Paul's Letter to the Galatians

As Paul traveled on a series of missionary journeys (covered in Acts 13-20), he wrote letters to the various synagogue-churches he found.  One of the earliest letters was to the churches in southern Turkey, in the province of Galatia.  As we finish up our study of Acts, we will go on to look at that early letter. 

An introduction to Paul epistle (letter) to the Galatians

Paul’s ancient letter to the Galatians (probably written around 49 AD) answered a hot topic of the early Christian church, “Must a new Christian become a Jew?”  But in dealing with that ancient question, Paul addressed higher, more eternal issues about grace, Christian life, the Holy Spirit and Christian community. 

As we have studied this text, it is my hope that we better understand Paul’s message to the first century church and then use that understanding to hear God’s message to us in the 21st century.  In this study of Galatians, I make some basic (possibly simplistic) assumptions about the text.  You need not agree with me, but we need to start somewhere.  I uaws a fairly standard English translation of the Koine Greek, such as the NIV translation of the Bible.  I am assuming that the letter has a divine purpose, that in some way, the Creator of the universe, acting through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, and through the very human individual, Paul, is communicating with humanity today.

A rough outline of the letter

If you sit down and reads through the letter in one sitting – which you should do! ... maybe several times! – the letter breaks into three basic parts.  The first part (chapters 1 & 2) is biographical; it involves a very personal and passionate plea from the man Paul to people he knows in the Galatian region.  In his appeal, he describes in some detail his conversion and divine appointment to minister to the Galatian synagogues and communities.

In the second part (chapters 3 & 4), Paul's argument becomes more theoretical, more philosophical, reviewing the Jewish understanding of God's relationship with them and arguing that this is completed by the Messiah, Jesus.

In the last third of the letter, Paul's argument become practical and down-to-earth; if they understand his message so far, his readers' lives will take on a certain practical nature of joy, love and freedom guided, indeed driven, by the Holy Spirit.

If we were to then outline this book (conveniently choosing words that begin with 'P'!) we might say that the three parts of the book are

• Personal (1-2)
• Philosophical (3-4)
• Practical (5-6)

This structure is not unusual in Paul's writings; indeed many of his letters have a philosophical component followed by a practical component.  However, the length of the personal component is quite unusual; Paul takes up a third of the letter in defending himself!

A comment on Bible reading (read fast/read slow)

In many Christian churches, there is a tendency to read the Bible a verse or two at a time, meditating on the text and then seeking some devotional insight, some five-minute, brief "encouragement" of the day.  Although this is a possibly useful practice for a busy Christian, this is not the original intent of the New Testament writings.  The New Testament writings were letters or essays, in the common language of the day, and were meant to be read in one setting.  They did not have chapter or verse markers (these were added much later!)

For this reason, I encourage others to sit down with a New Testament book and read it through in one reading.  Read it fast!  Most of the New Testament books are quite short; none are more than 25 pages!  Read them easily, casually, in a comfortable translation that reflects the language (English?) that you are most comfortable with.  In this way, you will get a general idea of the original reading of the letter.

Furthermore, if we assume that God was using these writings to speak to us (across many centuries) we should seek to first understand the statements of the text.  Our modern tendency is, in fact, to skip this understanding of the text and jump to a modern interpretation or modern application of the text. Our modern (hurried) tendency is to try to immediately apply the text to today's personal activities, to classes and meetings and family emergencies.  In our hurry, we often neglect to really read the text and understand what is says (said.)  So here, I encourage patience.  Be very slow to interpret or apply the text to daily life.  First, take time to understand it, as it was originally written, with its original message.

An aside ...

If one wonders about the writing materials Paul might have used in his letter to the Galatians, take a look at this video on the letters of Paul and examples of old papyrii. 

The People of Galatia

Paul, in his first missionary journey (Act 13-14) traveled to the people of Galatia. One of his first recorded letters was written to the people there.

North Galatia, South Galatia

Galatia appears to have been a general area in what is now central Turkey.  Tribes of Celts (Gauls) moved into the area around 278 BCE, after the death of Alexander the Great.  Later, a Roman administrative colony was named after the Gauls and was called Galatia by the Romans.  South of Galatia were the administrative districts of Phrygia, Cappadocia, Pisidia and Laycaonia.  (Here is a map from a Wikipedia article.  Another good article, from Wikipedia, of course, is on "Celtic Galatia", here.)

