Paul's Secondary Missionary Journey

Galatians Outline

1. Opening (1:1–9)
1. Greeting (1:1–5)
2. Initial rebuke (1:6–9)
2. Indirect Appeal: Paul’s Career with the Gospel (1:10–2:21)
1. Paul’s defense of himself and the gospel (1:10–24)
2. Paul’s gospel recognized by the Jerusalem apostles (2:1–10)
3. Paul’s opposition to Peter, to preserve the truth of the gospel (2:11–21)
3. Direct Appeals to the Galatians (3:1–5:12)
1. The Galatians’ experience of conversion (3:1–5)
2. The gospel in the OT (1): Abraham (3:6–9)
3. The gospel in the OT (2): Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Habakkuk (3:10–14)
4. An illustration from human law (3:15–18)
5. Passing from slavery to sonship (3:19–4:7)
6. Passing from idolatry to the true God (4:8–11)
7. Appeal to the Galatians’ knowledge of Paul (4:12–20)
8. The gospel in the OT (3): Abraham’s sons (4:21–31)
9. Judgment for those who turn from the gospel (5:1–12)
4. Life in the Spirit and Love (5:13–6:10)
1. The law of love (5:13–15)
2. The desires of the flesh vs. the fruit of the Spirit (5:16–26)
3. A Christian life of concrete love (6:1–10)
5. Final Warning (6:11–18)

Galatians Context Information

 Read Galatians 1:1-5

1.  Who is the author?

Read Acts 13:13-14:28

2.  Audience:  “the churches of Galatia.”  Gentile Christians in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, (Psidian) Antioch were in political Roman Galatia.  Date:  48-49 AD.  We’ll use the South Galatian Theory to date this. 

3. What are some verses in Galatians that support that the church there was mostly Gentile?

4. What do the following verses tell you about the Galatian churches and about Paul’s relationship to them? Galatians 3:1-5, 4:19-20, 5:7-9

 

Historical Circumstances:  A group of Jews had been persuading Galatians to be circumcised and live under the Law and attacking Paul’s apostleship and authority to deliver his message. 

Literary

Purpose:  Paul wrote Galatians to defend attacks on his apostleship (his calling) and a correct growing legalism heresy in Galatia (his message). 

Themes:  Christ vs. Law, circumcision vs. uncircumcision, Spirit vs. flesh, bondage vs. freedom, slaves vs. heirs, works vs. faith, a promise, tutorage

Redemptive

This letter was written during the proclaimed kingdom, more specifically the apostolic era.  It comes after the resurrection of Christ, but before His return, during the time when His apostles are establishing His church.

Commentary

Keller, Tim.  Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Commentary 

      Keller explains that Paul is arguing, not just over racial and cultural barriers, but over the nature of the Gospel:

By insisting that Christ-plus-anything-else as requirement for full acceptance by God, these teachers were presenting a whole different way of relating to God (a “different gospel” 1:6) from the one Paul had given them (“the gospel I preached” 1:8).  It is this different gospel that was creating the cultural division and strife.  Paul forcefully and unapologetically fought the “different gospel” because to lose one’s grip of the true gospel is to desert and lose Christ himself (1:6).  Therefore, everything was at stake in this debate. 

Keller applies this truth to modern day Christian culture:

It is very common in Christian circles to assume that “the gospel” is something just for non-Christians.  We presume that the gospel is a set of basic “A-B-C” doctrines that Christians do no need to hear or study one they are converted.  Rather, they should move beyond the gospel to more “advanced” doctrines.  But the great declaration of the gospel of grace in Galatians was written to believers who did not see the implications of the gospel for life-issues confronting them.  Paul solves the disunity and racial exclusivity not with a simple exhortation to “be better Christians,” but by calling them to live out the implications of the gospel.  So Christians need the gospel as much as non-Christians do.  Their problems come because they tend to lose and forget the gospel.  They make progress only as they continually grasp and apply the gospel in deeper ways… The gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ- whether a heart, a relationship, a church or a community.   All our problems come form a lack of orientation to the gospel.

Key Themes in Galatians

1. In his sin-bearing death, Christ is a substitute for all Christians, whom he brings into a new realm of freedom and life.	1:4; 2:20; 3:13
2. This gospel of Christ is for humanity, but there is no sense in which it has its origin in humanity: it comes only from God. Paul is himself an illustration of this: his conversion to Christ and his apostleship were not through human consultation but through the direct revelation of Christ.	1:1, 11–12, 15–20
3. The gospel is appropriated not by works of law but by faith, which is the route to justification.	2:16
4. To require circumcision and other Mosaic ceremonies such as dietary laws and Jewish holidays as a supplement to faith is to fall back from the realm of grace, faith, and freedom, and to come under the whole law and its curse, since comprehensive observance of the law is impossible.	2:12–14, 16; 3:10; 4:10; 5:3
5. OT Scripture itself testifies to the truth of justification by faith, both in the life of Abraham and in the prophecy of Habakkuk.	Gen. 15:6;Hab. 2:4
6. The Christian life has its source in the believer having died with Christ to sin, and thereby having renounced the flesh.	5:24; 6:14
7. The Spirit is the source of power and guidance in the Christian life, and the work of the Spirit produces love and faith.	5:6, 16, 18, 25
8. The Christian life consists not in pleasing people but in pleasing Christ our master and being willing to suffer persecution for the sake of his cross.	1:10; 6:12, 14