Twentieth Century [1904], THE TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT A TRANSLATION INTO MODERN ENGLISH Made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort's Text) (The Fleming H. Revell Company, NEW YORK & CHICAGO) [word count] [B14200].
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WRITTEN PROBABLY DURING HIS STAY AT
EPHESUS, ABOUT 54 A.D.
The Roman province of ‘Galatia,’ in Asia Minor, included,
not only the district which had previously borne that name,
but also various adjacent districts subsequently included.
Hence it is uncertain whether, in the New Testament, the
name is used in its wider or in its narrower sense. Nor
is it possible to fix with certainty the date of the Apostle's
visits to ‘Galatia,’ or of this Letter to his converts there.
The Christian Churches in ‘Galatia’ appear to have been
founded by St. Paul about the year 51 A.D., while he was on his
second missionary journey (Acts 16. 6). Three years later he
re-visited the district in the course of his third journey (Acts
18. 23). He appears to have been seriously ill on the first-mentioned
occasion, but his impulsive converts gave him an
eager welcome, and soon became devotedly attached to him
(Gal. 4. 13—15). After he had left them, however, their
enthusiasm for him and for his Message gradually cooled, and
the present Letter was written as the result of information
which reached him, that his converts were being led astray
by teachers from Jerusalem, who impugned his apostolic
authority and personal character, and insisted that all
Christians ought to observe the Jewish Law and be circumcised.
St. Paul was now, for the first time, face to face with the
question whether Christianity could stand alone as a new and
universal religion, or could exist only as ‘a modified and
extended Judaism.’ His reply takes the form, first, of a
personal narrative in which he establishes the direct revelation
to him of what he delights to call ‘his Gospel’ by the
Christ himself, and its independence of Judaism; and, then,
of a brief statement of the teaching (afterwards developed at
length in his Letter to the Christians at Rome) that mere
obedience to Law can never ensure a man's being ‘pronounced
righteous’ by God; for this, the Apostle argues, can follow
only upon faith in the Christ. The Law, intended only to be
provisional, has been superseded by the Gospel.
-- --
TO THE GALATIANS.
Twentieth Century [1904], THE TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT A TRANSLATION INTO MODERN ENGLISH Made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort's Text) (The Fleming H. Revell Company, NEW YORK & CHICAGO) [word count] [B14200].
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