Apparently the entire region of central Turkey was sometimes loosely called "Galatia" and this leads us to a problem regarding the recipients of Paul's letter "to the Galatians".  In Luke's letter, the book of Acts, we are told of Paul's first missionary journey.  This account is in Acts 13 & 14 and is then followed (Acts 15) by a description of a meeting in Jerusalem to decide what it meant to be a Gentile Christian.

Paul's first missionary trip was an important time in the growth of the new Jewish sect of Jesus followers.  It led to an important dispute and decision in Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem (about 49 CE.)

Paul's first missionary trip 

I'll summarize here chapters 13 &14 from the New Testament book of Acts. During a time of worship and fasting in Antioch, the Holy Spirit told the church there to set aside Saul (Paul) and Barnabas for a special work.  With that appointment, they were sent to Cyprus, and then to Perga in the region of Pamphylia (see the map above) and then on to Pisidian Antioch where they spoke in a Jewish synagogue, describing how Jewish history had culminated in the Messiah, Jesus, and had been demonstrated by Jesus's resurrection.  The two were generally well received, with many converts.

Acts 13:49-14:1 says,
"The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium. At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed." (NIV)

Iconium (now the city of Konya in Turkey) was in the Lycaonia province.  (Iconium was apparently the home of Tertius, a convert who would be Paul's scribe for his letter to the Romans.)

Note Paul's practice of always going to Jewish synagogues, reaching out to his fellow Jewish.  Occasionally there are Gentile converts (loosely called "Greeks") but most of the converts are Jews and all of the worship and speaking occurred in the synagogues established by Jews in this portion of the Roman empire.

In Iconium, some Jews resisted Paul's message.  Threatened by violence, Paul and Barnabas fled to Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and "to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the gospel" (Acts 14:6-7.)  There in Lystra, after Paul is seen healing a man, there is an attempt to proclaim Paul and Barnabas as Hermes and Zeus, an act of idolatry that was frightening to devout Jews like these two apostles.

Eventually Jews opposed to Paul's message arrive in Lystra.  Paul and Barnabas were attacked and so left Lystra, retracing their travels back through the churches they had started, returning eventually to Antioch.

This trip is usually called "Paul's first missionary journey" and concludes (Acts 14:27-28) with the arrival back in Antioch.  There Paul and Barnabas report on God's work in Cyprus and Asia Minor and mention, especially, God's work among the Gentiles.

Because of this trip, the church in Jerusalem is faced with the question, "How Jewish is a Gentile (Greek) convert?"  This is resolved in Acts 15, at least for the time being, with the general decision that Gentile converts need not become Jews but should be sensitive to Jewish beliefs.  (I've greatly summarized the decision of Acts 15.)

Who were the recipients of Paul's letter to the Galatians?

Who were the recipients of Paul's letter to the Galatians?  One view is that Paul's letter easily fits into the seam between Acts 14 and Acts 15.  At the end of Acts 14 the churches in Asia Minor are growing and everyone is excited about Paul's trip; at the beginning of Acts 15 we see "Judaizers" going to churches and telling converts, "You must become full Jews and practice all of the Jewish Law".  Paul's letter could have been written as a response to those visits, in prelude to the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.

The one problem with this view is that we don't have a record of Paul visiting the Roman province of Galatia.  He visits the provinces just south of Galatia.  There are several ways to reconcile this issue.

The "Southern Galatia" hypothesis says, "Well, at times this area was loosely called Galatia" and we need not require that Paul use the term "Galatian" in the Roman technical sense.  The term "Galatian" (or "Galatia") could refer to the general region of central Turkey (Anatolia).  People also point out that in a number of places the Acts account says that Paul and Barnabas went into "nearby regions" and so they may have, in fact, also visited (administrative) Galatia in those travels.

The "Northern Galatia" hypothesis assumes that Paul is using the term "Galatian" in the Roman technical sense (else he might have also listed the other regions) and that Paul's visit to (administrative) Galatia probably occurred during a later missionary trip.

