Gal 6

What then shall we do?

Warm-up: What do you regard as the bottleneck or the rate-limiting factor for how believers can mature spiritually, and why?

Read: Galatians 6

1) vv1-2: How are believers asked to contend against sin differently than unbelievers?

• How does v1 define sin, and how does this differ from how defenders of Moses do it?
  • lit. “overtaken in a false step”, same word as e.g. in Ro 5:17 and 2Cor 5:19 => How did the world recognize sin long before Moses? (cf Ro 1:32; 2:15, and Gal 5 study)
• “If a man…”: Is Paul talking about missteps of believers only? Why not?
• Why does the Christian keep watch (e.g. Mt 16:6; Lk 6:41; 21:34), and how (e.g. Mk 14:38; 1Tim 4:16)?
• How are Christians called to bear one another’s burdens as the Spirit-given means for victory? cf Mt 6:14
  • How come that exorcisms, second blessings, inner healings and other techniques of modern counselors are conspicuously absent from Paul’s teaching here about deliverance?
• What is (and what is not) the purpose of so assisting one another?
  • katartizo, lit. to complete, to perfect for its full destination or use

2) vv3-5: What is the goal here of ‘testing ourselves’?

• What problem in church ministries did Paul address here? How?
• Should we only think we are ‘something’ if we really are something?
  • Read 2Cor 12:11. What did Paul’s self tests teach him about himself?
  • What is his teaching here about ‘self esteem’?
• How does v5 affirm the preceding claim?
  • Hint: In what sense are our sins ‘weights’ (v2) or a ‘load’ (v5, lit. diminutive of the cargo of a ship)?

3) vv6-8: How does v6 explain what it means to ‘sow’ to the Spirit?

• How did Paul define earlier what he means by ‘in the Spirit’ versus ‘in the flesh’, 3:2-3?
• What did Paul mean by ‘sowing’? cf 2Cor 9:5-6
  • Accordingly, what determines whether your offerings are ‘sowing’ into the Holy Spirit, or into your own ‘flesh’?
• What will you harvest from your sacrifices to teachers and counselors who slip into the church disguised as Christians only to give you essentially the same self help moralism as the world? v8

4) vv9-10: How is ‘doing good’ defined here compared to the standard of the ones who held up Moses?

• How do each define the ‘due season’? cf Mt 5:12 versus Lk 15:29
• How do each define who is included in “…to everyone“? cf Jn 4:9-10
• Why will natural do-gooders frown at the idea of also supporting those of ‘the household of faith’?
• “As we have opportunity…”: Opportunity for what?
  • How does prescribed ‘charity’ differ from the genuine article? 2Cor 9:7
• v13: What is the greatest irony of all when Law is preached to induce genuine followers of Christ to be (supposedly) more ‘committed’?

5) vv11-14: According to Paul, what motivated the zeal of the circumcisers?

• v12: Why did he call this (lit.) ‘a fair appearance in the flesh‘?
  • Whom did they want to please (in the name of Christianity!)?
• “…that they may boast in your flesh”: Why not just in their own, but in yours?
  • What’s the appeal of having followers who prove their apparent self denial by how strictly they submit to the rules of their group?
  • How is this done nowadays after circumcision is no longer viewed as proof of commitment to ‘the cause’ by anyone?
• Why does the flesh crave to appear less corrupt than it is?
• Read Gen 3:7-11. How are fig leafs a fit metaphor to describe all efforts of the flesh to appear more pious than we are?
• v14: How does true Christianity make an end to all such efforts? cf Gen 3:21

6) vv15-18: How can one rule replace all others?

• What is that rule, and how old is it, really?
  • Read Gen 3:21. How did the new clothes made of an animal point already Eve and her first follower to the cross as the way to a new creation?
  • Hint: Since an animal had to give its life, how did the wearing of its hide point to our need to be united to Christ? *
• v16: Can anyone be saved who does not live by this one ‘rule’? Why not?
• v17: How did Paul prove that he himself lived by this one rule?
  • What ‘marks of Jesus’ did Paul have in mind? What did they mean in a culture where slavery was the rule?

7) Personal & application

• Is modern ‘faith’ in ‘new’ identities taught by the NT, or is it another fig leaf? v3 **
• v15: It is hard to overestimate how radical Paul’s claim must have felt for Jews who knew no other use of the Law than a didactic use, i.e. to teach the faithful how to please God by keeping these rules (Ps 119:30-35, 40-48; Eph 2:15). Why do we find it difficult even nowadays to accept Paul’s claim?
• v16: Will “this one rule” suffice for everyone, or only for genuine followers of Jesus?
• Can you share how this “rule” has become your rule of action to live by, or what difference it has made?

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* Spiritual union with Christ in his death – wearing His death on our bodies, as it were – is the means to be united to Him also in His life, 2Cor 4:10-11; 5:4. After their death sentence and the decree that Eve’s child birth shall be with pain, already the first couple needed to know: Justification by faith is about receiving Christ’s imperishable life. Not His identity: We cannot lose an old identity to become someone else in Christ anymore than He did. Whether the animal that God provided in Gen 3:21 was a lion or a lamb was not relevant enough to even mention. All that is mentioned is the effect of its life. Therefore, the hide of the animal can only serve as a sign of God’s promise to one day clothe us with immortality by the imperishable life of Christ.

** v3 confirms the earlier conclusion in chapter 5: The problem of the circumcisers was not that they had doubts of their identity as brothers of Christ and sons of God. The problem was that their hope of being sons of God was a false assurance, and that they taught others the same false gospel of the same false hope.