Introduction to Galatians

Most Bible teachers teach the Bible within the confines they have been taught.  Instead of teaching Scripture, they teach what is known as doctrines or theology.  In order to prove their theology, they phrase[1] pluck Scripture.  They speak of their theology for an hour and pluck a few words or few verses from Scripture in order to gain accreditation to their words.  This is the common method of church teaching on Sunday mornings, if anything is taught at all.

One of the most popular misteachings, by most, comes from the book of Galatians, which is greatly misunderstood.  It is thought by many that the theme of the book of Galatians is antinomianism, or  that we should disregard the Law of Elohim.  It is easy to be misled by some of the vague phrases in this writing.  But the Apostle Peter warns us about the writings of Paul, especially this letter to the Galatians (2 Peter 3:14-17).

According to the Apostle Peter, we are to be careful with the writings of the Paul because some of the things he writes are hard to understand.  Then Peter warns us that untaught and unstable men distort his writings and the rest of Scripture to their own destruction.  He warns us to be on guard and and not be carried away by the error of lawlessness.  That warning especially applies to this letter to the Galatians.

Why are some of the things involved in this letter difficult to understand?  For us, it is because the people in Galatia were facing certain trials and difficulties that are totally foreign to the average church goer in this modern age.  For Peter, it was because he had difficulty empathizing with some of the problems that faced the Gentile assemblies.  Peter was a Jew and followed a Torah observant life in Israel among Jewish people.  He had difficulty interpreting some of Paul’s teachings of living a Torah observant life in a lawless, pagan land.

Patrick McGuire