New Testament · Paul's Letters
Freedom fiercely defended, no other gospel; for freedom Christ has set us free.
The angriest letter in the New Testament, and the one that shaped the Reformation. Paul has heard that teachers arrived after him telling his Gentile converts they must be circumcised to be fully in, and he opens without the usual thanksgiving because he is in no mood for one. The argument is that if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died for nothing, and he presses it hard enough to describe confronting Peter to his face for withdrawing from Gentile tables when certain people showed up. The letter also holds one of the most radical sentences in the ancient world, that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, and ends by insisting that freedom is not a licence but the ground on which love actually works.
If you remember one thing
The only letter where Paul skips the thanksgiving and goes straight to astonishment. Luther called it his Katherine von Bora, the letter he was married to.
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
Galatians 2:20
Galatians 2:11-14
Paul opposing Peter to his face. A rare glimpse of open conflict between apostles, and it is preserved rather than smoothed over.
Galatians 5:12
Paul wishing the agitators would go the whole way and emasculate themselves. It is as blunt in Greek as it sounds.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
A Pharisee trained under Gamaliel who persecuted the church until he was stopped on the road to Damascus. He then spent thirty years planting churches across the Roman world and writing the letters that make up roughly a third of the New Testament. He was a Roman citizen by birth, which is why he could appeal to Caesar.
A Greek believer Paul deliberately did not have circumcised, making him a test case for the whole Gentile question. He later handled the difficult mission to Corinth and was left to organize the churches of Crete.
James son of Zebedee, John's brother, one of the inner three, and the first apostle martyred, killed by Herod Agrippa. James son of Alphaeus, of whom almost nothing is recorded. And James the brother of Jesus, who did not believe during the ministry and became the leader of the Jerusalem church.
A Galilean fisherman who spoke first and thought later, walked on water and sank, confessed Jesus as the Christ, denied him three times, and was restored on a beach over breakfast. He preached the sermon at Pentecost and opened the door of the church to Gentiles at Cornelius' house.
A Levite from Cyprus whose nickname means 'son of encouragement,' which fits the two things he is best known for: vouching for Saul when the church was still afraid of him, and later splitting with Paul rather than give up on John Mark.
A quiz for Galatians is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
