Galatians Chapter 1

(Tap footnote to read it.  Old Testament quotations are underlined.  "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.¹"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love".  However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior.  It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings.  (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".)  Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé".  Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing.  It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )

Greeting from Paul

1. Paul, an apostle not sent from men nor through man but through Jesus the Anointed and God the Father – the One who raised Him from the dead –
2. and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia:
3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Anointed Lord Jesus,
4. the One who gave Himself for our sins, so He might rescue us from the evil age which is *present, according to the will of our God and Father,
5. to whom be the glory through the ages of the ages.¹“through the ages of the ages” is literal, often translated “forever and ever”.  However, the traditional interpretation lacks the past element of a more literal translation.  Further, the Greek word often translated “forever” here (αἰών, “aion”) literally means “age”, meaning a time span with a beginning and an end.  It’s also used in Matthew 24:3 “what are the signs of your coming and the culmination (end) of the age?”  Amen.

Don’t Desert the True Gospel

6. I marvel that you’re so quickly turning away from the One who called you by the grace of the Anointed for a different gospel,
7. which isn’t really another gospel, except there are some deeply shaking you and wanting to corrupt the gospel of the Anointed.
8. But even if we or an angel from heaven preaches a gospel to you that’s close beside but contrary to²“close beside but contrary to” is one word in Greek.  It’s the Greek word “παρά” (para) which is the root of our word parallel.  The primary meaning is “close beside”, but when followed by a word in the Greek accusative case – which it is here – it also gains the nuance of being “contrary to”. the gospel which we preached to you, let him be anathema!³“anathema” likely because of the Bible, this Greek word has entered the English vocabulary.  In Greek it literally means to curse someone, and more specifically to offer a curse on them to devote them to God’s destruction.  It can also have the connotation of being abominable and/or detestable.
9. As we have forewarned you, so now I say again: if anyone preaches a gospel to you that’s close beside but contrary to⁴see note on previous verse what you received, let him be anathema!⁵see note on previous verse
10. For now, do I seek favor from men, or God?  Or do I seek to please men?  Yet if I was pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a slave of the Anointed.
11. For brothers, I make known to you the gospel which was preached by me, that it’s not from man.
12. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it; but I received it through a revelation of Jesus the Anointed.
13. For you heard of my former way of life in Judaism, that I was persecuting the church of God exceedingly beyond measure and was ravaging it.
14. And I was blazing a trail⁶“blazing a trail” is one word in Greek with that exact meaning.  The Greek word refers to a pioneer cutting through brushwood to create a path, exactly like the English idiom “blaze a trail” in Judaism beyond many men of the same age⁷“men of the same age” is one word in Greek meaning “of the same age”, and here it’s a masculine word. in my nation, being abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
15. But when God (the One who set me apart from my mother’s womb and who called me through His grace) was pleased
16. to reveal His Son in me so I might preach His gospel among the gentiles, I didn’t immediately consult with flesh and blood.
17. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the men who were apostles before me, but I departed into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.
18. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas⁸“Cephas” is Aramaic for “a rock”, and is another name for the disciple/apostle Peter. and remained with him fifteen days.
19. But I didn’t see the other apostles except James, the brother of the Lord.
20. (And what I write to you, behold: in the sight of God I don’t lie.)
21. Afterwards I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
22. Now, my face was unknown to the churches of Judea who are in the Anointed.
23. And they were only hearing that: “The man previously persecuting us now preaches the gospel of the faith which he was formerly ravaging.”
24. And they were glorifying God because of me.

 

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