Book Intro › Paul’s Letters

Galatians

Πρὸς Γαλάτας Pros Galatas, “to the Galatians”. Letter. 6 chapters, 149 verses.

Paul’s urgent protest to churches tempted to take up circumcision and the law of Moses: Gentiles are right with God through faith in Christ, and free.

Read Galatians 1 →

Overview

Galatians is Paul’s angriest letter. He skips his usual thanksgiving and opens with astonishment: “I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” (1:6). Teachers had arrived after him urging the Gentile believers to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to belong fully to God’s people. Paul answers first with his own story. His gospel came “through revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:12), and the leaders in Jerusalem recognised his mission to the Gentiles (2:9). At Antioch he even opposed Peter “to his face” (2:11) when Peter stopped eating with Gentile believers.

He then argues from Scripture. Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (3:6) centuries before the law was given. The law was “our tutor to bring us to Christ” (3:24). And in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female” (3:28). Paul also reads the story of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory, a picture of two covenants. The last two chapters describe the freedom that results, a life led by the Spirit and shown in love. Paul ends with a postscript in “large letters” in his own hand (6:11).

Author and date

Paul names himself, with “all the brothers who are with me” (1:2), and Galatians is among the letters almost all scholars accept as his. Its date and its exact destination are debated.

Scholarly consensus

Paul · c. AD 48–57

An early date, around AD 48–49, would make Galatians Paul’s first surviving letter, written from Antioch before the meeting of church leaders in Jerusalem described in Acts 15. A later date, in the mid-50s, would place it near Romans, written from Ephesus or Macedonia; the two letters cover much of the same ground.

The date depends partly on where the churches were. The south Galatian view places them in the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia, in the cities Paul visited on his first journey: Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe (Acts 13–14). The north Galatian view places them further north, among the ethnic Galatians of the central highlands around Ancyra, whom Paul may have visited later (Acts 16:6; 18:23). Scholars also debate whether the Jerusalem visit of 2:1–10 is the meeting of Acts 15 or the visit with famine relief described in Acts 11.

Audience and setting

The Galatian churches were mostly Gentile, and Paul first preached to them, he says, “because of weakness in the flesh” (4:13). The teachers who followed him are never named; Paul calls them “some who trouble you” (1:7). The question they raised was pressing in the first Christian generation. Must Gentile believers become Jews, with circumcision, food laws and the sacred calendar, to share in the promises made to Abraham?

Genre, and how to read it

Galatians is built like a speech in court, with a defence of Paul’s authority, a narrative of events and a series of arguments. It is also emotional throughout. Paul calls down a curse on anyone preaching a different gospel (1:8), addresses his readers as “Foolish Galatians” (3:1), and speaks of being “in travail until Christ is formed in you” (4:19).

Luther loved Galatians above the other books of the Bible. It became a founding text for the Reformation teaching of justification by faith: that God accepts sinners as righteous through faith, not through keeping the law. Many recent scholars, including those associated with the new perspective on Paul, read “the works of the law” (2:16) as the practices that marked Jews out from Gentiles, and the letter as chiefly about who belongs to God’s people. Others keep the traditional reading, that the letter is about how anyone is accepted by God, and many see both concerns at work. The declaration of 3:28 is also central to modern Christian discussion of race, class and gender.

After three years, after fourteen

Outline

Paul’s gospel (1–2)

• 1:1–1:10 No thanksgiving — Greeting, and astonishment at a different gospel
• 1:11–2:21 Paul’s story — A gospel by revelation, the Jerusalem leaders, Peter at Antioch

Faith and law (3–4)

• 3:1–4:31 The argument from Scripture — Abraham, the law as tutor, Hagar and Sarah

Freedom (5–6)

• 5:1–6:10 Freedom in the Spirit — Liberty, love, the fruit of the Spirit
• 6:11–6:18 In Paul’s own hand — Boasting only in the cross

Key themes

Justification by faith

Paul reminds Peter that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (2:16).

Union with Christ

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (2:20).

Abraham’s children

The blessing promised to Abraham reaches the Gentiles through Christ, who “redeemed us from the curse of the law” (3:13). The Covenants page traces the covenant with Abraham.

Freedom

“Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (5:1). Freedom is for serving one another in love (5:13).

The Spirit

The Spirit’s fruit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control” (5:22–23).

At a glance

12 people and 9 places named.

Most mentioned: Jesus Christ, Abraham, Simon Peter, Barnabas, James (Brother of Jesus)

Main places: Jerusalem, Arabia, Mount Sinai, Antioch (Syria), Cilicia