Galatians

Galatians knew that they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed, not when they obeyed the law. People still feel insecure in their faith because people still try to get closer to God by the normal Christian habits of Bible study and prayer. While these may help us grow, they must not take place […]

The Galatian believers had become fascinated by the false teachers’ arguments. Magic was common in Paul’s day. Magicians used optical illusions and Satan’s power to perform miracles, and people were drawn into the magician’s mysterious rites without recognizing their dangerous source. The believers in Galatia knew that they had not received God’s spirit by obeying […]

Verse twenty is one of the most well-known verses in all of Christianity, but do we ever take a moment to really ponder the meaning behind it? How have our old selves been crucified with Christ? Legally, God looks at us as if we had died with Christ. Because our sins died with him, we […]

If observing the Jewish laws cannot justify us, why should we still obey the Ten Commandments and other Old Testament laws? We know that Paul was not saying the law is bad because in another letter he wrote, “the Law is holy”. Instead, he is saying that the law can never make us acceptable to […]

The Judaizers accused Paul of watering down the gospel to make it easier for Gentiles to accept, while Paul accused the Judaizers of nullifying the truth of the gospel by adding conditions to it. The basis of salvation was the issue – is salvation through Christ alone, or does it come through Christ and adherence […]

When Paul took Titus to Jerusalem, the Judaizers said that Titus should be circumcised. Paul adamantly refused to give in to their demands. The apostles agreed that circumcision was an unnecessary rite for Gentile converts. Paul did not deny Jews the right be to circumcised; he was simply saying that Gentiles should not be asked […]

God told Paul, through revelation, to confer with the church leaders in Jerusalem about the message he was preaching to the Gentiles, so they would understand and approve of what he was doing. The essence of Paul’s message to both Jews and Gentiles was that God’s salvation is offered all people. Even though God had […]

Paul was converted around A.D. 35. The fourteen years he mentions are probably calculated from the time of his conversion. This trip to Jerusalem was not his first. Most likely, he made his first trip to Jerusalem around A.D. 38,and other trips to Jerusalem in approximately A.D. 44, A.D. 49/50, A.D. 52, and A.D. 57. […]

The word Judaism refers to not only nationality but also to religion. To be fully Jewish, a person must have descended from Abraham. In Paul’s day, the Jews thought of all Gentiles as Gentiles. Jews avoided contact with Gentiles, believing contact with Gentiles brought spiritual corruption. Although Gentiles could become Jews by undergoing circumcision, they […]

A twisting of the truth is more difficult to spot than an outright lie. The Judaizers were twisting the truth about Christ. They claimed to follow him, but they denied that Christ’s work on the cross was sufficient for salvation. Paul strongly denounced the Judaizers’ perversion of the gospel of Christ. He said that even […]