CBI GALATIANS INTRODUCTION (CLASS 1)

INTRODUCE OURSELVES

Just like the first 2 chapters of Galatians begin with a testimony of Paul

I thought we would start our study in Galatians with a short testimony of ourselves

then we will talk about vision for this course.

Mike shares 10-15 min testimony with vision for class

I share 10-15 min testimony with the vision for class

Ask Mike if there is anything he wants to add about the vision for the class.

Quick overview of syllabus

Have students read book of Galatians (22 min)

Break

I teach Gal 1:1-5 with an Intro to Galatians

Galatians 1:1-5

Galatians 1:1–5 NKJV

Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Here is Pauls introduction to the book Galatians

The

Introduction As we come to the Letter to the Galatians itself, one of the first questions we need to ask is: Who were the Galatians? There are actually, here, some thorny issues to untangle.

Possible Locations of the Galatian Churches A major question has to do with where these churches were in the large Roman province of Galatia. Does Paul address the churches in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe—the church in the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia? Acts 13 and 14 locate Paul’s mission to these churches, to southern Galatia, really quite at the outset of his missionary work. If this is the case, this might make Galatians one of the earliest of Paul’s Letters. Or does Paul address churches and cities in the northern part of the Roman province of Galatia, which was also the more historic center of people who were also ethnically Galatians—that is, descendants of Gauls who had migrated to this region centuries before. If so, Acts tells us nothing about this mission, though the spare references to the Galatian region in Acts 16 and 18 are taken by many scholars as a sign of such a mission. If this were the case, the letter could date from a later period in Paul’s ministry, closer in time to Romans with which it shares so much topically. Reconciling Galatians and Acts Related to this is another question: How does Paul’s narrative in Gal 1:11–2:14 line up with the narrative of Acts 8–15? Particularly important in this regard is the question of how Paul’s reports about the visits he has made to Jerusalem line up with the Acts narrative, which tells of multiple visits made by Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem. The critical issue here is whether Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem narrated in Gal 2 is to be identified with the Jerusalem conference of Acts 15 or with the earlier famine relief visit of Acts 11. One’s answer places Galatians earlier or later in Paul’s mission. Argument for South Galatia I remember in my seminary class on Galatians how our professor spent the first two weeks of the semester on these questions. We do not have such leisure here and must leave the matter for your further, fuller investigation. Suffice it to say for now that I find most persuasive the arguments for locating these churches in south Galatia—the churches founded by Paul and Barnabas as narrated in Acts 13–14. Although Paul’s recollection of his missionary visits to these churches in Gal 4 is notably different. I also find most persuasive the view that places the action behind Galatians before the Jerusalem conference of Acts 15, mainly because the Jerusalem conference of Acts 15 issues a consensus statement concerning the circumcision of Gentile Christians and rules on the issue of table fellowship between Jewish and Gentile converts that would have helped Paul’s case so much. It would be a great mystery that he doesn’t cite it more specifically and that rival Jewish teachers are still proclaiming, in the name of the Jerusalem church, a different gospel. Paul’s Previous Ministry to the Galatians Paul gives us very few windows into the former history of his converts in Galatia. Galatians 3:2–5 is one important window into their initial experiences. In this brief passage, Paul remembers how he proclaimed to them the crucified Messiah, interpreting this as a death endured on behalf of the Galatians, an act of self-giving love that redeemed them from the present evil age and from bondage to its powers and its constraints and also redeemed them from their sins and the consequent alienation from God that these sins had caused. He had no doubt preached there, as elsewhere, the absolute necessity of turning to God from idols, giving the one God His due honor, loyalty, and obedience. He also proclaimed that God was now dealing with Jews and Gentiles on the same basis, making both right with Him and right before Him through their trust in Jesus, the efficacy of His death, and the power of the Spirit to shape Christ within them, making them righteous indeed from the inside out. As he will point out twice in Galatians itself, both in 3:2–5 and in 4:6–7, the Galatians’ reception of the Holy Spirit, which came among and upon them in undeniable ways, was proof enough of what Jesus’ death had accomplished for them and proof of their acceptance by the Holy God into God’s family—the family God promised to create long ago as He swore to Abraham. Influence of Rival Teachers After Paul founded these churches and moved on to new mission fields, other Jewish Christian teachers came into his territory with a decidedly different take on some important questions. Paul refers to them explicitly throughout Galatians, most notably and forcibly in 1:6–9 and 5:7–12. While these rival teachers also would acclaim Jesus to be God’s Messiah, they would not agree that Jesus’ coming means a shift in the means of living righteously before God; it was still very much by walking in line with the Torah—the law God gave to God’s people through Moses. Christ brought forgiveness for the Jews who would trust Him in regard to their sins against the covenant for which there were no traditional provisions, chiefly intentional sins or sins of avoidable negligence. Christ also extended afresh to the Gentiles the opportunity to join themselves to the people of God by taking on the yoke of the Torah, becoming descendants of Abraham by joining Abraham in the rite of circumcision, marking themselves as part of God’s distinctive, Jewish people. The rival teachers had a very powerful and plausible message as it began to make headway among Paul’s converts in Galatia, making them question how well Paul had presented the gospel to them.

