Breaking the Shackles: Contemporary Perspectives in Paul's Letter to the Galatians

BREAKING THE SHACKLES

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN PAUL’S LETTER TO

THE GALATIANS

BY

SAMSON N. GITAU

AuthorHouse™

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© 2008 Samson Gitau. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/21/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4389-2838-8 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Introduction

Chapter Two

The Curse of Backsliders

Galatians 1:1-10

Chapter Three

Paul Defends Himself

Gal. 1:11-2:21

Chapter Four

Paul’s Teaching Expounded

Galatians (3:1-29)

Chapter Five

Slavery Abolished

Gal. 4:1-31

Chapter Six

Preservation and Responsible Use of Christian Freedom

Gal. 5:1-15

Chapter Seven

The Christian is Known by Fruits

Gal. 5:16-24

Chapter Eight

Christian Responsibility

Gal. 5:25-6:10

Chapter Nine

Conclusion

Gal. 6:11-18

Project History

Acknowledgments

The writing of this book would have been impossible without the encouragement of my friends who read my Kikuyu version, Wiyathi wa Mukristiano, and urged me to translate it into English for a wider audience. My most sincere thank to Ms. Pam M. Smith, my parishioner at Immanuel Episcopal Church, LaGrange, Tennessee, for proofreading my manuscript and giving me helpful suggestions. I take full responsibility for any typos or mistakes that may still be found in the book. To my wife Lilian Wairimu, who always cheers me on in my writing adventures and bears with me when I seclude to write.

To my grandson, Zack G. Gitito, hope for the future

Chapter One

Introduction

Who were the Galatians?

To better understand Paul’s letter to the Galatians, it is important to know exactly who the Galatians were and to be acquainted with the events and circumstances that occasioned the writing of this letter. Before we can answer the question as to who the Galatians were, it is equally important to establish the location and history of the region known as Asia Minor. The Galatian Province in Asia Minor covered the whole territory known as Turkey today. Galatians were Indo-European in origin. For many years, Asia Minor was a land of migrations with many kinds of peoples migrating from one end of this region to another. For instance, at about three thousand B.C.E., this whole region was under the Hitittes. Then from about two thousand B.C.E., this region was under the Greeks¹ and Phrygians who had migrated in big numbers from Europe. From about one thousand B.C.E. the Hitittes were swept away by the Babylonians, followed by the Persians. Thereafter, Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor in great force, establishing the Greek Empire which extended throughout the whole of Asia and beyond.

At about 278 B.C.E., the Gauls, who had migrated from France, were expelled from Greece, crossing over to Asia and Pharagia. Greek kings fought against the Gauls and finally drove them up the mountains where they settled and established their main city known as Ancyra, modern day, Ankara. Eventually, the whole province came to be known as Galatia, deriving its name from these Gaul immigrants. In 121 B.C.E. the Romans annexed the Galatian Province to the Roman Empire. By 40 B.C.E. there were three separate kingdoms in the Galatian Province, whose capital cities were located at Ancyra, Antioch and Iconium. Three years later, the regions of Iconium and Galatia were given to Amyntas, the king of Pisidia.

Amyntas then annexed the region of Pampyhlia and parts of Cilicia to his kingdom. When Amyntas was assassinated in 25 B.C.E., the Roman emperor, Augustus, annexed the region to his kingdom creating the Galatian Province that included parts of Pisidia, Isauria, Pamphylia, Lycaonia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus Galaticus.

The historical background of the Galatian people was therefore one of violence and turbulence, with local rulers using them as mercenaries in their battles for territorial supremacy. In their struggle for survival, the Galatians learned to be fickle taking full advantage of their situation to survive economically, politically and religiously. Culturally, the Galatians had been Hellenized and later Romanized. Like most anybody else in the Greco-Roman world, the Galatian recipients of Paul’s letter had learned the Greek language. Greek was the lingua franca of the whole Greek empire. Thus, it was easy for Paul to write his letter the Galatians in the Greek language.

Religious Practices in the Galatian Province

As already pointed out, the Galatian Province was a land of migrations with all kinds of peoples meeting in this region from the East and from the West, each with its own religious practices. This meant that the Galatian Province was a melting pot of religious confusion with each group striving to worship God in its own way. Coupled with this, the Galatian province had witnessed much shedding of blood in war, slavery, poverty, and famine. All these things robbed the Galatians of a sense of hope and expectation for the future. These are the kinds of people that Paul encountered in the Galatian Province when he accompanied by Barnabas preached the good news there in their first missionary journey.

