1 - Introduction

Summary

Paul's letter to the Galatians is one of the fiercest and most polemical writings in the Bible. It begins with a denunciation of those to whom it was written and of unnamed troublemakers (1.6–9). It dismisses another group of Christians as ‘false brothers’, makes snide remarks about the leaders of the Jerusalem church (2.6) and accuses Peter of hypocrisy and deceit (2.13–14). After two somewhat more restrained chapters, the tone of urgent pleading and denunciation is resumed (5.2–4, 7–10), including a rather crude and blackly humorous aside (5.12). And the final paragraph cannot resist a parting swipe at those behind the problems and challenges which the letter seeks to address (6.12–13).

It is this feature which makes Paul's letter such an exciting document to deal with. For Galatians is not an academic treatise drawn up in the calm autumn of a long life, the mature fruit of long debate, with every statement duly weighed and every phrase finely polished. Rather, it comes from the early morning of a vigorous new movement (Christianity), when basic principles were first being formulated, and when the whole character of the movement was at stake. In the pages of Galatians, one of the earliest documents in the New Testament, we see, as it were, fundamental features of Christian theology taking shape before our eyes. In no sense is Galatians an ivory tower tract remote from real life, the dispassionate statement of one high above the battle.