We may debate these two viewpoints (I've grossly simplified them!) but the assumptions as to the audience also tend to lead to different dates of the epistle.  In the first case, if Paul is writing this letter enroute to Jerusalem in Acts 15, then the letter was probably written around 48 CE.  In the second case, it was written later, maybe around 52 CE?

Regardless, the letter to the Galatians is clearly one of Paul's earliest letters. We will read through that book next week, after we are finished with the book of Acts.

On Paul's Letters

In Acts 13 and 14 we see the first missionary journey of Paul, traveling to Galatia (southern Turkey) and speaking to both Jews and Gentiles.  The results of that journey lead to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 and an endorsement of ministry to the non-Jews.  Paul then returns to Turkey before moving on into Greece.

When Paul entered a new community, he usually went to the local synagogue to begin his preaching about the Jewish Messiah.  The small assemblies (ekklesia) that developed in those communities grew out of the local synagogue and were, in many aspects, similar to the Jewish synagogues.

After Paul left a region, he stayed in contact with these assemblies, sometimes returning to visit, often writing letters to them about both administrative and theological matters.

In modern English terminology, we say "church" instead of "assembly" and Paul's letters to these churches are often called "epistles", a term which somehow sounds more formal to me. We should not forget that they were letters to small congregations, small "assemblies" of mixed Jew and Gentile believers.

One of Paul's earliest letters is his Epistle to the Galatians, a letter sent to numerous churches throughout southern Turkey. Other early letters, probably written within the timeline of Acts, include his two letters to Thessalonica and his two letters to the church in Corinth.  We will look at those five early letters (I & II Thessalonians, Galatians and I & II Corinthians) after we finish the book of Acts.

Other letters by Paul include a letter to the church in Rome, written to believers Paul had not yet met.
That letter carefully lays out Paul's view of the global importance of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Other letters by Paul include letters to churches in Colossae, Philippi, and Ephesus.  Additional letters preserved in the New Testament went to friends and fellow-ministers such as Titus and Timothy. (There is, of course, a good Wikipedia article on the letters of Paul.)

We will look at several of those letters after we conclude our study in Acts, beginning with I Thessalonians.

The Three Missionary Journeys of Paul

An understanding of the New Testament letters of Paul ("St. Paul", "Paul the apostle") requires a summary of the travels that Paul took over about a dozen years (from 46-58 CE?)  These journeys are described in chapters 13-21 of the book of Acts and represent the very earliest history of the Christian church.

The missionary journeys of Paul

According to Acts 13, the Holy Spirit tells the church in Antioch to "set apart Barnabas and Saul for the ministry I have planned for them."  And so this early church ordains two missionaries and sends them off, first to the island of Cyprus, and then on to Asia Minor (now Turkey) to tell the Jewish people in those locations about their recently revealed Messiah.  The book of Acts eventually describes three missionary journey and ends with a fourth journey, a forced journey in which Paul, as prisoner, travels to Rome.

It is on one of those missionary journeys that the author of Acts, Luke, becomes a convert and travels with Paul.

The first missionary journey

In this first journey, described in Acts chapters 13 & 14, Barnabas is the presumed leader; he has been a disciple much longer than Saul and is more experienced.  But Saul is the "talker" and seems to draw much of the attention.

The first missionary journey (Acts 13:4-14:28, about CE 46-48) begins with Paul and Barnabas visiting the island of Cyprus.  They then visit southern Galatia (Perga, Pisidian Antioch) where they stay awhile before going on to Iconium.  After conflict in Iconium, Paul and friends flee to Lystra and Derbe (and the surrounding region of Lycaonia, south of the province of Galatia.)  In Lystra, after they heal a lame man, Barnabas is identified by the people as Zeus and Paul is called Hermes (Acts 14:11-13)

The map below (taken from Gracepoint notes, which took them, in turn, from the Holman Bible Atlas) displays Paul's first missionary journey.

Interlude

In Acts 15 we see the important meeting in Jerusalem, in which an official decision is made regarding Gentile Christians.  This meeting is stimulated by the great success in the first missionary journey and by the obvious openness of the Gentiles (non Jews) to the message about Jesus the Messiah.

