Galatians is Paul's passionate letter to churches he had planted, written because other teachers were telling non-Jewish believers that faith in Christ was not enough and that they must also keep the Jewish law, including circumcision. Paul is unusually sharp: he tells his own story to show that his message came from Christ himself, recounts how the apostles in Jerusalem accepted it, and argues from Abraham and the promise that God has always counted people righteous through trust, not through law-keeping. Believers are children of God through faith, and in Christ the old dividing lines of ethnicity, status and gender no longer set anyone above another. Having been set free, they are not to use freedom as an excuse for selfishness but to serve one another in love and to walk by the Spirit, whose fruit shapes a new kind of life. Christians still discuss how exactly Paul relates faith and the law, but the letter has been a charter of Christian freedom since the earliest centuries.

Author

The apostle Paul; authorship is widely accepted.

Date

Debated: possibly about AD 48–49 (earlier view) or the early to mid 50s (later view).

Audience

The churches of Galatia, mostly Gentile believers in central Asia Minor.

Themes

Outline

1. 1:1–1:10Greeting and a warning about another gospel
2. 1:11–2:21Paul's calling and his gospel defended
3. 3:1–4:31Faith, promise and sonship
4. 5:1–6:10Freedom and life by the Spirit
5. 6:11–6:18Closing summary and blessing

Key verses