Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in only 150 verses long although Paul, like the rest of us did not write in chapter and verse.  Paul wrote a real letter to real people in real churches somewhere in north central Turkey, maybe as early as A.D. 49, long before there was a New Testament, long before Matthew, Mark, Luke or John had been written.

Paul had no idea that what he angrily composed would one day be called “sacred scripture”, each word and phrase studied, parsed, compared and contrasted with the Old Testament, other writings of Paul and the rest of the New Testament, debated over what was the issue, who were the antagonists, etc.  Paul just wrote a letter and thank God, the church kept it and is still learning from it.

I will preach from Galatians the next 6 Sundays, hoping to share inspiration and guidance from a letter filled with Paul’s anger, perplexity and certainty.  I am using as my main source Dr. J. Louis Martyn’s authoritative 1997 commentary on Galatians, which runs to 614 pages and contains a bibliography of roughly 900 books and articles.  Somehow I think this would have amazed Paul!

Some authorities caution that the day for preaching a sermon series has long ago passed.  Very few persons occupy a pew for six straight weeks, especially in the summer, and will an announcement that one is preaching from Galatians rouse people out of the laze of summertime to pack the pews?  

So a sermon series cuts against the grain, especially a sermon series based on a book of the Bible!  Church growth experts insist that you can pack the pews with sermon series like these (I am not making these up):   How Christians Can Have A Good Sex Life…How Following Christ Can Make You Rich…Raising Problem Free Children the Biblical Way…you get the idea.   There are plenty of places where you can find this kind of preaching.  I thought I’d do something in increasingly short supply…just preach the Bible.

Summer’s here and the pace slows.  But the church worships Father, Son and Holy Spirit weekly.  I’ll see you this Sunday as we are addressed by God by and through the living Word.

Creede Hinshaw