Galatians

Galatians is the apostle Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia, congregations he had planted in what is now central Turkey. It is his most urgent and fiery epistle, written because false teachers, often called Judaizers, had followed behind him insisting that Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved. Paul skips his usual thanksgiving and goes straight to astonishment: I marvel that ye are so soon removed unto another gospel. For him, nothing less than the gospel itself was at stake.

Paul first defends his apostleship, received not from men but by revelation of Jesus Christ, recounting his conversion and even his public rebuke of Peter at Antioch for withdrawing from Gentile believers. Then he argues the case: Abraham believed God and it was counted for righteousness; the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; and in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. The closing chapters turn to freedom rightly used, walking in the Spirit rather than the flesh, and the famous fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, and more.

Galatians matters because it guards the heart of Christianity: salvation is by grace through faith, plus nothing. Called the charter of Christian liberty, it fueled the Reformation and still frees believers from earning what Christ has already given.