David A. deSilva, Bible Survey Video Series: Galatians, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).

Paul addresses 4 false teachings that were being spread around these churches.

while these false teachings may seem rediculus, you have to understand that the churches in Galatia were believing them, and practicing them.

False Teachings:

You must be circumsized to be linked to God’s coventant with His people.

Uncircumcised cannot event the Holy City especailly not the Holy Sactuary.

Following the Torah (first 5 books) makes you more righteouss.

*** heres what was happening the people of Galatia were a very wild group of people and so when they converted to trusting in Jesus these false teachers would say you got to cut off that old life and circumscion was the pcityres of that so then they would think that because they seperate from the world through circumscion now they live seperate according to the Torah.

4. Lastly these false teachers seemed to have underminded Pauls credibility.

Learning Objectives After this section, you should be able to: • List three persuasive arguments Paul’s rivals may have used in their preaching to the Galatians • Explain how Paul’s rivals may have tried to undermine his credibility Introduction It must be admitted that the rival teachers would have been able to make a strong case—strong enough to overcome Gentile prejudice against circumcision as a barbarous act of mutilation and against the Torah as a collection of backwards, provincial laws. Circumcision Linked to Covenant Circumcision and belonging to God’s people were firmly linked in Scripture. According to Scripture, the promises were to be given to Abraham and his children. How did one become a part of the family of Abraham and an heir of the promises? The answer in Scripture, these rival teachers would be able to say, was through circumcision. They could easily have turned to Gen 17, where we hear God speaking, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.… Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Uncircumcised Barred from Holy City and Sanctuary In God’s future, the uncircumcised would not enter Jerusalem, the holy city, or God’s temple. The rival teachers could have turned to prophetic texts like Isa 52:1: “Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more,” or perhaps this text from Ezek 44: “Thus says the Lord God: No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary.” This could easily be interpreted to mean that the uncircumcised would be barred from the eschatological kingdom of God. Keeping Torah Builds Virtue The rival teachers could also have appealed to the Galatians’ desire to live ever more moral and virtuous lives. Indeed, the Galatians’ own ongoing struggles against the passions of the flesh might have been a key factor in making them receptive to the message of these rival teachers, who could present circumcision as a symbolic act of cutting away excess desire and an initiation into a way of life that was designed at every turn to train a person to say no to the passions and yes to virtue. This way of life would be the Torah-driven way of life. For those seeking to make progress in moral virtue, the Torah could be offered as a rigorous regimen of practices designed to strengthen the individual’s ability to say no to the impulses of the passions, desires, and sensations. A valuable background text in this regard is 4 Maccabees found in most printed versions of the Apocrypha. Just in the first three chapters, the author of 4 Maccabees discusses how specific regulations of Torah act as prescriptions, God-given prescriptions, against self-gratification, greed, anger, and even improper indulgence of vice among family because one is soft toward them. For those seeking perfection in virtue, perfection in righteousness before God, the Torah offers a proven path forward. It appears that the Galatians might well have been desiring to make progress in this regard. When Paul asks in Gal 3:3, “Having begun with the Spirit, will you arrive at the goal by means of the flesh?” Paul’s question there assumes that arriving at the goal, being perfected, is in fact a good thing. But what is wrong is the way in which the Galatians are now thinking they might make progress toward that end. Undermining Paul’s Credibility There is some debate as to whether or not these rival teachers regarded themselves, indeed, to be Paul’s rivals. My own sense is that whether or not they were initially motivated by a desire to clean up after Paul and his fast and loose, law-free gospel, once they encountered Pauline churches, they would have had to explain why they were to be trusted more than Paul was to be trusted when it came to learning what God really wanted. It is possible that they were also the first to tell the story of the Antioch incident, which Paul also brings up in Gal 2:11–14, though the rival teachers would have given this a different spin. For them, Peter would have been more the hero in Antioch, who was called back to the right way of observing the boundaries between Jew and Gentile even within the church. These rival teachers might well have argued that Paul got his gospel from the same place that they did. If Paul’s gospel differs from what they were now teaching the Galatians, it was Paul who was deviating from the truth of the gospel. They certainly hinted that Paul preached circumcision elsewhere. This is the only reasonable explanation for Paul’s interjection in Gal 5:11: “But if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?” Perhaps the rival teachers would have suggested Paul left this part of the gospel out in Galatia, since he was such a people pleaser.

