NT 260: Part OneSample

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, a man by the name of Paul became a follower of Jesus. He was sent by God to travel around teaching people about Jesus and starting churches outside of Israel. Since those churches were outside of Israel, many of the people in them were not Jewish. Since all of the initial followers of Jesus were Jewish, there was a controversy over whether non-Jews (Gentiles) could become Christians. Galatians is a letter from Paul written to the church he started in Galatia, which is in what we call Turkey today. Paul is writing this letter to argue that people don’t need to become Jews, signified by being circumcised, in order to become followers of Jesus.

Paul states very strongly that the people are not supposed to accept any other gospel (good news) than the one he preached. It would be natural for someone who disagreed with Paul to ask, “Why should we take his word for it?” Paul begins by describing how he came to trust in Jesus and how his message was given to him directly by Jesus.

Today, we don’t argue about whether people need to become Jews before trusting Jesus, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still want to add things to the gospel. It might be things like: abandon a lifestyle, embrace a belief, join a particular church or go through a ceremony. All of those things may be good things to do, but they aren’t required to trust Jesus. Have you inadvertently wandered into a different gospel?