Some letters begin with pleasantries and some go straight to the point. A parent who hears that a child has been talked into something dangerous does not open with news about the weather. Galatians is that kind of letter. Paul's letters usually begin by thanking God for their readers; this one does not. After a few lines of greeting he writes, in effect, 'I am amazed at you.' Teachers have arrived in the young Galatian churches telling Gentile believers that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to belong fully to God's people. Paul thinks the whole gospel is at stake.
Where it sits in the story: Act 5 — the church. The mission of Acts 13–14 brought Gentiles into the church without asking them to become Jews first. Now that question — must Gentile believers be circumcised? — breaks into the open. Galatians is Paul's first answer to it, written in the heat of the moment; Acts 15 will show the whole church facing the same question at Jerusalem.
What this chapter is doing: To state the letter's charge — the Galatians are deserting the gospel — and to begin Paul's defence that his gospel came by revelation from Christ, independent of the Jerusalem leaders.
- 1:1–5 — Paul names himself an apostle sent not by human authority but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. He greets the churches of Galatia with grace and peace from Christ, who gave himself to rescue us from the present evil age.
- 1:6–10 — He is astonished they are so quickly turning to a different gospel — really no gospel at all, only a distortion. Even if Paul himself or an angel from heaven preached otherwise, let that one be accursed; he says it twice. He is not trying to please people but to serve Christ.
- 1:11–17 — His gospel was not taught him by any human; it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He had violently persecuted the church and outstripped his peers in zeal for tradition, but God, who set him apart from birth, revealed his Son to him. He did not consult Jerusalem but went to Arabia, then back to Damascus.
- 1:18–24 — Three years later he went to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas (Peter), staying fifteen days, and saw no other apostle except James the Lord's brother — he swears he is not lying. Then he went to Syria and Cilicia, unknown by sight to the Judean churches, who only heard that their former persecutor now preached the faith.
Key verse: Galatians 1:11–12 · So what: Galatians 1:8–9 is among the harshest lines Paul wrote, and it should be read plainly: he calls down God's curse — the Greek word is anathema — on anyone, himself included, who preaches a different gospel. It is aimed at teachers inside the church, not outsiders, and the formula was later used to condemn heresy. It shows how much Paul thought was at stake: whether Gentiles belong to God by grace in Christ, or only by becoming Jews first.