David A. deSilva, Bible Survey Video Series: Galatians, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).

After this section, you should be able to: • Explain why Paul was so adamantly opposed to circumcision and Torah observance as requirements for Christians • List three arguments Paul used to bolster his case Introduction The rival teachers were having some success winning over Paul’s converts in Galatia, perhaps not to the point of performing the initiation rite on any, but certainly bringing them to the threshold of taking the plunge into the Torah-driven life as the way to please God. Paul got word of what was going on, probably from loyal members of those churches, and sent the Letter to the Galatians as an impassioned plea to his converts to stop thinking about going down that path. His principal goal for the letter is straightforward: “Christ freed you for freedom. Stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Three Key Questions In order to persuade the Galatians to follow his advice against taking the course of action being urged by the rival teachers, Paul will address three principal questions in Galatians. First, why should the Galatians trust Paul rather than the rival teachers? Second, what is the role of Torah and circumcision in God’s economy and thus the Christian’s relationship to the law given by God if it is not what the rival teachers say? Finally, if the Galatians aren’t going to rely on Torah to help them progress toward righteousness before God, what do they have to guide them? Torah-Driven Life Incompatible with Faith in Christ According to Paul, the stakes are incredibly high here. While the rival teachers have presented trusting Jesus and enjoying His benefits as entirely compatible with, and complementary to, accepting circumcision as the initiatory rite into the people of God and the Torah-driven life, Paul argues that the two are entirely incompatible; to choose now to embrace the latter means losing the former entirely. Galatians 5:2–4 He writes immediately after his plea to stand firm in freedom, “I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again, I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Grace versus Works of the Law Here is the heart of Paul’s opposition between grace and works of the law: one either trusts what Jesus has accomplished on behalf of human beings in their relationship with God and trusts in the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit—that hard-won gift—to lead one into righteousness before God, or one spurns these gifts in favor of trusting in the Torah-driven life. Adding Torah Devalues Christ In Galatians 2:15–21, Paul establishes what he believes to be the common ground between himself and other Jewish Christians: we all recognize together that doing the Torah wasn’t going to bring us to be right before God except through trusting Jesus. The point of disagreement is that, for Paul, trusting Jesus and the benefits Jesus confers is entirely sufficient for becoming right before God. Indeed, if we were now to add to trusting Jesus the requirement of being circumcised and keeping the Torah, we would be devaluing Jesus and His benefits—something that Paul staunchly refuses to do, as he writes in 2:21, “I do not set aside God’s gift, for if righteousness is through the Torah, then Christ died for nothing.” Paul’s Message Comes Directly from God Here we can only attempt to give a brief orientation to the argument of Galatians—that is, how Paul addresses those three essential questions. Galatians 1:12–2:14 can largely be read as a response to the first question: Why trust Paul over the rival teachers? In this section, Paul establishes several key points in response. First, Paul wasn’t won over by other people to this gospel that he preaches. He was won over—bowled over, more like—by the risen and glorified Christ. The before and the after of that encounter, which he lays out in chapter 1, should provide sufficient proof of the encounter. His message is a commission coming directly from God. Any opposing message is opposed to the truth of the gospel. Jerusalem Apostles Agree with Paul Second, Paul has demonstrated his independence of the Jerusalem apostles and thus further demonstrated that the source of his commission is God, not human beings. At the same time, however, he has been in touch with the Jerusalem apostles and secured their agreement with his message and his mission. If anyone is now saying otherwise, it’s not Paul who is breaking this sacred trust. Paul’s Courage versus Rivals’ Cowardice Third, Paul has also demonstrated that he is willing to stand up for the truth of the gospel in the face of human opposition, no matter what the stakes. He stood up against false brothers who wanted the Jerusalem apostles to insist that Titus, Paul’s early Gentile convert, be circumcised. He stood up against Peter at Antioch when Peter wavered on the truth of the gospel, namely, God’s acceptance of Jews and Gentiles alike on the basis of trusting Jesus and not on the basis of conformity with the Torah. He stands up against the hostility of non-Christian Jews who assault Paul because they regard, rightly, his mission to be a threat to the sacred boundaries around God’s holy people Israel. By contrast, Paul accuses these rival teachers of being motivated by cowardice. They refuse to pay the price for speaking the truth about God’s plan for all people in Christ, cowering in the face of zealous Jews who, as Paul himself had done prior to encountering the glorified Christ, persecute those Jews whose practice they deem a threat to the covenant. Paul may not be correct about his rivals’ internal motives, but he is correct about the social realities in which the early Christian movement moves. Showing the early Christian movement to be no threat to the covenant or to the social identity of the Jewish people—that is, by having Gentiles mix with Jews wholly on Jewish terms—would ease a great deal of tension and hostility between the church and the synagogue. Conclusion The Galatians can, therefore, trust Paul also because of their close friendship and their deep mutual investment in each other for each other’s good, as Paul will remind them in the middle of chapter 4.

