Paul ended chapter 5 explaining to the Galatians that they are now dead to the law and should be led by the Spirit, who will produce His fruit in their lives. He begins Chapter 6 by explaining how these fruits can help a brother or sister in need, particularly one who is in sin. He tells them that if a brother or sister is caught sinning, those who are following the Spirit, should help restore him or her in a spirit of gentleness. Paul is…Continue Reading “Galatians 6”
Paul left off chapter three explaining that we are heirs of the promise of God. He picks up on the concept of heirs again in chapter four, but this time uses them to compare their coming of age to the redemption of the believer. He reasons that heirs, when they are young are like slaves because they must still obey the rules of those who care for them, but once they reach the age their father set to inherit his possessions, they are free. In…Continue Reading “Galatians 4”
Chapter 2 ends with Paul explaining to the Galatians how the death of Christ rendered the law unnecessary. Now he proves his point from the angle of how they received the Holy Spirit. 1-5 Paul, still simply exasperated at their variability regarding the gospel, calls the Galatians foolish. I say this, he explains, because I preached very clearly to you the death of Jesus on the Cross. Now though, it seems like you have been bewitched because you so easily were misled by the Judaizers…Continue Reading “Galatians 3”
1-10 Chapter one ended with Paul affirming that his apostleship was ordained by God. Chapter two begins with him showing that the other apostles were also in agreement with Paul’s ministry and message. Fourteen years after he visited Peter, Paul says he returned to Jerusalem with Barnabas, who had accompanied him on his first missionary journey, and Titus, whom he had led to Christ. (Titus 1:4) He makes a point of telling them that he returned due to a revelation of the Holy Spirit. While…Continue Reading “Galatians 2”
1-5 Paul begins his letter by affirming his status as an apostle ordained, not by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. From his beginning greeting, Paul stresses God’s gift of grace to us through Jesus death which frees us from sin. It is a foreshadowing of the key theme of his letter – salvation by grace, freedom from sin and the law. 6-10 Here he states the main purpose for his writing. Paul is amazed, “astonished” is the word he uses, that…Continue Reading “Galatians 1”
The next book we will study is Galatians. Galatians is thought to have been written after the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, which would date it sometime after AD 49. It was written by the Apostle Paul to the churches he had founded in the region of southern Galatia: Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. His main concern in writing this letter was to counter the teaching of the Judaizers who were undermining the central tenet of NT doctrine that salvation is by faith alone. These…Continue Reading “Galatians: An Introduction”