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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Galatians
Editor's prefatory comments
return to the main-page article on Galatians
When I was a young man, a member of a strict Christian sect – today, I would call it a cult – the Church, within certain circles, among some of its pastors, actually issued a prohibition against studying Paul’s Galatians without clergy in attendance – “because we wouldn’t want you to be confused.”
When I heard that, I knew Galatians had the good stuff. I decided to make this earliest of New Testament documents a special project, and would spent the next 15 years, off and on, researching, gathering notes, and writing. I tried to leave no Galatians-authority stone unturned, as I amassed a small library of Galatians commentaries – over 30 as I recall – plus unnumbered ancillary volumes of tangential interest.
It all became a mammoth undertaking: analyzing every verse in detail, word by word, searching out the original language; taking care to discern context; sedulously consulting with dozens of authorities via their writings.
However, it shouldn’t have taken 15 years. I could have made enough hay in one year to serve my purpose; but… my stumbling-block became – I didn’t like what I was learning. “Surely, it couldn’t mean that! That’s not possible!”
Laboring in this mind-storm of cognitive dissonance, I would deny my own judgment, for many years. Finally, the weight of the evidence so burdened my resistance to it, that I entered into agreement with myself to be honest and to admit, in the “open sunny air,” the reality of Paul's message.
No wonder they tried to ban this book.
But that was over 30 years ago. Since then I’ve continued my search for what’s real. And while I feel that my own commentary on Galatians is just about the best to be found anywhere, I now realize that Paul was wrong – and 30 years ago I was wrong – on a number of issues stated definitively in Paul's letter.
Some years after Paul's writing of Galatians, we find him overturning some of his own long-held views - things he'd been so sure about - regarding the Second Coming and what happens to us at death.
If Paul had written Galatians some years later, it would have been written differently; and I would have written my commentary differently had I known then what I know now.
These are my disclosures to anyone who might study the Galatians commentary herein.
It’s a snapshot in time of what Paul believed in his early years. As such, it’s not “gospel truth.” Galatians must be evaluated against a backdrop of clearer perspective concerning both the work of Jesus and the scientific evidence for the afterlife.
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