Gala'tians Epistle to the.

The date when this Epistle was written has been disputed more than that of any of the others, some placing it early, and others later. The events seem best to agree thus: on Paul's second missionary journey he went throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia. Ac 16:6. We learn from Ga 4:13-15 that he had preached the gospel to them, and that they had received him as an angel and would have plucked out their eyes for him. This visit would have been about A.D. 51. Then about 54 Paul again visited them; all we read as to this journey is that he went over all the country of Galatia, strengthening, or confirming, all the disciples. Ac 18:23. They may, alas, have as readily received the Judaising teachers, and when this came to the ears of Paul, he wrote this Epistle to them. He grieved that they were so soon diverted to another gospel which was not another. In 1Co 16:1 we read that Paul had instructed the churches in Galatia as to the collection for the poor. This was written to Corinth about A.D. 55. The collection is not mentioned in his Epistle to the Galatians, and as far as we know he did not visit them again. This has caused some to suppose that Paul wrote the Epistle to them after his first visit; and that he gave them the directions as to the collection on his second visit; but they may have been given by another letter or by a private messenger.

Gal. 1. After a brief opening, in which the intent of the Lord's giving Himself for our sins is set forth, namely, to deliver us from this present age according to the will of God, the apostle proceeds directly to the point and marvels at the rapid departure of the Galatian converts from the gospel. In the strongest terms he denounces the efforts made to pervert them from the grace of Christ to other ground. Paul would have them know that his apostleship was not by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father; that the gospel he preached was by the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Jews' religion, by which they were so attracted, had led him to be a bitter persecutor, but it had pleased God to reveal His Son in him that he might preach Him among the Gentiles. His commission and authority had come direct from on high, and had no connection with Jerusalem as a source. The saints in Judaea did but glorify God in him.

Gal. 2. Fourteen Years after his conversion he went up to Jerusalem and communicated to those there the gospel he preached to the Gentiles. He utterly refused to submit to pressure from Judaising brethren in the case of the Gentile convert Titus, and in result received the full fellowship of the three pillars