Paul and Barnabas were sent on their first missionary journey from the church at Antioch in Syria to the island of Cyprus. From Cyprus they sailed to what is now southern Turkey and preached the Gospel in the cities of Pisidion Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. The Gentiles in that region were very receptive to the Gospel, but some of the Jews organized against Paul and Barnabas and even tried to kill Paul.

That might have discouraged some people, but it didn’t stop these two missionaries. After they had completed their circuit through the four cities, they reversed course and visited them all again. The new believers knew that Paul and Barnabas had faced opposition and had suffered for the Gospel.

“[From Derbe] they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ they said.” Acts 14:21-22

Paul and Barnabas prayed and fasted with the new congregations in each town and committed them to the Lord. They chose elders to care for the churches and then they traveled back to the church in Antioch, Syria, that had sent them out.

“On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith among the Gentiles. And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.”

The Letter to the Galatians

Pisidion Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe were all located in a province in the Roman Empire called Galatia. A few years after Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey, Paul wrote a letter from his home church in Antioch to encourage the churches they had planted in Galatia.

The letter would have been hand carried and read aloud at each of the churches throughout the province. Copies were made and carefully kept so the congregations could hear what Paul said again and again.

There is Only One Gospel

Paul and Barnabas introduced the Gospel to the Galatian people, and believing the simple truth about Jesus Christ saved them. Unfortunately, after Paul and Barnabas left, some people came along and tried to add to the Gospel they had preached. Paul was amazed that the Galatians were so easily influenced.

“Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ . . . As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” Galatians 1:7-9

The problem was that some Jewish Christians had told the Gentile Christians in Galatia that they had to observe certain Old Testament rites in order to be God’s people. These teachers were called Judaizers; they wanted the Gentiles to behave like Jews—perhaps to avoid persecution from the Jewish establishment.

The Judaizers claimed that Paul was not a true apostle and, they said, the gospel he preached was inadequate. So Paul shared his story so the Galatians would understand why he had authority to preach as he did.

What is an Apostle?

Apostle means “sent one.”

The original apostles were twelve men personally selected by Jesus to fulfill the Great Commission to preach the gospel and make disciples throughout the earth. Of the first twelve, one fell away and betrayed Jesus, leaving only eleven – until Jesus met Saul (later known as Paul) on the road to Damascus and commissioned him to be an apostle. Paul always regarded himself as the odd apostle, the one who came along later and was only an apostle by the grace of God.

“ . . . and last of all [Jesus] appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:8-10

There have always been people with apostolic gifts in the body of Christ. A person with apostolic gifts is able to win people to Christ and get them established in the faith. They are church planters who raise up leaders who meet the qualifications of an elder (see Titus 1:5-9).

And other apostles recognize a true apostle. They test his work, approve it and encourage him to keep going.

Paul the Apostle

When Paul met Jesus he didn’t consult with anyone about his calling. He went away for three years, searched the Scriptures and prayed. As a Pharisee he was already expert in the Old Testament, and in those years alone with God in the Arabian desert, the Holy Spirit showed Paul how the Scriptures applied to Jesus, and proved that he was the Messiah.

Paul came back to preach in Damascus, but the Lord led him instead to Jerusalem where he got to spend fifteen days with Peter, the leading apostle and eyewitness to the life of Jesus. From Jerusalem Paul was sent back to his home in Tarsus and the other apostles didn’t see him for the next ten years.

“They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they praised God because of me.” Galatians 1:23-24

After those years, Barnabas went to find Paul because he needed help with the growing church in Antioch. After a year of outstanding ministry among the Syrian Gentiles, they went to Jerusalem and met with the leaders of the Church.

Endorsed by Fellow Apostles

“I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running in vain . . . They added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

James, [Peter] and John, those esteemed pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” Galatians 2:2-10

Salvation by Faith Alone

At first it was hard for Jewish Christians to accept their Gentile brothers and sisters. For centuries the Jews had separated themselves from the Gentile world and regarded it as unclean and even detestable. When Gentiles started coming to Christ some of the Jewish believers wanted to “clean” them up. They wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised and to observe rituals regarding food and other Jewish customs. In essence, they wanted to impose parts of the Mosaic Law on them to make them more acceptable.

This was intolerable to Paul because it undermined the power of the Gospel. Jesus had died to free people from the condemnation of the Law and sin, as the Jewish believers well knew. In Galatians 2:15-16 Paul emphatically states three times that a person’s works do not justify them.

“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

No one should ever have told a Gentile believer he had to be circumcised or observe any other aspect of the Law in order to be saved.

What is the Use of the Law?

One of the questions Paul wrestled with throughout his ministry was: Why did God give us the Law if it could not save people? Paul was an expert in the Law; he had given the first part of his life to teaching and observing it as completely as possible. It was as hard for him as for anyone to set it aside when he learned about the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

God gave us the Law so we would learn about sin and righteousness. It was a plumb line against which people could measure their lives. The Law revealed how badly out of alignment with Gods’ righteous expectations people are. It prescribed penalties for sin. It cursed people who couldn’t be perfectly obedient. The Law was schoolmaster, teaching people how far from God they were.

“Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.” Galatians 3:21-22

But there was no law that could save people. The Law could only condemn people for being lawbreakers.

That is why Paul was angry that anyone tried to add rules and laws to the Gospel he preached to the Gentiles. The Gospel of Jesus Christ set people free from trying to find salvation by obeying the Law. He gives salvation as a free gift to everyone who accepts it – by faith alone.

The Galatians had received Christ, and had been filled with the Holy Spirit as proof of their salvation.

“So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?” Galatians 3:5

Paul uses the rest of his letter to the Galatians to answer that question.