God called me through his grace. [Audrey West]
The letter from Paul to the churches in Galatia
starts with Paul introducing himself. This was standard for letters at that
time. You couldn’t send of an email, or a quick postcard. A letter would take
time to be delivered. Often letters were written by skilled people, at times
helping with phrasing of the letter as well as the physical writing of the
letter. Paul would have dictated his letters to such a person, in chapter 6 we
will read where Paul puts pen to paper himself.
A letter would start with who the letter was
from, and then who it was written to, Paul would usually include a greeting,
such as:
May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and
peace.
In many of Paul’s letters there is a prayer of thanksgiving, such as in Philippians
1:3
“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly
praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, …..” [NRSV]
But no prayer of thanksgiving for the churches
in Galatia, instead we get:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting
the one who called you in the grace of Christ..” Gal 1:6
Paul is an interesting person in many ways. He
was born in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. Tarsus was what we might call a cosmopolitan
city – there were philosophers and street preachers, mystery religious cults
and it was a centre of Greek culture. [LTJ 261]
But Paul was also a Jew, with impressive credentials.
His family followed the custom of circumcision on the 8th day, and
he was from the tribe of Benjamin. As a young
man he studied the Law with a school of Pharisees. [LTJ 261, 2]
And he was a Roman citizen, which means his family
were likely to be socially prominent. [LTJ 261] being a Roman citizen had its
advantages.
We first meet Paul in the book of Acts, he is
the young man who looked after the coats of those who stoned Stephen, and Luke
notes that Saul approved of the killing of Stephen. [Acts 7: 58, 8:1]
We read of his transformation on the road to
Damascus in chapter 9 of Acts. Paul would
have known quite a bit about Jesus, from his time as a persecutor of the early
church. [Loader]
But back to the place of letters and chapter
one.
From this letter we see that Paul had met the
people he was writing to, and as with other letters Paul wrote, he is
responding to a particular situation. In this case it seems that someone has
come after Paul has left, teaching a different ‘gospel’, though as Paul points
out, there is only one gospel.
Paul is known as a missionary to the gentiles.
There were many in Jerusalem who thought that to be a follower of Jesus, you needed
to first become a Jew. The focus of the letter to the Galatian churches is that
God acts in our lives and that the love and mercy of God are not dependent on
our works, or our goodness, or our struggles, or our Jewishness, or culture, or
anything else.
This letter shows Paul’s concern and anger
that the people are moving away from the gospel of grace and freedom that he
taught them, but as sending a letter is not a quick thing, he needs to be
clear, and not hot headed, as the letter is written. He also needs to make sure
he covers all the arguments that would have been made against him, such as not
being one of the apostles and that he never met Jesus in the flesh.
Paul is clear that it was God who called him,
not any person; that Jesus was revealed to him so that Paul would proclaim the
message to the Gentiles.
And the message he proclaims is that
“God is
compassionate to all, offering a right relationship to all, Jew and Gentile,
without discrimination. So Paul argues from the nature of God, from the heart of the gospel.” [Loader]
It can be hard to accept, that we are loved,
that is the very nature of God, not our own doing.
“It is why we are so hard on ourselves, and insist we must keep rules: no
one deserves to be given a love such as this.” [Andrew Prior]
I wonder how often we are pulled away from the
gospel of grace.
It is easy to judge people, to judge ourselves.
I can remember thinking I wasn’t good enough
for God, or anyone else, to love me. I thought my friends were just being nice
to me because they were such good people – I mean who would want to spend time with
me?
An encounter with Jesus changed that – I knew that I was a loved daughter of the
living God. A person loved by God, not because I am good enough or bright
enough or know enough of the bible. We are all loved by God because that is the
nature of God.
Isn’t that awesome!
There are still some people who try to put
limits and boundaries on God’s love and grace. These days it isn’t about becoming a Jew
before you can be a Christian, but I have been told that as a woman I shouldn’t
be preaching or teaching, that this puts me outside God’s grace. At times I
have heard of a whole lot of boxes that must be ticked to ensure our salvation:
- Going to church
- Not taking drugs or
drinking alcohol
- Sexual purity
- Keeping the ten
commandments
- And I am sure you can
think of some more
Being held in God’s love and grace is about
the nature of God, it isn’t about how good you are or how well you keep the
rules. Paul could show what a wonderful Jew he had been, how diligent he had
been at defending God.
There are signs of our freedom in Christ, but
they are our response
- to being set free from
shame and guilt
- to knowing, deep
down, that we are loved by God
Do you find it difficult to accept that you are loved by God?
Do you find it difficult to accept that all people are loved by God?
Notes:
LTJ: The Writings of the New Testament by Luke
Timothy Johnson
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