What the book is
Galatians is the most heated of Paul’s letters. He had brought the good news about Jesus to the churches of Galatia, in what is now central Turkey, and they were Gentiles who had believed. After he left, other teachers came and told them that to belong fully to God’s people they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Paul writes to say that this is “a different gospel” (1:6), and to call them back to the freedom Christ has given:
Freedom was Christ’s purpose when he set us free. So stand firm, and do not let yourselves be held again under a yoke of slavery.
There is no thanksgiving at the start, as in his other letters; Paul goes straight to the point. And at the end he takes the pen himself: “Notice what large letters I make as I write to you in my own hand” (6:11).
Who wrote it, and when
No one seriously doubts that Paul wrote Galatians. What is debated is which churches he meant, and so when he wrote. Galatia was the name both of a region in the north of central Turkey, settled by Celtic tribes, and of a larger Roman province that reached south to towns Paul visited on his first journey, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe (Acts 13–14). If the letter went to those southern towns, it may be Paul’s earliest letter, written around AD 48, before the meeting in Jerusalem described in Acts 15. If it went to the northern region, it was written later, in the early or mid-50s.
How the book is laid out
- Greeting and rebuke (1:1–10): no other gospel, even from an angel.
- Paul’s story (1:11–2:21): how he received the gospel from Christ himself, not from other people; his visits to Jerusalem; and the day he opposed Cephas (Peter) face to face at Antioch for drawing back from eating with Gentiles.
- The argument from Scripture (3–4): the Galatians received the Spirit by believing, not by keeping the law; Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness; the law was a guardian until Christ came; and the story of Hagar and Sarah.
- Living in freedom (5:1–6:10): freedom that serves others in love, the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, and the fruit the Spirit produces.
- In Paul’s own hand (6:11–18): what counts is not circumcision but a new creation.
What to look for
Faith, grace and the gospel carry the argument, and the draft keeps them the same wherever they mean the same thing. “Justified” is a law-court word: God declares a person to be in the right. “Works of the law” are the things the law of Moses requires, above all the ones that marked Jews out from Gentiles. And “the flesh”, in Paul, can mean the body, human nature, or human life turned away from God; see “Flesh” in Paul.
How Open Word Bible translates Galatians
Faith in Christ, or Christ’s faithfulness? In 2:16, and again in 2:20 and 3:22, two Greek words can mean “faith in Christ” or “the faithfulness of Christ”, and scholars are divided. The draft follows “faith in” each time, marks the decision uncertain and gives the other reading in a footnote. See Faith in Christ, or the faithfulness of Christ?, which works through 2:16 in full.
Where Paul’s words to Peter end. Paul quotes what he said to Cephas at Antioch, but the Greek has no quotation marks, and it is not clear whether the quotation ends at 2:14 or runs to the end of the chapter. The draft closes it at 2:14 and gives the other readings in a footnote.
One in Christ (3:28). “There is no male and female” uses the words of Genesis 1:27, not the “neither ... nor” of the pairs before it, and a decision points this out.
The elemental forces (4:3, 9). Paul’s phrase can mean the basic powers and principles thought to govern life in this world, the ABCs of religion, or spiritual beings who rule the world. The draft says “the elemental forces of the world” and gives the other senses in a footnote.
The Israel of God (6:16). Paul’s last blessing falls “on the Israel of God”. Whether he means the whole church of Jews and Gentiles, Jewish believers in Christ, or the people of Israel is debated; the draft keeps Paul’s words and the footnote sets out the readings.