“Galatians - Run Thru Notes ”


1:1 [not through man but from Christ] from Paul an Apostle and all those with me to churches of Galatia. I.e. from one Apostle and a bunch of his group to the Galatian church. Interesting blend of personal commission and group action.

1:6 – skips the thanksgiving and gets to the point.

1:4 – to deliver us, versus increase our moral burden – the ages overlap while we live here, and we live according to one age or the other (flash/spirit).

1:7 removing Christ and brace from the center is not another gospel – it’s just a perversion of the only one – nothing else lifts the burden.

1:9 – don’t mess with this sort of “gospel” – treated as one would treat a “taboo” object – get out of there!

1:10 – caring enough to risk friendship for the life of another.

1:11f – at the time of Paul’s conversion, nobody knew the full implications of Christ’s message – that is, that it was for all men – this came by revelation to Paul over time (and others) versus what he got from the first.

1:18 – saw Peter as a tourist would – not to consult him. And under-cover at that – too dangerous for him.

2:9 – toleration of two spheres of influence versus resolving the issue – nothing like a few good funerals to allow the past limitations on our lives to be dropped, and us to be set free to live.

Our “parents” of whatever aspect of life we speak, give us life, but must be kept in their perspective, just as we must be kept in our own perspective, and let go of life that springs up from/through us – lest we strangle it.

Sometimes delimited turf is all that’s possible in the short-term (cf. me and my parents where “my turf” was so similar to that of family’s overbearing activity that abnormally high barriers had to be set – and lasted so long).

2:10 – Jerusalem poor. Why? – Famine? They burned up their capital? Social and business ostracism? Despite the reason, response was already in progress – then as now, mercy so often reaches over walls of philosophy and theology differences.

2:11f – Antioch, a mixed community – two spheres overlapped.

2:13 – Barnabas’ early Levitical training eventually let him get sucked back – the pull from our early heritage and the fragility of new life for many. He eventually split with Paul, but both Jew and Gentile “ways” of salvation are equally useless – salvation by faith.

2:18f – Paul’s religion – not I but Christ, that lives in me.

2:21 – the Old Testament grace in the law was gracious, but it was completed in Christ – fulfilled. (Death-routine useless if redemption was possible through the law).

3:1f – all this life arises out of the faith, not out of the effort of the law. (Abraham style faith). As so often – ritual and denominational strictures crippled the life out of faith – life.

3:7-9 – Old Testament people had a bond with God deeper than that of the formalists – take Abraham (the first we know about) for example. [IE, quite apart from his rabbinical argument to these particular readers, there’s a deeper theme].

3:10-14 – how we come to be in the original faith relationship once more – Christ did it. Modernists say that it was a psychological activity, he claims it was a more “objective” activity. However, he did it, it’s done. And Christ did it. (Even though you’d never know by looking at us, sometimes!).

3:15f – the law is a supplement to the promise – it points up sin. It is viewed here as an interim preserver, until the coming of Christ (the “seed” or inhibitor of the will.)

3:25 – law is a tutor and guardian for minors and a finishing school for the spiritually mature.

3:27 – baptism – the putting on of a robe like an actor puts on a character when he puts on a costume – no magic here – internal spirit and faith is all.

3:28-29 – class distinctions melt in the wake of Christian persons who find a level of personality in common, at a higher level than any of us – Christ’s – and we “leaven the lump”. The kernel of faith-trust in God is the basic aspect of religious experience.

• All religious experience – carried forward from Abraham’s first steps to a higher plane.

4:3 – our minority (tutelage) was under the elemental spirits of the universe – then a freer regime under the spirit – do we indeed repeat this process to the time we are born anew?

4:6 – adoption for both groups – and “Abba” is the confession of all. Christ divided old order from new by inaugurating the new – Paul sees divine in human restrictions doing it. “Adoption out.” Analogy here, and “redeeming slaves” fulfilling conditions of the law and therefore ending them.

4:16 – rhetorical question – “have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?”

4:17 – shut you out so you make much of them! Some tactics don’t change. The group rules!

4:21-31 – old style exegesis argument doesn’t cut much ice now, but the point is valid – don’t get re-enslaved with a new slavery system – baptism of the Baptists, communion of the Roman Catholics, liberalism-NDP-ism of the UCC, denominationalism (non-denominationalism), etc. etc.

5:1-6 – but why does our freedom of spirit so quickly move us to the improvement of laws and regulations in society?

5:7f – service shifts from serving laws to serving one another (in essence what law is about anyway).

Note – an original mind (like Paul’s) doesn’t repeat the letter of what it has heard, but rather captures the spirit and expresses it in terms of the present context, whatever that may be.

5:19-21 –ah! The struggle!

See chart on page 7 of notes – essence as follows:

A – sexual vices – fruit – fornication, moral impurity – in its grossness, sin of the flesh. Wantonness – unrestrained indecency.

Fruit – no sexual vices as the flesh is crucified.

B – vices associated with heathen worship – fruit – idolatry – with immorality of temples. Sorcery – drugs used for enhancement.

Fruit – enlightened ethical service of a righteous God (love).

• Fear of demons gone by happy confidence in salvation.

C – sins of faction – fruit – enmity – in general. Wrangling and jealousy – of another’s goods/fortune. Passionate outbursts – of bad feeling. Self-seeking – or party spirit. Dissensions and differences – of opinion, sentiment versus heresies. Envying – (not” murders”).

• Fruit – peace with all men. Patience, etc. Fidelity (“faithfulness” as in faith) etc.

D – sins of the apostate – fruit – drunken debauchery and carousings – as in honor of Bacchus.

5:26 – Paul’s word to the denominations and factions of today – Quit playing “I’m superior”.

6:1 – “restore” – medical term as in set a bone. Brethren – key to the chapter. I.e. don’t lay on artificial burdens (as the Pharisees did), but rather lift the real burdens of sorrow, sin, and hardship.

6:3-4 – test and celebrate self against our own ideal and progress, through God’s help – don’t compare yourself with others, and crow over their failings (easy to say!).

6:5 – backpacking our own load (cargo of a ship also) and stewardship of it. Own contributions, and own possibilities of weakness and failure.

6:6 – pay your teachers “all good things – share”. 7 and 8 are linked here also – spend on your teachers versus on corruption.

6:10 family atmosphere.

6:12 – Paul played up the cross, and played down circumcision – Judaizers did the reverse (to avoid persecution from the Jewish community.

5:14 – neither baptism counts nor non-baptism, but a new creation (we’ve just changed the ritual).

5:18 – nice benediction – “brotherhood”.

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