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What you get:
- Tips for teaching Galatians in a Bible Study
- 54 Discussion Questions for Galatians
- Answers and insights for all 54 Discussion Questions
- 8 high-definition maps of locations mentioned in Galatians
Sample map in Galatians Leaders Guide & Atlas
Paul gets angry enough to think about pulling a knife
Paul is mad when he writes this letter.
He gets mad plenty of times during his ministry. His anger shows up in some of his letters—especially in his two letters to the troublesome church of Corinth, Greece.
But if we want to see Paul at his angriest, Galatians is the letter to read.
How angry does he get?
Angry enough to say something that sounds inappropriate, crude, and just plain mean.
He seems to be talking about some Christian Jews who are trekking around to the churches he started. Those mission trekkers are telling the Christians they have to follow all the Jewish laws if they want to be good Christians—including the painful law requiring men to get circumcised.
Paul considers that a low blow.
Here’s what he tells the Galatian churches about those Christian Jews:
“I wish those circumcision lovers messing with you would just go ahead and cut their whole thing off!” (Galatians 5:12).
That’s strong talk for a holy man.
Paul got angry because he recognized the danger of the threat. If the intruders won, Christianity might have become just another branch of Judaism, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These Christians would obey all the Jewish laws. The thing that would distinguish them from other Jews, however, would have been that they insisted Jesus was the promised Messiah.
Big deal. That’s what Paul probably thought. He knew that if people still had to obey Jewish laws and offer sacrifices for sin, then Jesus died for nothing.
So, Paul told those intrusive Christian Jews what they could do with circumcision, and with all the other traditional Jewish laws he considered obsolete now that Jesus had come.
This is an intense letter written with Christianity teetering on the brink of assimilation—in danger of becoming just one more ingredient melted into Jewish soup.
In addition to Galatians Leaders Guide & Atlas
You might consider the Ephesians Leaders Guide & Atlas
Best resource for comparing other Bible translations: Bible Gateway. This isn’t an ad. It’s a recommendation from the Casual English Bible.
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