HPT-02 Paul and the Galatians

At one time or another, most parents play with their children by picking up a toy or two and behaving, at least a little bit, like children themselves. All of this is normal and to be expected. But it would be very strange for mature adults to fill their days by playing endlessly with children’s toys. If we saw a friend doing this, we’d probably say something like, “You’re an adult; stop acting like a child.”

The apostle Paul faced something like this early in his ministry. He had proclaimed the good news of Christ and established churches among believing Jews and Gentiles in the region of Galatia. He’d taught them that Christ had inaugurated the last or latter days of history and had brought them into a mature relationship with God. But after Paul left them, false teachers tempted many in the churches of Galatia to turn back to the ways of Israel before Christ had come. So, he wrote his epistle to the Galatians to tell them, in no uncertain terms, “You are now spiritual adults in Christ; stop acting like children.”

This is the second lesson in our series on The Heart of Paul’s Theology, and we’ve entitled it, “Paul and the Galatians.” In this lesson, we’re going to see how the Galatian churches were tempted to return to the practices of Judaism. And we’re also going to see how Paul reacted to these backward-looking Christians by reminding them that Christ had brought them into the blessings of God in the last days.

In our previous lesson, we saw that the heart of Paul’s theology was his eschatology — his firm conviction that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah and that Jesus had inaugurated the latter days, or last days of God’s kingdom on earth. On the basis of Old Testament prophecy, every faithful Jew in Paul’s day believed that when the Messiah came, he would radically change the world. And, following the teachings of Jesus, Paul taught that Christ had begun to do this when he inaugurated the last days in his first advent. But he also taught that there would be a period where God’s kingdom would continue to spread throughout the world. And finally, Christ would complete the transformation of creation only at the consummation of the last days in his second advent.