century C.E. challenge of this AUTHORITY in Christ which has now challenged the Church for some 500 years.
How will the Apostle answer?
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
Galatians 5:1 KJV
Galatians 1 – Paul’s Authority
The Apostle begins his Epistle to the Galatians by firmly establishing his authority and leadership of the churches.
Paul, an apostle—not sent from men
- nor through man,
- but through Jesus Christ
- and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead—
- and all the brothers who are with me,
Pretty convincing. Paul opens fire against familiar enemies of Christ (Judaizers).
6 I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
- Paul clearly states that the Galatians must choose:
- – between him as a representative of God the Father and Christ Jesus OR
- – teachers of a false and distorted gospel
- (which is not good news but a Jewish tradition chained to the Law and regulations of the flesh).
Paul defends not only his credentials and calling by Christ, but once more presents his case of Christ’s freedom to these gentile believers caught between the Gospel and the yoke of the Judaizers.
2:17 But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.
Galatians 2:21 LSB
PAUL goes straight to the QUESTION of deceitful men claiming a GOSPEL other than Christ crucified and risen -- Judaizers seeking to lure these Galatian Christ-followers back to a Law of social Judaism.
3 O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
THEN the Apostle clearly asks these men of the church a key QUESTION of their calling.
2 This is the only thing I want to learn from you:
Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law,
or by hearing with faith?
“The righteous shall live by faith.”
What does Paul seek to prove here refuting Judaizers requiring circumcision of gentile proselytes?
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,
“All the nations will be blessed in you.”
Galatians 3:8 LSB
The Apostle QUOTES Hebrew SCRIPTURE from BEFORE the LAW.
From Genesis 22:
22:18 וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי׃
“By Myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, because you have done this thing and have not spared your son, your only one, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened to My voice.”
LATER comes THE LAW of Moses by which the Christ was crucified on a Cross as a redemptive Sacrifice for our sins. (It was NOT ONLY for the Jews, but for ALL the seed of Abraham — every sinner.
The Apostle makes further legal arguments and adds an allegory comparing:
- Ishmael & Isaac
- flesh & promise
- Hagar & Sarah,
- Jerusalem and Mount Sanai and slavery,
- Moses & Christ
- the Jerusalem above and freedom. (Study its juxtaposition if you like.)
The Apostle’s closing argument
- 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace!
- For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.
- For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
Faith Reformed in Fact
Jewish faith — to Christian faith — to Scriptural faith informed in the Good News of the Word of God…
The Galatians and every other culture encountered by the Apostles —
~ ano Domini 49 – 50
~ A.D. 49 Paul has just written to the Galatians out of the Apostle’s concern for their failing faith being replaced by a false gospel.
NEXT: Paul will also write to the THESSALONIANS out of his same love for the children of Christ Jesus the Apostles have led so far.
WHERE could other gospels lead these Christian flocks of the Empires?
A fall of Rome, a division with an Orthodox New Rome (Constantinople) and Western father of Bishops and Princes competing for pawns of populace.
New temples built as CATHEDRALS for poor pilgrims to look up to God and well-mannered robed men who could actually READ the Holy Bible of God…
And then printing presses and challenges by Reformers pointing to Scripture in place of the yoke of Law and even Church law.
In my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Christ, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night.
From Luther’s Introduction, ano domini 1538
THEN what should happen in yet another 500 years once common men and women of the Common Era COULD (yet did not) actually READ the BIBLE?
a brief application …
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