The Book Of Galatians Essay

The book of Galatians contains some of Paul's most impetuous theological reasoning. We get a glimpse of Paul in a mode of impulsive reflex assembling theological arguments to influence the corporate and personal life of the Galatians Christians in a situation that deeply disturbed him. The Christians to whom Paul wrote were Gentiles. They had affectionately received Paul and his message at an earlier date and as a consequence of Paul's ministry, the Galatians had a profound experience of the spirit that instilled in them a hardy sense of Christian identity that continued for some time. Paul left the Galatians to preach the gospel elsewhere, and during his time away from the Galatians, he received word that a group of Jewish Christian evangelist

For them, there was no reason to think that the Messiah had abolished the requirements established by God for all time in the Torah. The requirement included the need for circumcision. The vision of Christian moral identity inform Paul's expectation for the Galatian communities, and impacts on the way he depicts his own life of living by the law. In Galatians one, Paul recounts some personal biographical features which include his incomparability in traditional forms of Jewish life and his persecution of the church (1:13-14), his experience of having God's son revealed to him (1:12, 15-16), and the rupture in his relationship with other Christian leaders in Antioch over the issue compelling Gentiles to live like Jews (2:1-14). This then leads to Paul's defense of his gospel. The salvific sufficiency of the Christian faith climaxes in the claim: "I have being crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (2:19-20) Paul envisages himself as having died in other that the crucified Christ might live through Him. Furthermore, Paul depiction of Christ living in me does not envisage this to be a special privilege, instead, he expects enlivenment of Christ characteristics of Christian