Galatians 1-2: The Jerusalem Conference Revisited

As the fledgling Christian movement (known as “the Church”) grew, Paul was no longer able to keep up with each one by visiting them. His strategy was to send a letter by messengers (often fellow missionaries) to a region and have the letter circulated through the churches. Galatia refers to a northern area of Asia minor (present day Turkey), but there is no reference to Paul ever having ventured that far north, and this letter gives every indication he had been among the people. It is more likely that Galatia here refers to that whole section of Asia minor, which would include many of the cities he visited on is first missionary journey (Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, etc). We know from our reading in Acts that Judaizers (Jewish Christians with Pharisee background) were stirring up a controversy over circumcision. It was the whole reason that Paul had been called back to Jerusalem. It looks like Paul was fresh off that experience with the Jerusalem Council when he penned this letter, which he says in Gal. 2:1 was fourteen years after his Damascus Road experience.

Paul immediately jumps into the issue by countering the Judaizers (saying they are offering a different gospel and there is no other gospel). His language is combative (let them “be accursed” or “eternally condemned”). It will get more graphic before the letter is over! He is a former Pharisee himself, caught in the slavery of legalism, which his testimony in Gal. 1:13-24 describes. Paul writes that he spent three years in Arabia and Damascus and then went to meet with Peter (a personal reporting of Acts 9:26-30). This letter is basically an energetic tirade. He sees the teachings of the Judaizers going in the direction of the legalistic faith he abandoned. We also may be getting here a little more of the style and content of the arguments Paul and Barnabas used at the Jerusalem Council.

This is Paul in his late 30s or early 40s with all the passion and power of young ministry at the front of the expansion of the Christian faith – Christianity with an edge. When you compare this letter to his others (particularly I, II Timothy and Titus), you can see how Paul’s faith matures through the years. The commitment to Christ and the gospel deepens but the edge becomes milder. Walking with Christ and learning the lessons of ministry can do that to you. Yet his actions to expand the gospel become more creative and bold through the years. Growth in Christ will do that as well.

Acts 2 gives some of the details of the Jerusalem Council and also a visit between Paul and the leaders in Antioch. Evidently, in Antioch Peter’s close friendship with James (one of the key leaders of the Jewish Church) caused Peter to draw back from the Gentiles. Paul even mentions that Barnabas did the same thing for awhile. I have been caught in that vise myself, where you choose to stay close to a certain group so that you can bring them along in the new direction God is moving. That actually can be a very good strategy. The problem is that you can get caught so much in bringing the resistant folks along that you alienate yourself from those coming to faith, who see you as taking up sides with “the old regime.”

The accusation against Paul was that he was “breaking the Law” in abandoning circumcision. He shares in Gal. 2:17-21 that he is not breaking the law, but rather dying to it. It has a role, which Paul will share later in the letter, but it was his adherence to a legalistic religion that had to die in order for him to truly live. If you haven’t memorized Galatians 2:20, I would invite you to do that today.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Our lives are a continual revisiting of the cross, the empty tomb and Pentecost. We die to our selfishness and our ways of thinking and doing things and are raised to a new and freer ways of thinking and doing, allowing Christ to further live in us by the Spirit. I don’t do this easily, but I have seen the process at work for 39 years now, and I expect it to continue for the rest of my earthly life. What needs to die in you and what new life will happen because of it?