THE GALATIAN PROBLEM

The Galatian problem concerns us a great deal more than the Galatian location. Galatians was written response to a problem, or more accurately, a set of problems that plagued the churches in that region.

Galatians is actually one side of a debate. It's a formal rebuttal to certain claims that were being advanced by people who had managed to acquire a considerable amount of influence in the Galatian churches since Paul had last visited there.

The style of Galatians differs radically from most of the writings of Paul. He normally would have begun with salutations - friendly greetings to the churches, in which he would say kind words of praise and thanksgiving and then gradually ease in to the more threatening material. He didn't do that in Galatians. And he didn't end with complimentary remarks and greetings to individuals who were known to be people of faith. He dispensed with the formalities and got right to his point.

From to beginning to end, Paul hammered on the problem. It's like being wheeled in the emergency room with a massive hemorrhage. The doctor doesn't take the time to visit with you about the weather, the Super Bowl and the state of the nation's economy when you're bleeding to death. He doesn't even take a medical history. He'll get that later. He's concerned with stopping the bleeding, because if he doesn't get that bleeding stop, then you're not going to care with it's rain or shine on Tuesday.

Paul was dealing with an emergency, spiritual problem and he got right to it. There's a very brief doxology - an expression of praise in 1:3-5

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

• The debate proposition.

I have suggested that Galatians is the negative side of a debate. A debate has to have a proposition and we can determine the proposition of the affirmative by reading the negative denials.

The affirmative proposition was

A gentile must be circumcised and observe the law of Moses in order to be a good Christian.

Even though we have cast Paul as the negative participant in this discussion and the teachers who were influencing the Galatians on the affirmative side, their affirmative is in reality a negative that is positively stated. Essentially, they were saying to the Galatian Gentile Christian, "You are not acceptable Christians because you aren't circumcised and you don't keep the law of Moses." These teacher are often identified as "Judaizing teachers," which means they were Jewish Christians, who had converted from Judaism, but nevertheless insist on binding the Hebrews customs and the Hebrew rituals on people who knew nothing of those customs and rituals. They were saying, "You can't be good Christians until you're like we are - dress the same way, eat the same food and adopt all aspects of our lifestyle."

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