David A. deSilva, Bible Survey Video Series: Galatians, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).

After this section, you should be able to: • Explain why Paul refers to the Holy Spirit as an assurance of the Galatians’ adoption into God’s family • Describe at least three of Paul’s arguments that the Galatians’ salvation is based on faith, not works of the law Introduction Paul devotes much of Gal 3 and 4 to the second question: Who is the heir of the divine promises? Who is a part of the family of Abraham? The decisive proof that the Galatians are already heirs of God’s promise is their experience of receiving the Holy Spirit, something that happened among them in a way such as left no doubt. Gift of the Spirit: A Sign of Adoption Paul opens his argumentative section of Galatians with this: “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?… Does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?” Similarly, toward the end of his first lengthy barrage of proofs, Paul returns to the topic of the experience of the Spirit and its significance for this question. In Galatians 4:6–7 we find Paul declaring, “Because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” Paul identifies the Holy Spirit as the content of the blessing of Abraham that was promised to the nations, the promised gift in Gal 3:14. How? The Spirit came upon all who trusted in Jesus, whether Jews or Gentiles. It was as universal in scope as had been the promise to Abraham: “In you all the nations will be blessed,” as God spoke to Abraham in Gen 12:3. Also, the phenomenon of being filled with the Spirit was experienced by early Christians as a sublime acceptance into God’s own family, an experience that led to identifying God as “Abba, Father.” Their own experience of God’s Holy Spirit gives them assurance enough, Paul would say, of their adoption into God’s family on the basis of having trusted what Jesus had done on their behalf and committing themselves to walk in this grace relationship with Him. Just like Isaac—the spiritual child of Abraham—they had been born on the basis of trusting God’s promise, rather than the deeds of the flesh. Arguments for Belief In the midst of these claims, Paul will offer several logical arguments on the basis of close readings of Scripture texts. In Galatians 3:10–14, Paul demonstrates the fundamental incompatibility of doing the works of the Torah and depending on trust on the basis of Old Testament witnesses. Abraham’s Seed In 3:15–18, Paul looks closely at the promise given to Abraham and to his seed. Paul will argue that the singular form of “seed” is significant. It is not a promise given to the physical descendants of Abraham as a group, but a promise to a particular descendant—the Christ, Jesus. Therefore, those who join themselves to this particular seed, this particular descendant, as the Christ followers have done through faith and baptism, become seed of Abraham in union with Christ and, thereby, heirs of God’s promise. Clothing Oneself with Christ What matters hereafter, Paul asserts, is putting on Christ, whose single and singular identity wipes out the distinctions that formerly divided people and marked some as insiders, or privileged, and others as outsiders, or disprivileged—as he writes in a climactic moment of his argumentative section at the close of Gal 3: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Purpose of the Torah Why then the Torah? Paul lays out his distinctive and highly controversial view of God’s plan. The promise to Abraham and the fulfillment of that promise to those who join themselves to Jesus, the seed, is the principal axis of God’s plan for bringing blessing to humanity. The Torah is a temporary measure designed to keep a particular people corralled off from the mass of idolatrous humanity until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made. The Torah, given 430 years after the promise to Abraham, did not become an amendment or an add-on requirement. It was, instead, merely a stopgap measure. It had the same function for God’s people as does the household slave who functions as a disciplinarian for the young children, taking them to school, making sure they do their homework, keeping them in line. Reject the Yoke of Slavery But the coming of the Holy Spirit marked the coming of age of the people of God, formed anew in and around the seed, Jesus Christ. To revert now to living under the authority of the Torah should be as unthinkable as for the grown person to put himself or herself under the authority of the nanny once again. Since the Torah and, all the more, the elemental principles of the cosmos that restrained and constrained the lives of Gentiles was, in essence, a form of slavery, it would be unthinkable to throw away the costly gift of freedom that Christ won for all people by returning now to any yoke of slavery.

