A Verse-by-Verse Examination of Galatians
In Paul’s day, the final step was an issue. Today, however, the first step is refused. Death is brought on us by willing assimilation. This seems to be the case of the modern Christian church, which dies each time it embraces a worldly activity, trying so feebly to make it their own. When this is done, though, the world makes the church its own. Some blame this on Paul. They say, “Maybe he went to a pagan school to learn how to beat us by joining us. He seems to have done that over the years.” However, I do not blame Paul. Not anymore. The deception to move people away from living as the Messiah lived is much more in the disobedient heart than this letter. I assure you, man would have found a reason to transgress the Way. This had more to do with a few men not allowing people to even see the Scriptures for many hundreds of years. This anti-Semitic movement was a massive assimilation we have not yet gotten out of, but this is church history, and I am sure people know their history and seek to learn enough from it to avoid past mistakes, so I will stop there.
The whole problem stems from: “He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them concerning these things. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the other writings. You, therefore, beloved ones, being forewarned, guard yourselves, lest you are led away by the errors of lawless men and fall from your secure position,” (2 Peter 3:16-17). You see, some translations write out, “As they do the other Scriptures,” hence stating that Paul’s words are Scripture, even though the word is “writings.” However, let’s say for a moment it is “Scripture,” when David killed someone and took the man’s wife—it doesn’t make it right. The greatest crime of Christianity is that they take Paul’s words as Scripture that supercedes the Word of the Creator, our Messiah. We must stop reading the Bible like baby believers (a verse at a time), and start reading, when looking for the answers to a singular subject, the whole Bible without dividing His Word up as if it were a picnic. If the Almighty’s Word to the Israelites on Sinai is not for us, or His Word to Abraham is somehow removed 2,000 years later, then how can it be that His Word to the Corinthians is for us, or that Paul’s writing have any weight to us … 2,000 years later.
Paul valued his message beyond that of his own life. I, too, value this message beyond my own life, otherwise I would not have written it, for I assure you there will be little praise for it and much hatred. In truth, I have been in fear of my life already.
With my closing on this I would like to encourage everyone to read first and second Peter, as these letters went to the same people, to the Galatians. This letter, however, was to the men in Galatia. Many have read this letter on circumcision from Paul as it were unto them the cutting of the Law, and this tradition of lawlessness has been passed down generation after generation. Now, though, is the time to return to the heart of the matter.
… So, what is the heart of the writer of this letter? You see, every writer, whether they have written ten pages, or ten thousand, has a sentence, just one, that means the most to them. Sometimes it is such a personal sentence that readers do not always see it. The heart of the author, that sentence, sits adrift the sea of words, lost it seems, quite forgotten, but every now and then someone sees it and places their hand upon it and are saved by it. What is Paul’s sentence, his heart, in this letter? Why, dear brothers, ‘tis the same as mine own:
“Say to me, you who wish to be under Torah! … Do you not hear the Torah?”
Say to me, you who wish to be like the Messiah! … Do you not see how the Messiah lived? … Do you not see? Salvation is free, and His yoke is light.
Selah
Be Blessed and be a Blessing
Shalom
-Valentine Thalken Billingsley
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Additional Scripture References:
Genesis to Revelations
