Galatians Finale

I finished my study in the book of Galatians today. I started on January 1st and finished today. Galatians has six chapters which had me spending about a month on each chapter. Typically I covered one to three verses per day spending about an hour each day in study. I have found that if I drastically cut the quantity of content I study each day I can learn a whole lot more. I used to read a chapter a day and try to take it all in. For me it's just not possible. There is so much packed into each and every verse that the chapter a day method was way too much content to actually learn and remember. If you struggle with remembering what you read five minutes ago I recommend concentrating on a couple of verses a day and really diving into them. Get a good Bible dictionary, commentary and some good Bible software and two verses a day will easily keep you busy for an hour. Here is a link to some good material: The Resurgence.

This study has been awesome. I have learned so much and it has been very timely information because of issues of legalism I am currently dealing with. I just want to take some time to recap and summarize the book of Galatians:

Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul around A.D. 48 to a group of churches that he planted years prior in the region of Galatia which is modern day Turkey. The major theme of Galatians is that "Christ's death has brought in the age of the new covenant (3:23–26; 4:4–5, 24), in which believers do not have to become Jews or follow the outward ceremonies of the Mosaic law (2:3, 11–12, 14; 4:10). To require these things is to deny the heart of the gospel, which is justification by faith alone, not by obedience to the law (2:16; cf. 1:6–7). In this new age, Christians are to live in the guidance and power of the Spirit (chs. 5–6)" (ESV).

"A crisis has hit the church in Galatia. The church came into being as a result of God's Spirit at work in Paul's proclamation of the gospel (3:1–5; 4:13–15). But within the short space of time since Paul left (1:6), the church has been visited or infiltrated by false teachers whom Paul calls those “who trouble you” (1:7) or “those who unsettle you” (5:12). These teachers have convinced the Galatians of a false gospel which requires them to be circumcised. Paul sees that these pseudo-Christians merely want to win converts for their own prestige: they want to win approval from the Jewish authorities by showing how effective they are in converting Gentiles to a form of Judaism (6:12). Since the Jewish establishment approves of the fact that they are making Gentiles Jewish, the false teachers have the best of both worlds: they have created a sect of which they are the leaders, and they also escape any Jewish persecution. One further effect of this on the Galatians appears to have been the division within their church, presumably over these issues of circumcision and law that the false teachers have raised (5:15)" (ESV).

The book of Galatians, like all Scripture is "breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." This letter is the foremost epistle on spiritual liberty and Christian freedom. Martin Luther says of this letter: "The epistle to the Galatians is my epistle. To it I am, as it were, in wedlock. Galatians is my Katherine [the name of his wife]." Merrill C. Tenny wrote of Galatians: "Christianity might have been just one more Jewish sect, and the thought of the Western world might have been entirely pagan had it never been written. Galatians embodies the germinal teaching on Christian freedom which separated Christianity from Judaism, and which launched it upon a career of missionary conquest. It was the cornerstone of the protestant Reformation, because its teaching of salvation by grace alone became the dominant theme of the preaching of the Reformers."

Needless to say the book of Galatians should be read and re-read, like all other Scripture, by all Christians. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with this letter and will undoubtedly come back again and again.