I used to dislike the Pauline epistles. As a Sunday School teacher, I would carefully study the words, sentences and paragraphs, and get pretty bogged down in their complexity. I'm not sure that studying them in Greek and actually diagramming the sentences was particularly helpful. (Although I must admit that I always kind of enjoyed diagramming sentences.)
At some point, fortunately, I became more comfortable with Paul's writings. Perhaps it was after I'd worked through them enough to understand them better. More likely, it was when I began to back off a bit and appreciate the personality that the letters reveal.
Galatians is great for that. I've always kind of liked the way Paul starts. Unlike most of his letters, his introduction is short and not all that sweet. Then he proceeds to jump on the Galatians by verse 6.
Much of the letter to the Galatians deals with the issue of the Judaizers. These were people in the early Christian church who were Jews that followed Jesus as Messiah. They viewed Christianity, or "The Way," as they may have called it, to be an extension of Judaism. They felt that people could only be "Christians" if they were practicing Jews. So they expected their fellow Jews to continue to carefully practice Jewish laws and traditions, and they weren't really open to Gentiles becoming Christians unless they agreed to convert to Judaism.
Paul was adamant that Christianity presented a whole new way to relate to God -- salvation by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). As he wrote in Galatians 2:15, "...a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." Further, Paul was adamant that Gentiles were welcome into the fold and that he had been specially commissioned to reach out to them. "...I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7-8).
So his letter chastises the people who promote a different viewpoint. "As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned" (Gal1:9). He also takes on Saint Peter: "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong...I said to Peter in front of them all, 'You are Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'" (Gal. 2:11, 14). Or how about his words for "agitators," those who insisted that Gentiles become circumcised before they can follow Christ: "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!" (Gal. 5:12).
Paul gets pretty testy in this letter, but there are some wonderful, gentle passages as well. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal 5:14). "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control" (Gal 5:22-23a).
I'm always tantalized by what may be hints about Paul's personal health. In Gal. 4:15, he says, "I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me." At the end, he writes in Gal. 6:11, "See what large letters I use as I write with my own hand." Some scholars think this suggests the "thorn in his flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7) may have been a problem with his eyes or his eyesight.
But I guess if I had to pick a verse to stitch on a sampler, it would be Gal. 6:9: "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." No doubt he was saying this to the believers in Galatia, but also to himself. It's something I have to tell myself over and over, especially when I get discouraged or frustrated.
What about you, dear reader? What is the good that you are doing for which you must not grow weary? It's okay to get testy now and then; even Paul did. Just keep up the good work and the good fight.
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