Now that we have wrapped up our conversation about the narrative of God, I want to start diving into the letters of the New Testament. I will not try to present the letters in any sort of chronological order, as I feel like the debate is a lively one, and it doesn’t lend easy answers. Instead, I want to focus on hearing each letter in its context.
I would like to start with the letter to the Galatians for a few reasons. First, I personally believe Galatians is the earliest letter of Paul’s (even though I won’t be trying to present these chronologically). Second, I think the letter to the Galatians is the one that flows best out of the record of Acts. And third, I think understanding the context of Galatia and the argument we touched on surrounding Christianity in Asia and Asia Minor is essential to interpreting our New Testament correctly.
To review, we said back in our post about Barnabas and Paul in Pisidian Antioch that the Jewish world of Asia and Asia Minor was having to wrestle with a question found in the new world of the Diaspora: What do we do with the theosabes — the God-fearing Gentiles? We talked about how the city of Pisidian Antioch sat on the edge of the region of Galatia, and the region was dominated by the ultra-conservative worldview of Shammai. Galatia was a backwater, off-the-beaten-path kind of place where those Jews who wanted to maintain the purity of their Jewish faith could go and avoid the corruption of the Greco-Roman world. If the Gentiles wanted to worship the God of Israel there, the answer was easy — they can convert to Judaism.
But the arrival of the gospel changed everything in that world. All of a sudden there was a Jewish community insisting that God’s grace, salvation, and justification was for the Gentile just as much as it was for the Jew. This group of believers was arguing not only for a place at the fellowship table, but for full-fledged membership and adoption into God’s family.
In a region like Galatia, this was simply unacceptable. What this meant, of course, was that God-fearing Gentiles who followed Jesus were not given a place in the assembly, a seat at the table, or the hand of fellowship. They were excluded; unless they wanted to convert, they simply were not seen as a part of God’s family.
This led to a major temptation for the believers in Galatia. If they would simply convert to Judaism, they would be welcomed into the Jewish family and accepted at the synagogues. Not only this, but in the first century the Jewish people were exempt from the imperial demands of emperor worship through what historians refer to as “the Jewish Exception.” Based on an agreement instigated by Herod the Great, the Jewish people were the only people group excused from offering their worship to Caesar.
But what do you do when you are a Gentile and not included in the Jewish community? Not to bow your knee to Caesar was a capital offense. The reasons were many for why the theosabes would see it as easier and more beneficial simply to convert to Judaism.
Understanding this context is absolutely critical to understanding the letter to the Galatians. Look at how one of the opening paragraphs reads:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul says on no uncertain terms that the gospel of Christ is a gospel of inclusion. The whole message of “good news” to the people of Galatia is that in Christ, everyone is welcome at God’s table, and everyone belongs in God’s family. Paul insists that if they allow this message to be perverted, they are ruining the entire mission of God in Galatia. They must put the gospel on display despite the hardship and the persecution.
As we continue to look through the book of Galatians, we would do well to remind ourselves that, in Christ, there are no “those people.” We should remind ourselves that the gospel of Christ always has been, and always will be, a gospel of inclusion. This good news is an announcement that all people, through faith in Christ Jesus, have a seat at the table. There is no people group, geographical region, or religious establishment with a monopoly on faith.
To pervert this truth is to pervert the very mission of God.
** As we continue this study of Galatians, I would recommend The Holy Epistle to the Galatians by Thomas Lancaster. Lancaster does a great job drawing from some of the most recent scholarship to help us understand this letter correctly. While I don’t agree with the conclusions drawn in the last few chapters of his book, the contextual work surrounding the letter to the Galatians is fantastic.
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