The following is an Intruduction to my Gleanings from Galatians, a book I hope to bring out shortly for your edification and reading pleasure.
Introduction
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Who,
Where, and When were the Galatians
Who
were these “foolish” and “bewitched” Galatians and where and when did they
live? The Galatians were a body of Celts that had invaded Greece, Macedonia,
Thrace from Gaul around 278 BC. This included much of modern-day Turkey.
Gaul
is usually associated with modern day France. However, its borders extended
over much of Western Europe, including much of Belgium Luxemburg, Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Germany, and the Netherlands. Only pockets of these Celts
remain today, such as Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, and Brittany.
Their languages, customs and culture, like the ancient Galatians who became
Hellenised by the Greeks and then Latinised by the Romans, are being absorbed
by the invasive surrounding cultures, such as the English and the French.
Indeed, these nations, including the whole of Europe, are in danger of Islamification by invading forces. Therefore, like Paul’s rescue mission to Galatia, a full return to the clear teaching of the unadulterated gospel of Christ Jesus is crucial to the wellbeing and survival of the West, including North America, Australia and New Zealand. Obedience to the gospel is imperative, because to reject Christ is to lose all the blessings brought by the gospel and it is to incur its attending curses (Deut. 28). “…When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:7b-8).
The
Celts
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Celt(n.) “stone chisel,” 1715, according to OED from a
Latin ghost word (apparently a mistake of certe) in Job xix.24 in
Vulgate: “stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel celte sculpantur
in silice;” translated, probably correctly, in KJV as, “That they were
graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever.”[1]
Interestingly, the Celts were very fond of raising memorial stones, like Stonehenge in England, the Standing Stones of Callanish and the Clava Cairns in Scotland, the Penrhros Feilw Standing Stones in Wales, and the Carnac Stones in France. The Stone of Scone, An Lia Fàil, a.k.a., the Stone of Destiny, upon which the ancient kings of Ireland were crowned, and then the kings of Scotland, and presently the kings of queens of Great Britain, is also known as Jacob’s Pillar (or pillow).
Now Jacob went out
from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came
to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he
took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in
that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set
up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of
God were ascending and descending on it.
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The
Spread of Christ’s Gospel
“All the families of the earth” have
been and are being and will be blessed by the ultimate Seed of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ as His gospel spreads to all the ends of
the earth. Along with the English Magna Carta (1215), the Scottish Declaration
of Arbroath (1320) were consulted before the writing of the American Declaration
(1776) and the Constitution (1789). These have brought gospel blessings with them.
Giving a little bit of history for Celtic Scotland the following is written in the Declaration of Arbroath,
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The
Galatians, then, were Gaul-atians. They were cousins of the Q-Celts,
like the Gaels (Gael-atians) of Scotland, Isle of Man, and Ireland, and the P-Celts,
like the Britons of Wales and Brittany. However, there also had been an influx of
Jews to Galatia, which may help in understanding the corrupting influence of the
Judaizers. Says J.B. Lightfoot,
More important is to remark on the large influx of Jews which must have invaded Galatia in the interval. Antiochus the Great had settled two thousand Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia; and even if we suppose that these settlements did not extend to Galatia properly so called, the Jewish colonists must in course of time have overflowed into a neighbouring country which posses so many attractions for them … The country of Galatia afforded great facilities for commercial enterprise … With these attractions it is not difficult to explain the vast increase of the Jewish population in Galatia…[2]
When
was Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians Written?
Though
scholars differ, the generally accepted date for Paul’s Epistle to the
Galatians is circa AD 50. George S. Duncan connects the Galatian Epistle to the Jerusalem
Assembly,
They wrote this letter by
them:
The
apostles, the elders, and the brethren,
To
the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:
Greetings.
Since we have heard
that some who went out from us have troubled you with
words, unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised
and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment—it
seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you
with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent
Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For
it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden
than these necessary things: that you abstain from
things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and
from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will
do well.
Farewell. (Acts 15:23-29).
Says George S. Duncan, “A probable date for the Apostolic council (Acts xv.) is 48, which may therefore be taken also as the date of our Epistle.”[3] William Hendriksen says,
Galatians was written after the Jerusalem Council, for it describes Paul’s relation to the other leaders at that great meeting. The journey to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal. 2:1 must be identified with the one indicated in Acts 15:1-4 … I can see no reason, therefore, to deny that the epistle to the Galatians was followed soon afterward by I Thessalonians, which, in quick succession, was followed by II Thessalonians, all three having been written from Corinth about the year A.D. 52.[4]
The
Importance of Getting the Gospel Right
If
the West is to survive and thrive, she must return to obedience to the gospel.
If we may be permitted to tweak Paul’s reprimand to the “foolish” Galatians, we
may instead ask, “O foolish Western nations! Who has
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus
Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?” (Gal. 3:1).
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May
God be pleased, even in some small way, to use Gleanings from Galatians to
assist in the West’s return to the gospel and its attendant blessings.
[1] Etymonline:
Celt - Etymology, Origin &
Meaning
[2] J. B.
Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, (MacMillan and Co.,
London, England, 1910), 9-11.
[3] George S. Duncan, The Epistle
of Paul to the Galatians, (The Moffatt New Testament Commentary, London,
Hodder and Stoughton, 1948), xxxii.
[4] William Hendriksen, New
Testament Commentary – Galatians, (The Banner of Truth trust, Edinburgh,
Scotland, 1974), 16.
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