Day 328: How to Read Galatians

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ

Galatians 1:6-7 (ESV)

Through the Bible: Galatians 1-3

Galatians is one of Paul’s shortest letters, but there’s nothing small about the stakes. This isn’t a doctrinal lecture or a polite theological clarification. This is a pastoral emergency. The churches Paul planted in Galatia are abandoning the gospel of grace for a gospel of performance, and Paul writes like a man grabbing someone’s shoulders before they walk into traffic.

If Romans is Paul’s majestic cathedral, Galatians is his five-alarm fire. There are no polite niceties. No commendations for the good things the church is doing. No “I thank my God every time I remember you” sentiments, as you see in Philippians. Paul is the EMT on the side of the highway, administering triage to a church on life support.

Many conservative scholars believe Galatians may not only be Paul’s earliest letter, but possibly the earliest book in the entire New Testament—written even before the Gospels. If Paul wrote it around A.D. 48–49—as many argue—then this is “young Paul,” still early in his ministry, still fighting the first battles for Gentile freedom, writing with an urgency that feels raw and unfiltered. Galatians has a kind of youthful fire to it: sharp edges, strong emotions, and a pastor’s instinct to protect his flock at all costs. You can feel the energy of a man who has just discovered the sheer power of grace and refuses to let anyone dilute it.

So how do you read it well?

1. Understand the Crisis.

Paul had preached the gospel to the Galatians. They had received it with joy. But after Paul left, a group of Jewish-Christian teachers arrived with a “Jesus-plus” message: Faith in Christ is wonderful, but it isn’t enough. If you really want to belong to God, you need to add Moses—circumcision, dietary laws, and the works of the law.

The reality of the Galatian church feels a lot like Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24–30. Jesus said the enemy plants weeds after the good seed is sown—quietly, subtly, in the same field, among the same stalks, where the difference isn’t obvious until the crop begins to grow. That’s Galatia. Paul sowed the pure gospel, and when he moved on, the enemy slipped in through false teachers, planting a “Jesus-plus” message that looked religious and biblical on the surface but threatened to choke out their joy. The most dangerous lies in the church aren’t pagan weeds; they’re religious ones that grow in gospel soil.

Jesus + anything = slavery.

That’s the fire Paul is trying to put out.

2. Notice the Tone

If you read Galatians and don’t feel the heat, you’re reading it wrong.

There’s no thanksgiving section, which appears in almost every other letter Paul writes. He skips the pleasantries and goes straight to astonishment and rebuke. Galatians is Paul at full boil—sharp, urgent, protective.

Sarcasm

Paul doesn’t hide his disbelief at what’s happening in these churches. At one point he says, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (5:12).
Earlier, he mocks their return to religious calendars: “You are observing days and months and seasons and years!” (4:10).
This isn’t comedy—it’s cutting, pastoral sarcasm aimed at exposing the absurdity of adding law to grace.

Rhetorical Questions

Galatians 3 opens with a barrage of questions Paul doesn’t expect an answer to:

“Are you so foolish?” (3:3)
“Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (3:3)
“Did you suffer so many things in vain?” (3:4)

Paul isn’t seeking information; he’s trying to wake them up, like a father shaking a child who’s about to touch a hot stove.

There is also exasperation: “Who has bewitched you?” (3:1).
And finally, there is personal pain: “I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” (4:11).

Galatians isn’t written with polite ink. It’s written with fire—because the stakes couldn’t be higher.

3. Track his argument like a courtroom case.

Galatians is tightly constructed. Don’t read it as six chapters; read it as a three-part defense.

A. Chapters 1–2: Paul’s Autobiographical Defense

Paul’s gospel didn’t come from Jerusalem. It didn’t come from the apostles. It didn’t come from tradition.

It came from Christ Himself.

Paul tells his story not to brag but to show that the message he preached in Galatia was heaven-delivered, not committee-approved. When the Jerusalem apostles did finally meet him, they agreed he was preaching the same gospel.

B. Chapters 3–4: Paul’s Theological Defense

This is where Paul brings out the big guns: Abraham. The promise. The law. The curse. The covenant. The allegory of Hagar and Sarah.

His argument is simple but sweeping:

God saved Abraham by faith, not works.
The law came later, not to save but to reveal sin.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
Therefore, adding law to grace reverses the gospel.

C. Chapters 5–6: Paul’s Practical Defense

Freedom isn’t an excuse for chaos; it’s the environment where the Spirit produces fruit.
The flesh produces one kind of life.
The Spirit produces another.
Legalism can’t make you holy—but neither can license. Holiness is the Spirit’s work in a free heart.

Paul ends with the picture of a church bearing one another’s burdens and walking in the Spirit.

4. Don’t confuse “law” with obedience.

This is the key misunderstanding many readers bring to Galatians. Paul isn’t arguing against holiness or obedience. He’s arguing against using obedience as a way to earn God’s approval.

In Galatians, “law” means law-keeping as identity.
Not moral seriousness.
Not discipleship.
Not sanctification.

Paul is dismantling self-salvation strategies, not godly living.

5. Pay attention to Paul’s metaphors—they’re the interpretive keys.

Galatians is full of vivid imagery. Paul isn’t just arguing; he’s painting pictures. Don’t rush past the images. They aren’t decoration—they’re the handles that help you carry the theology.

A bewitched church (3:1)
Paul uses the language of sorcery and spell-casting. He wants the Galatians to feel the shock of how irrational their drift has been. Legalism isn’t just a mistake—it’s a kind of spiritual hypnosis that makes people forget the cross.
A schoolmaster or guardian (3:24)
The law is not the principal handing out paddlings; it’s the babysitter walking a child to school. Its purpose was temporary. Its job was to get us to Christ. Treating the law as the final authority instead of the escort is to misunderstand its entire role.
A slave vs. a son (4:7)
Paul wants you to feel the difference between a household servant who obeys out of fear and a beloved child who lives in freedom. One works to stay in the house. The other belongs in the house. Identity shapes obedience.
Two mothers and two mountains (4:21–31)
This is Paul at his most dramatic. Hagar represents Mount Sinai—law, bondage, human effort. Sarah represents promise, miracle, and freedom. Paul is saying: “You know who your mother is. Stop trying to move back in with the wrong one.”
Flesh vs. Spirit (5:16–26)
Paul isn’t talking about your physical body vs. your soul. He’s contrasting two power sources—what you get when you rely on yourself, and what you get when you rely on the Spirit. One produces chaos. The other produces fruit.
Sowing vs. reaping (6:7–9)
Spiritual growth follows the laws of agriculture, not instant gratification. You harvest what you plant, and you harvest it later than you planted it. Paul uses this image to call for perseverance when the fields still look empty.

Paul gives you a gallery of metaphors because pictures stick. They are the interpretive keys that unlock everything else he’s saying. Let the imagery slow you down long enough to hear the heartbeat of the letter.

6. Galatians has something to say to you.

Galatians was written to real people in a real place who were experiencing real problems. But it is also divinely inspired. So, an important principle to keep in mind with all of the epistles is that even though they weren’t written to us, they were written for us.

So Galatians is more than just an ancient church consultant’s report. It is a diagnosis of every human heart that drifts from grace to performance.

Ask yourself:
Where am I tempted to trade the security of the gospel for the illusion of control?
Where am I trying to earn what Christ already purchased?
Where am I adding “just one thing” to the finished work of Jesus?

Galatians won’t let you stay there. Grace won’t let you.