Answering Faith: A Guide to Galatians With N.t. WrightSample

Paul’s immediate impulse is to call the Galatians family. This is an important rhetorical choice. In one sense, it’s logical. Paul is committed to the mission that the Galatian churches represent.

But calling the Galatians family does a second thing for Paul: it ties his readers to him in kinship. This itself serves two purposes. It strengthens Paul’s authority before he begins his argument, and it models the vision he is striving for - that of Jesus believers, both Jew and Gentile, living as a single ‘fictive kinship group’ unlike anything present in the then-known world. Paul wants the Galatians to behave, live, and think of themselves as a family.

But why the need to curry favour? Looking ahead to verse 10, Paul is warding off the charge of being called a ‘people-pleaser.’ In context, this accusation is one of compromise, which for observant Jews is just about the worst thing you could do politically and religiously. The status of Gentile believers is Paul’s major theme in Galatians. Apparently, some other teachers were telling the Galatian Gentiles that they had to be circumcised before they could become members of Jesus’ family. These teachers claimed Paul was muddled up and had forgotten to tell the Galatians this bit of the gospel. Not so, says Paul.

Throughout the letter, he will build a sophisticated argument that the new thing God has done in Jesus does, in fact, include Gentiles as Gentiles. In fact, for them to retroactively become Torah observant through circumcision would be tantamount to denying the claim of the gospel that God had indeed fulfilled the Abrahamic promises, ending the ‘present evil age’ and ushering in the ‘age to come.’ To this point, Paul is careful to stress from the start that ‘God has freed us from the present evil age.’

The transition from the Old age to the New age is central to Paul’s gospel. In verse 4, he introduces the gospel deliberately and succinctly in three parts, showing his readers the act, the aim, and the underlying reason. The act is that ‘Jesus gave himself (for our sins),’ with the aim of rescue from the present evil age, for the underlying reason that this is according to the will of the Father. This quick and sly defense of his credibility by way of gospel presentation is all the greeting Paul has time to give before jumping right into the confrontation which has been forced upon him.

Reflection:

Given how Paul begins his letter, what major themes do you expect to see emphasized in Galatians? Take a moment to reflect on how you currently understand these concepts.

Tomorrow’s text is Galatians 2:18-20. If you’d like to get a sense of how Paul built his argument before then, read and reflect on the autobiographical section of Galatians 1:6-2:18.