PAUL’S URGENT CONCERN IN HIS LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

GALATIANS

We correspond with our friends, family, and associates for a variety of reasons. While some of those messages are written in a more casual and leisurely way, others brim with urgency. Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia2 is clearly in the latter category. We will see that Paul witnessed the birth of the churches in Galatia and subsequently wrote them this urgent letter for a reason.

Paul addressed his letter “to the churches in Galatia” (Gal. 1:2). These are churches that Paul visited on all three of his journeys. Consequently, the people in cities like Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe had met with Paul on at least four different occasions (Acts 13:13–14:23; 15:36–16:5; 18:23). But why did he travel to this region in the first place, and why did he make repeated visits? His first visit with them may well have come at the insistence and encouragement of Sergius Paulus. He was the Roman proconsul in Paphos on the island of Cyprus. On the first journey recorded in Acts, Barnabas and Paul (along with their young assistant, John Mark) had traveled to this island and this city with the Good News about Jesus (Acts 13:4–12). While there, Sergius Paulus came to believe, “for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord” (Acts 13:12). Since this proconsul had family and political connections in Pisidian Antioch, he may well have encouraged Barnabas and Paul to make a stop there. He may also have provided them with a letter of safe conduct to facilitate their travels through the region.3

Caesar Augustus dedicated this temple at Pisidian Antioch to the idol Cybele (Kybele).

The theater at Pisidian Antioch was originally built by the Greeks but later enlarged by the Romans.

Readers of the Bible expect to find Jewish people in the Promised Land but may be surprised to find that Galatia boasted a sizable Jewish population at the time of Paul.4 These Jewish families were familiar with the language and promises of the Scriptures. So when Barnabas and Paul entered cities like Pisidian Antioch or Iconium, they stopped first at the Jewish synagogue in order to present the news about Jesus to fellow Jews (Acts 13:14; 14:1). Given the large number of Jews and synagogues in Galatia, this region received Paul’s undivided attention for days on end. And given the fact that the umbrella of protection offered by Sergius Paulus likely covered the cities connected to Pisidian Antioch by regional roadways, we find Barnabas and Paul making stops in places like Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe as well.

“Judaizers”5 were following behind Paul and telling the new believers in the Galatian churches that no one could be brought into the fulfillment of Judaism through Jesus unless they combined that faith with the external mark of circumcision and practiced Mosaic law. In starting this letter, Paul barely gets a civil greeting out before he expresses disappointment. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all” (Gal. 1:6). Then throughout the letter and in varying ways he returns again and again to the same theme: “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:15).

Paul wrote his urgent letter to the Galatians for a reason. Judaizers had been going throughout Galatia demanding that the churches enforce Mosaic law. Soon after his return from the region Paul wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia to stop the teaching of the Judaizers before it became ingrained.

Aqueducts brought water into Pisidian Antioch.