grace and greetings

Good morning all,
Today we begin Paul's letter to the Galatians. This is a powerful letter about how we are saved by God's grace in Jesus Christ apart from the works of the law. Imagine for a second that Paul, as a Pharisee, had spent his earlier life striving for righteousness through the law. Now he is convinced that the law was only meant to be a guardian for our morals until Jesus was revealed. That's quite a transformation and it has implications for Paul's whole understanding.

One thing you'll notice throughout this letter is that Paul is very forceful (we could also say aggressive) in his language. There were Jewish Christian teachers who taught that Christians had to obey the whole law of Moses; these ideas seem to have taken hold in Galatia. For Paul there are plenty of matters Christians can disagree about, but salvation by grace instead of the law is not one. We'll see his arguments play out as we read this letter. Notice also the emphasis Paul puts on the fact that he is commissioned by God, not by people. We'll see more about this later as well.

God bless,
Sam

Galatians 1:1-9
Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2and all the members of God’s family who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!