Paul Preaches the Good News in Galatia

Evidence indicates that Paul preached the good news in the Galatian Province on at least two occasions. When Paul first preached the gospel in the Galatian Province, he was in a state of sickness, and that was actually the reason why he preached there in the first place (Gal. 4:13). When Paul first preached to the Galatians, the Galatians warmly welcomed him as if he were an angel of God. Paul’s first converts in Galatia were both Jews and Greeks. As we have already seen, the Galatian Greeks practiced pagan and traditional ways of worship. Some of the main practices in this worship were the observance and veneration of certain holy days and the performance of sacrifices. To Paul such practices were the exemplification of religious slavery among these Galatians (4:8-10).

Thus when Paul preached to the Galatians, he depicted for them the image of Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, just like one of the Roman emperor’s signs the Galatians were used to seeing. When the Galatians heard the gospel from Paul and pondered in their hearts the image of Jesus Christ crucified on the cross in their behalf, they gladly received the good news with faith. They also received the Holy Spirit (3:2-5,16).

With great faith in their new found religion, the Galatians abandoned their traditional, legalistic and ritualistic ways of worship and became new creatures. Their hearts burning with excitement of their new found faith, the Galatians did not spare themselves anything or have anything to fear. They were even prepared to suffer persecution for the Lord Jesus. The Galatians were very much like any new Christian converts in their excitement. They were fiery. They had finally found the hope and expectation that had eluded them for so long.

Thus, by the time Paul left the Galatian Province he was most glad with the assurance that he had planted strong churches and a good Christian beginning in this province (5:7). The reader may recall Jesus’ parable about the farmer who sowed wheat on his farm and the enemy came by night and planted tares (Matt. 13:24-30). That is exactly what happened in the Churches of Galatia. No sooner had Paul left the Galatian Province than false Jewish teachers came in and preached their own good news very much at variance from what Paul had preached to the Galatians.

These false Jewish teachers pressured the Galatian converts into thinking that faith alone was insufficient to enable one to inherit the kingdom of God. They pressured the Galatians to accept the Torah and circumcision as precondition for their salvation. They taught that in addition to believing that Jesus is the Messiah, one must also observe Mosaic traditions such as circumcision, dietary laws, and ritual washing of hands. These false teachers taught that for anyone who aspired to inherit the kingdom of God, he must first receive Jesus and Moses, faith and circumcision, the grace of God and the Mosaic Law. This new message contradicted Paul’s preaching to them that Jesus alone was the way (5:2-6). The false teachers had their own traditions of worship through which they derived pride and joy. The immigrant Jews who had settled in this Province embraced the Mosaic traditions, laws and practices in their worship. On the other hand, the pride and joy of the Greeks in the Galatian Province was in their female deity known as Cyebele, the Great Mother god of Pharagia.

Thus, the Galatians who had converted to Christianity through the preaching of Paul, carried both their traditional ways of worship. They therefore sought to amalgamate Paul’s gospel with their own legalistic traditions and teachings. Traditional ways of worship and teachings were very much alive in the villages where the people spoke their own vernaculars instead of Greek. Paul, who himself spoke Greek, had not penetrated into these villages. On the other hand, syncretism was practiced in the big cities where people tended to blend all kinds of ways of worship. These city dwellers sought to shield their churches from the good news of Paul when love, freedom, and responsibility for his gospel over-burdened them. That was precisely the basis of the faith problems that confronted the Galatian Churches.

Why Did Paul Write the Epistle to the Galatians?

We have already seen that after Paul had preached and planted churches in the Galatian Province, false teachers followed him preaching a different gospel from the one he had preached. At first the Galatian Christians doubted whether indeed it was possible for one to be saved through the grace of God alone and not be bound to laws and traditional practices and rituals. The Galatians were well known for their fickleness and for their survival maneuvers. Before long, they abandoned Paul’s gospel of salvation by grace and resorted to following the mosaic traditions like circumcision.

We cannot help but ask ourselves why the Galatians changed so quickly. There were several reasons why they did this. First, we have seen that the Galatians were fickle in temperament. They were likely to change like the chameleon. This means that although the Galatians had been saved through the grace of God, when the false teachers preached and persuaded them to accept their new gospel, their former nature resurrected in them. They resorted to mosaic traditions, thus, finding the Mosaic Laws acceptable to follow. If for no other reason, the Galatians did this in order to find acceptability with the Judaizers.