David A. deSilva, Bible Survey Video Series: Galatians, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).

Learning Objectives After this section, you should be able to: • Explain what Christians need to do to become righteous before God • Explain the purpose of freedom in Christ Introduction But if we don’t have rules and regulations, won’t the flesh just take over? How can we ever hope to attain that righteousness that God wants for us to exhibit, if not by measuring up to the Torah? In Galatians 5:13–6:10, Paul takes up this important third question. We should carefully observe that Paul never chides the Galatians for having the goal of becoming righteous before God, of lining themselves up with God’s righteous standards—one way of thinking about justification language in Galatians. Holy Spirit’s Transforming Power Paul does not see faith in Christ merely as a way to be acquitted at the last judgment, irrespective of the life one leads after trusting in Jesus. Rather Paul sees faith in Christ as the way to become the righteous person that God will acquit. The pointed issue for him is whether that will happen by taking on the yoke of Torah or trusting in what Jesus has already provided. In this final major section of Galatians, we find Paul making the case that the Holy Spirit, the promised blessing that Christ has now made available to all who trust Him, is sufficient for the work of transformation and superior to the Torah or anything else for this work of transformation. I say transformation because Paul’s goal is that Christ be fully formed in the Galatian Christians, as he writes in 4:19, even as Christ is taking on flesh in Paul, who declared that “it is no longer me living, but Christ living in me” in Gal 2:19. This is the new creation—that which counts before God, whereas whether or not one is circumcised now has no value before God at all. Freedom Leading to Virtue, Not Vice Paul prepares us for this lengthier exposition in his first major proof. After he had asked in Gal 3:2, “Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?” he comments, “Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” Perhaps a better way to translate the second half of that verse is: “Are you now moving forward to completion with the flesh?” Paul’s rhetorical question suggests that having made a start by means of the Spirit, only the Spirit can truly take one on to the completion of this process of transformation. As he writes in Gal 5:5, “For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” Paul will thus assure the Galatians that the freedom Christ gives is not an occasion for the flesh to take control, leading a person deeper and deeper into vice, but an occasion for the Spirit to guide the believer into all virtue. Walking in line with the Spirit, sowing to the Spirit, will assure that the believer will manifest the virtues that the righteous God approves. Works of the Flesh Now that we are adults before God, there’s no pretending like we don’t know right from wrong. Paul writes, “The works that spring from the flesh are evident” in Gal 5:19. We know them when we see them, when we are moved in their direction, when we give ourselves over to them. We know the consequences of doing so, as he writes just two verses later, “I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We know where the flesh takes us, so we can identify and turn away from its leading. Similarly, we know where the Spirit leads us and the way the Spirit empowers us to live out the newness of life that Jesus died to bring into being in us. So Paul can promise, “Walk in line with the Spirit, and you will certainly not bring the flesh’s desires to fruition.” Holy Spirit Is Trustworthy The question facing the Galatians is ultimately one of trust: Can they trust the Holy Spirit to lead them into, and empower them for, righteousness before God? Can they trust themselves to be rigorously honest with God, with their Christian sisters and brothers, and with themselves in regard to when they are following the Spirit and when they are making room to indulge the promptings of the flesh? In Galatians, Paul has made his best case for assuring his converts, and the generations of Christians since, that they can trust the Spirit and that this is indeed part of what it means to trust Jesus, to trust that His provisions are indeed sufficient to deliver what He promises.

David A. deSilva, Bible Survey Video Series: Galatians, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).

P. Mike teaches Galatians 1:6-24