The second missionary journey

The second missionary journey is reported in Acts 15:40-18:23 (49-52 CE?) It is possible that Paul visited north Galatia (administrative Galatia) at this time.  This second journey is caused by a desire of Paul and Barnabas to revisit the synagogues and converts from the first journey.  But at the very beginning, Barnabas wants to take John Mark and Paul does not, so the dynamic missionary duo split up, Barnabas with John Mark heading back to Cyprus while Paul take Silas and travels north through Syria into Asia Minor.  In Lystra, a young disciple named Timothy joins Paul.  Since Timothy is uncircumcised (his father is Gentile), to please the Jews in the area, Paul has Timothy circumcised.

In this trip Paul has a vision of a man calling him into Macedonia (north of Greece, across the Aegean Sea.)  Responding to that call, Paul travels to the coastal town of Troas and then "we" set sail across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia and eventually Philippi.

The transition from third person to first person in Acts 16:11 most likely means that Luke, the author of the book of Acts, joins Paul at Troas and then for a time can tell the story in first person.

In Philippi after speaking in a small synagogue and baptizing new believer, Lydia, Paul and Silas are then thrown in prison.  During the night an earthquake opens the prison doors and Paul and Silas are freed and their jailer becomes a believer.  Paul frightens the local authorities by explaining that he is a  Roman citizen.  From Philippi the two travel on to Thessalonica where, as is their practice, they speak in the local synagogue.  On to Berea and Athens, where Paul speaks at Mars Hill, to both open ears and skeptics.  Luke lists by name several converts but also points out the Greek skepticism of someone claiming that a man was resurrected.

In Corinth, Paul meets a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who, as believers, join Paul's ministry team.  Silas and Timothy join Paul in Corinth but due to strong opposition from Jewish leaders, Paul leaves the synagogue and begins to speak and minister from the house of Titius Justus, presumably a Gentile.  Luke records that a number of Jewish believers, including the synagogue leader, join Paul.

Paul stays in Corinth for at least a year and a half before being forced out and heading back to Antioch, detouring to Jerusalem along the trip home.

The third missionary journey

The third missionary journey (CE 53-58?) begins in Act 18:23, after the conclusion of the second journey and after "some time" at Antioch.  In the third journey, Paul again returns to visit the various churches across Asia Minor.  Galatia is explicitly mentioned in that verse, with Asia Minor presumably mentioned in two parts, as "Galatia and Phrygia."

Paul visits Ephesus (on the western coast of Asia Minor) in Acts 19 and there many followers of the goddess Artemus turn to the Jewish Messiah, to the point that those making money off of Artemis are infuriated and cause a riot.  After that, Paul moves west across the Aegean to Macedonia and Greece, ministering in the places he had been before, including Philippi.  Eventually he returns east to Troas (where he had picked up Luke) and there we have the story of Paul preaching very long (possibly all day) and a young man (with whom I have considerable sympathy) falling asleep during Paul's message.  Young Eutychus pitches out a second story window and is picked up below as dead, but Paul's stretches over him, prays and revives him.

Paul continues on to Miletus, near Ephesus, where a prophet warns that if Paul continues, as planned, to Jerusalem, he will end up in chains.  But Paul must go ....  The last half of chapter 20 of Acts is a moving goodbye from Paul, given to the elders from Ephesus, expressing his care and concerns for them.

From Miletus, Paul's entourage move on past Cyprus to Syria and then down to Caesarea.  In Caesarea Paul is warned (a third time!) of the chains that wait for him in his Jerusalem trip.  In this case, the warning is acted out; a prophet named Agabus takes Paul's belt and then ties up his own hands and feet to show what will happen "to the owner of this belt."

But Paul must go on, and the third missionary journey ends in Jerusalem with Paul's arrest there, at the end of Acts 21.

Some resources and notes

Wikipedia, of course, has some good stuff.  Check out the article on St. Paul.

The Christian Classic Ethereal Library, based at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, has lots of excellent resources.

There is a summary of the missionary journeys from a webpage sponsored by Gracepoint church in Berkeley CA.   The maps I used are taken from the Gracepoint notes, which took them, in turn, from the Holman Bible Atlas.

Jewish Dietary Customs

In Acts 10, Peter has a vision in which he is instructed to dine on "unclean" food.  What food did Peter and the Jews view as unclean?  The teachings on unclean foods were part of the Torah, appearing in Leviticus 11 and repeated in Deuteronomy 14.

The Israelites could eat any animal that "had a divided hoof and chewed its cud."  It had to have both of those properties, as chapter 11 of Leviticus goes on to describe animals that have one property but not the other, forbidding them.

Seafood was acceptable as long as it had scales and fins, that is, was fish.  (Slimy things like oysters would have been unacceptable!)

Some birds were not acceptable.  Those unacceptable were primarily birds of prey (like eagles or owls) or scavengers (like vultures.)  Chicken were acceptable, as were ducks and geese.

Many insects and bugs were not acceptable, but some like grasshoppers and locusts were explicitly allowed.

It is not clear why these various animals were prohibited.  Some have attempted to argue that the prohibitions were hygienic; that the unclean animals were more likely to carry diseases, particularly in a hot middle eastern environment, long before the advent of air-conditioning.

A discussion on clean and unclean foods, from a Jewish perspective, is available here at
http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm.  Several different opinions on unclean foods and Leviticus 11, from various Christian perspectives, are available here and here.  Regardless of one's understanding of the Jewish dietary laws, it is clear that in Acts 10, Peter is being told that the salvation available to the Jews has been opened up the all the world, independent of their understanding and history of the Torah.

A more general discussion on Leviticus 11 and the Torah's emphasis on "clean" and "unclean" is available at this bible.org page.

Tomorrow we will return to Acts and this radical concept of inviting the Gentiles to partake of the Jewish salvation.

A Timeline for Acts

Sunday is a day to relax, honor God, focus on renewal and rest.  So in this "a chapter a day" study, we pause to look at summaries and overviews of past reading or future readings.

One natural question facing a reader of the book of Acts is, "When did this all take place?" and, as a follow-up, how close are some of the events?  Although Luke's writing places one event after another, in some places there is clear evidence that years pass between events.  In some places Luke himself provides the evidence, using phrases like, "they stayed there for some time."

Historians date the crucifixion to about 31 CE, give or take a couple of years.  (Some of this is based on historical events described in Luke's gospel.)  The book of Acts then covers at least another 30 years, past 60 CE.  In  the book of Acts we have a number of historical events (such as the death of Herod Agrippa in chapter 12) which have an external date (about 44 CE.)  In addition, in other letters, notably Paul's letter to the Galatians, we have some guide to the timeline; Paul describes his travels and in two places, Galatians 1:18 and Galatians 2:1, gives a length of time between events.

With these as a guide, there have been numerous attempts to date the events in the book of Acts, as they spread across thirty years.    Here is one timeline at biblehub.com. And here is a more detailed timeline, attempting to date some external events in the Roman empire and also date some of Paul's letters.  A similar timeline is here at morethancake.org.

One more link -- in the spirit of xkcd.com, we have the story and structure of Acts.

Tomorrow we return to Act 7, as the young church has its first martyr and first devoted enemy.

An Introduction to the Book of Acts

As we have just finished reading through Luke's account of Jesus's life, it is appropriate that we move on to the one New Testament book that tracks the history of the church after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The "Book of Acts" was written as a sequel to an account of the life of Jesus, apparently by Luke, a physician who traveled with Paul at one point.  The book begins in Jerusalem, shortly after the resurrection of Jesus, and chronicles the early church in Jerusalem, its breakout into the surrounding area (mainly northward into Syria and towards Turkey) and eventually the church's recognition of the non-Jews, those confused, irreligious "Gentiles".  The last half of the book describes the journeys of the individual Saul/Paul as he increasingly focuses on the Gentiles.  The narrator, Luke, enters the story several times, switching his narration from third person to first person as he describes events that he witnessed.

We will spend five weeks working our way through the 28 chapters of Acts.  But if you'd like a much shorter study, here is Acts in 3 minutes.  Or, for the one in a hurry, here are 28 tweets which summarize the chapters!

There are, of course, more serious resources.  A brief summary of Acts is available here at biblestudytools.com (click on "Summary") and also here.  A summary of the book, followed by studies of individual chapters, is here at GotQuestions.org.  And, of course, the Wikipedia page on Acts is good.

We will examine (slowly!) 28 chapters in 31 days, just over five weeks.  Join me!