Intro And Galatians Chapter 1 Series

Galatians Introduction:

Gala'tia. (land of the Galli, Gauls). The Roman province of Galatia may be roughly described as the central region of the peninsula of Asia Minor, bounded on the north by Bithynia and Paphlagonia; on the east, by Pontus; on the south, by Cappadocia and Lycaonia; on the west, by Phrygia. — Encyclopedia Britannica. Galatia is literally the "Gallia" of the East. Roman writers call its inhabitants Galli. From the intermixture of Gauls and Greeks (Pausan. 1:4), Galatia was also called Gallo-Graecia and its inhabitants Gallo- Graeci. The Galatians were in their origin a stream of that great Celtic torrent apparently which poured into Macedonia about B.C. 280 Galatia was not a city. It was a territory[consisting of South and North]. It encompassed an area that is now in Turkey. There were several churches founded by Paul in Galatia. And following Paul’s evangelistic efforts through the area and the founding of many churches, there were men who came in and they began to pervert the gospel that Paul had taught, the gospel of grace. And they began to preach another gospel which is not a gospel. Because the word gospel means good news. And if you tell me that God will forgive me all of my sins and account me righteous, if I will simply believe in Jesus Christ, that’s good news. But if you tell me that I must then follow certain rules and regulations and be obedient to the law and keep the law of God in order to be righteous, that’s not good news because no one’s been able to do that. And so Paul is writing to the Galatians to correct this teaching that had followed his ministry in their midst and to free them again from that bondage of the law that men were seeking to put them under.

We in the Gentile church today have so much to be thankful for because of this man, Paul the apostle. Had it not been for his strong stubborn stand on salvation through grace, Christianity could have reverted to just another Jewish sect. But Paul made his stand in front of all of them against all of them really insisting on this gospel of grace. Salvation through faith and through the grace of God.

And so Galatians is a very strong treatise against any form of legality. Any attempt to become righteous by our works or more righteous through our obedience to the law and it is really setting forth in a very powerful way the gospel of grace and justification by faith. It was this epistle to the Galatians that brought on the Protestant revolution, the revolution, yes; reformation which was a revolution from the corruptive practices of the church of that day. Martin Luther, shows up 1500 years later, was much like Paul the apostle in that he was one of those fellows who went all out in his religious practices. He was one of the most monkish of all of the monks. And had gone to Rome and in order to appease God was climbing the steps on his knees, one step at a time, offering the prayers and all at each step. And as he was going up these steps the Spirit of God spoke to his heart out of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Martin, the just shall live by faith. And that burned in his heart. And thus was born the Protestant reformation.

This glorious epistle that has set men free and has brought men into a vital relationship with God through faith. This epistle that opens the door to all men so that I may come freely unto God because I come to God and I learn to come to God through this epistle on the basis of God’s love and God’s grace, not on the basis of my merit, my works, my efforts.

Now these false teachers that came in, one of the first things they always sought to do was to discredit Paul. This is a typical ploy of false teachers. If you have been studying and learning under a minister, a man of God, they’ll come in and their first thing is to try to discredit the one that you have been studying under or the one that you were converted under. Now it seems that these false teachers never really seek to evangelize. But they’re always trying to go into those who believe and change their beliefs. (Chuck Smith)

When we read these letters we find the private letters we read that there is a pattern to which nearly all conformed. We find that Paul's letters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a Roman soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage: