10/18/2020 – Day 154 – Galations introduction – Ch 1 -3
GALATIONS
By Grace, Not By Law // Finality of the Gospel
As with my other introductions to New books in the Bible as we go through our year: From My “Haley’s Bible Handbook” :
“Galatia:
In Central Asia Minor (see Map page 572). Region of Paul’s First Missionary Journey. Its borders at times varied. It included the cities of Iconium, Lystra, Derbe and probably Pisidiean Antioch. (Read Acts 13 and 14).
Galations were a branch of Gauls, originally from norht of the Black Sea, split off fromt he main migration westward to France, and settled in Asia Minor, 3rd century B.C.
Occasion of This Epistle
Paul’s work in Galatia had been extremely successful. Great multitudes, mostly Gentiles, had enthusiastically accepted Christ. Sometime after Paul had left Galatia, certain Jewish teachers came along insisting that Gentiles could not be Christians without keeping the Law of Moses. And the Galatians gave heed to their teaching with the same whole-heartedness with which they had a first received Paul’s message; and there was a general epidemic of Circumsision among these Gentile Christians. Circumsision is the name of the Initiatory Rite into Judaism. Paul heard of the movement.
And then it was that Paul wrote this Epistle to explain to them that Circumcision, while it had been a necessary part of Jewish National Life, was not a part of the Gospel of Christ and had nothing whatever to do with Salvation.
Date
Paul had founded these Galation Churches about A.D. 45-48. He had re-visited them, as he was setting out on his Second Journey about A.D. 50 (Acts 16: 1-6) and again, as he was starting on his Third Journey, about A.D. 54 (Acts 18:23)
The commonly accepted traditional date of the writing of this Epistle is about A.D. 57, at the close of Paul’s Third Missionary Journey, while he was in Ephesus, or Macedonia, or Corinth, shortly before he wrote the Epistle to the Romans.
Some think it more probably ws written about A.D. 49, from Antioch, soon after Paul’s first return from Galatia, before the Jerusalem Council of A.D. 50, whose Letter stating that Circumcision was Not Necessary was carried without delay to the Galatian Churches (Acts 15: 1-16:4); for if written after that, it seems like Paul would have referred to the Jerusalem Letter. But “first” (4:13), favors the later date.
The Judaizers
Judaiers were a sect of Jewish Christians who, not willing to accept the teaching of the Apostles on the question (Acts 15), continued to insist that Christians must come to God through Judaism, that a Gentile, in order to be a Christian, must become a Jewish Proselyte. and keep the Jewish Law.
They made it their business to visit and unsettle and trouble Gentile Churches. They were simply determined to stamp Christ with the Jewish Trademark.
Against this Paul stood adamant, ‘Had the observance of the Law been imposed on Gentile converts Paul’s whole lifework would have been wrecked.’ The expansion of Christianity from a Jewish sect into a World Religion was Paul’s consuming passion, in pursuit of which he broke every hindering tie, and strained every faculty of mind and body for upwards of thirty years.’
The effort to Judaize the Gentile Churches was brought to an end by the Fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, which “Severed all relation between Judaism and Christianity. Up to that time Christianity was regarded as a Sect or Branch of Judaism. But from then on Jews and Christians were apart. A small sect of Jewish Christians, the Ebionites, remained, in decrasting numbers, for two centuries, hardly recognized by the general Church , and regarded as Apostates by their own race….”