Paul knew this deadly concoction personally, and he wanted to liberate the Galatians from it. As they turned from grace to law, their joy had evaporated, their insecurity had increased, and their love for Paul had turned to hatred. They had lost all spiritual discernment. Paul’s bold reprimand was a thump to the heart aimed at defibrillating their fluttering spirits, at restoring their consciousness.

Habits are like a cable. Each day we do something in a pattern we intertwine one thread with another. As the threads are woven together, a cable is formed. On any particular day, the thread we added was too small to be noticed. But, after many threads have been woven in, we find that together they have become a practically unbreakable cable

God made us to use habits constructively. We have literally hundreds, even thousands of habits that help us daily, so that we do not have to live by bringing everything up to conscious thought. We can dress, drive, and dine without thinking. Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to think of what arm to put in your shirt first when you dress, or how to lift your leg to apply the brakes when you drive, or what you need to do to put your fork into a piece of food? We need to do many things at the unconscious level, but we do not need to communicate at the unconscious level. We are creatures of habits in our communications as well, and the purpose of this book is to bring those habits to the conscious level so we can have some choice about our communication habits. Because you are not born with your communication habits; they develop.

Or, as J. B. Phillips puts it, “Oh you dear idiots of Galatia … surely you cannot be so idiotic?”

Or, as J. B. Phillips puts it, “Oh you dear idiots of Galatia … surely you cannot be so idiotic?”

For Paul, the gospel of Christ crucified so completely rules out any other supposed means of being righteous before God that he finds it utterly incomprehensible for anyone who had once embraced such a gospel ever to think of supplementing it in any way

There is no other method of living piously and justly, than that of depending upon God.

Abraham lived before the Mosaic law came into existence, yet God adjudged him righteous (in a right relationship with God and man). That means there must be a righteousness that isn’t dependent upon that law. In fact, Abraham was really a Gentile, in the sense that he lived before the nation of Israel existed, so he was not in the strictest sense a Jew. Yet this Gentile was righteous, so there must be a righteousness not dependent upon one’s Jewishness.

Abraham’s faith was not specifically faith in Jesus Christ, but faith in God and his promise. Some have distinguished between Abraham’s faith as “faith in the promise” and Christian faith as “faith in fulfillment of that promise”

Abraham and his spiritual descendants, both Jews and Gentiles, have all been declared righteous by faith. Moreover, this conclusion is in harmony with the Scripture which states that all nations will be blessed through Abraham

The Galatian Christians have two choices, then. They can enjoy their status as offspring of Abraham in a walk of faith like that of Abraham, or they can anxiously devote themselves to a slavish attempt to satisfy the impossible dictates of the law and the traditions of the elders. If they choose the latter, Paul warns them, they must be prepared for the consequences: