CHAPTER 1 THE ADDRESS. Galatians 1:1 ANTIQUITY has nothing to show more notable in its kind, or more precious, than this letter of Paul to the Churches of Galatia. It takes us back, in some respects nearer than any other document we possess, to the beginnings of Christian theology and the Christia... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 2 THE SALUTATION. Galatians 1:3 THE greetings and benedictions of the Apostolic Letters deserve more attention from us than they sometimes receive. We are apt to pass over them as if they were a kind of pious formality, like the conventional phrases of our own epistles. But to treat them... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 3 THE ANATHEMA. Galatians 1:6 AFTER the Salutation in Paul's Epistles comes the Thanksgiving. ευχαριστω or ευλογητος -these are the words we expect first to meet. Even in writing to Corinth, where there was so much to censure and deplore, he begins, "I give thanks to my God always for you... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 4 PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. Galatians 1:11 HERE the Epistle begins in its main purport. What has gone before is so much exordium. The sharp, stern sentences of Galatians 1:6 are like the roll of artillery that ushers in the battle. The mists rise from the field. We see the combatan... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 5 PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION. Galatians 1:15 IT pleased God to reveal His Son in me: this is after all the essential matter in Paul's conversion, as in that of every Christian. The outward manifestation of Jesus Christ served in his case to bring about this result, and was necessary to quali... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 6 PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. Galatians 1:18 FOR the first two years of his Christian life, Paul held no intercourse whatever with the Church at Jerusalem and its chiefs. His relation with them was commenced by the visit he paid to Peter in the third year after his conversion. And that... [ Continue Reading ]