Second, the false teachers employed deceitful ways to win converts. They deceived the Galatians by insisting that Paul himself was not an apostle since he was not one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. These false teachers told the Galatians that since Paul was not one of the twelve disciples, his teaching was not consistent with that of Peter, John or even with that of Jesus himself. The false teacher further said that because of this reason, Paul had taught the Galatians and others to abandon the Mosaic Laws in order to please them. According to these false teachers, Paul had watered down the gospel by making it too easy for converts to Christianity to enter the kingdom of God. All these accusations led the Galatians to further doubt Paul’s teaching to them. Doubt is an old tool employed by Satan to confuse and mislead the people of God.

Third, there was yet another group that fought the good news of Paul in the Galatian Province. This group taught that being religious was far and above ethics. This means that to be religious does not require one to refrain himself/herself from any prohibition or even to abandon anything immoral. Thus, one can become religious and continue to commit sins like adultery and yet his/her heart remains unscathed by such sinful practices. This group could therefore neither understand nor agree with Paul’s teaching about crucifying the old humanity on the cross. Similarly, this group could not understand Paul’s teaching about the Christian bearing the fruits of the spirit. This group believed and taught that for one to become a Christian was to acquire limitless freedom completely unfettered by any prohibitions or requirements. This group was known as the libertines. Libertines are persons who act without any moral restraint. They are freethinkers who defy the established religious regulations and ethics. Libertinism is alive and well in our church today. There are revisionists in the church today who readily teach that the Christian has no moral obligation at all.

These are the three main reasons that led Paul to write the Epistle to the Galatians. His primary purpose was to correct the false doctrine the Galatians had received from the false teachers. First, he wanted to remind them about the faith they had when they were saved. Their salvation was on faith alone. He exhorted them to return to that faith. Second, Paul wanted to make his enemies, together with the Galatians, aware of how he had become an apostle on the merit of being called by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Third, Paul wanted to contrast how salvation by grace was far superior to salvation by works. He also wanted to point out how the law was only meant to be a custodian until the more superior grace of God had come and overtaken it. Fourth, Paul wanted to warn the Galatian freethinkers who thought and taught that to become a Christian was a license to sin. He wanted them to know that to become a Christian was to become a new creature and that one was required to bear the fruits of the spirit.

Date of Galatians

When was the Epistle to the Galatians written? New Testament scholars have extensively debated the date of the Epistle to the Galatians. The date continues to be important in our understanding and interpretation of the New Testament in general, and of the Epistle to the Galatians in particular. According to the opinion of some scholars, this letter was written by Paul from the city of Antioch in Syria, after he had returned from his first missionary journey mentioned in Acts 13-14. These scholars suggest that Paul wrote this letter before he went back to Jerusalem for the first Council of the Church detailed in Acts 15.

According to this view, Paul wrote this letter after he had visited Jerusalem twice following his dramatic conversion on his way to Damascus. Paul says as much in this epistle (Gal. 1:18-2:10). If he had visited Jerusalem more than two times, he would have given this information in this passage. This means that Paul’s return to Jerusalem for the Church Council was his third visit to Jerusalem. This further means that the Epistle to the Galatians was written before Paul and Barnabas attended the Jerusalem Council of the Church. From Acts 13-14 one ascertains that the Galatian Churches were planted before the Jerusalem Council had convened. This we know because a report on these churches was tabled in this Church Council. Thus the Epistle to the Galatians was written between Paul’s first missionary journey and his third visit to Jerusalem for the Jerusalem Council.

On the basis of the chronology in the Acts of apostles, Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written between C.E. 49-50. However, some New Testament scholars do not concur with this conclusion because the argument fails to answer all the questions raised in this problem. The main problem with the conclusion that Paul wrote this epistle before attending the Jerusalem Council narrated in Acts 15 is the information we have in Galatians 2:1-10. In this passage, Paul refers to the Jerusalem Council as a past event, a clear indication that Paul wrote this epistle after attending the Jerusalem Council. The Jerusalem Council was held in C.E. 49. This suggests that the Epistle to the Galatians was written after C.E. 49.

Acts 15 talks about the Great Jerusalem Council attended by James, the brother of Jesus, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Paul’s companion in his first missionary journey, and other apostles. These council attendees were debating the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Christian Church. In Galatians chapter 2 Paul mentions this Council which discussed the same issue of the inclusion of the Gentile converts in the church.

Those scholars who prefer an early date for this epistle must therefore account for two Council meetings in Jerusalem that discussed the issue of the Gentile converts in the church. The Council mentioned by Paul in Galatians Chapter 2 met in Jerusalem when Paul went up to Jerusalem, as explained in Acts 11:29-30. According to this account, Paul had gone up to Jerusalem for a different reason but met the other apostles where they discussed the issue of the Gentiles in relation to the Church.

According to this argument, Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, did not account