Galatians: Love, Faith and Works
Sunday, January 4, 2026
We have reflected frequently on this letter perhaps because its brevity draws us in. This Noontime is a revision of something we shared in May 2009. We offer it to you today.
Paul writes to the Galatians to remind them of the reason for their initial conversion. The love of Christ. Interlopers were undermining the Gospel he had preached to them and the people of Galatia had begun to waver. This is a scenario we live again today. We know the truths that we have heard, but when the world intervenes with its own gospel we become confused. We forget the initial message that . . . we are saved through grace brought by Christ’s death and resurrection, not by the Law. This was surprising news to the Jewish structure in Paul’s day. It sometimes surprises us today.
We constantly and loudly hear two compelling philosophies. It is much easier, we tell ourselves, to do well if we are just told what to do and then we do it. It is much easier, we tell ourselves, if we can just interpret the law as we like and then we can do what we like.
These modes of thinking are reflected in our polarized political and social world. The two ends of the spectrum on which we live pull and push at one another until the middle is either squeezed to death or has the life pulled out of it. There is no predictable place to stand. It is this problem that instigates Paul’s letter to the Galatians; and we can take advice from his thinking today as he reminds us that because Christ is mystery only Christ can show us the way to salvation and how to live the mystery of life. Only Christ can model how to live the Law, because he is the Law.
As this letter opens, Paul chides us for being so quickly led astray by the world; then he reminds us that there is only one true model to follow, Jesus. Reading further into this letter we read that we might be saved by our faith. Various protesting Christian sects stand on the premise that faith alone saves us. We know that this is not true because it is faith as displayed by the sacrificial love of Christ that brings us home. Our faith must be accompanied by works because Jesus is love, and if we have faith, our works must be love. If we have one without the other we lack integrity. When we try to live a life in which we split ourselves and allow our actions to differ widely from what we say we believe, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14, we are the gong clanging loudly signifying nothing.
Paul closes the letter with another reminder that the Galatians – and we – must return to our initial desire to follow Christ, for there is no other road to salvation. We may surround ourselves with friends who help us create the illusion that this world answers all our needs if we can only amass enough money, fame or comfort; yet somewhere deep inside, we know that there is more.
When I feel both squeezed and pulled apart by the world, I know that it is time to return to this letter. I look for verse 3:1: O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? I re-read verse 1:6: I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by [the] grace of Christ for a different gospel. I look again at 5:7: You were running so well; who hindered you from following [the] truth. I meditate on verses 2-5: Bear one another’s burdens, and so you fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deluding himself. Each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast with regard to someone else; for each will bear his own load.
But in a world which constantly, and with expert ways, calls us away from Christ, it is with Galatians 6:9 that we will want to spend a good amount of time: Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up.
A re-post from January 14, 2012.
Images from: https://www.metrodetroitfca.org/reflections-of-galatians-1-3 and https://isiervthomas.weebly.com/ervs-bible-study/galatians
For more on this letter, see the Magnanimity page of A Book of Our Life on this blog.
The Noontimes 