Final thoughts. (6.11-18)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

As I write to you in my own handwriting. [Ga 6.11] I said a few weeks ago that Paul didn’t write his letters himself; he dictated them to a scribe. We know this because the original text has a lot of sentence fragments, which obviously mean he’s saying this stuff aloud. But this part, the conclusion, he probably sat down and wrote himself after the scribe was all done. He said in 2 Thessalonians 3.17 that he actually did this in all his letters.

And since Paul’s not a scribe, he’s not used to writing with a pen. When people wrote back then, most of the time they used their fingers, and wrote in the sand, or scratched stuff on a wax tablet. When Jesus was writing on the ground in John 8.6, he was teaching his disciples in temple at the time, and was probably using the sand on the pavement to write notes, much like I’d use a penboard. And for that, you make large letters. That’s more like what Paul was used to writing. Not little tiny letters on bumpy papyrus, where you gotta make them tiny so you can save paper.

Okay, back to talking about circumcision.

Those who want to make a good impression in the flesh [Ga 6.12] would be the legalists who want the Galatians to follow the Law, and get ritually circumcised. And here Paul says what he thinks their real reason for their legalism is: Only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

There were a number of Christians who thought, if they just catered to the Pharisees and Sadducees enough, if they just compromised in certain things the other sects found essential, they might get accepted by these groups instead of persecuted. Thing is, both those sects were inevitably gonna have problems with Christianity.

• Sadducees didn’t believe in miracles, or angels, or any of the books of the bible past Deuteronomy. And Christianity is full of miracles, and angels, and quotes from most of the books which the Sadducees thought weren’t bible.
• Pharisee custom was to defer to their elders—“Rabbi Hillel said this, Rabbi Shammai said that, Rabbi Akiva said this, and we gotta follow what they taught.” But Jesus overrules all those guys. Over and over again in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said… but I tell you,” [Mt 5.21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, etc.] because Jesus is our authority, not the Rabbis. Why should he defer to them?—he’s the LORD who handed down the Law at Sinai anyway.

Plus the Pharisees were hypocrites: Even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves. [Ga 6.13] Circumcision was just going through the motions of following the Law; it didn’t necessarily mean anyone would actually follow the Law after they went through with circumcision.

It’s never worth it to compromise Christianity to please others. It turns our faith into a joke, and doesn’t impress them anyway. It’s a big waste of time.

I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Ga 6.14] In Roman culture this was a really weird thing to boast about. Crosses were gross. Crosses had dead bodies and skeletons hanging off them. It’s like boasting about our Halloween decorations, only worse because those were real corpses.

Plus Romans figured these bodies were convicts, who deserved crucifixion. Boasting in the cross is like boasting in the gallows people used to hang thieves and murderers, or the firing squad used to shoot traitors, or in lethal injection. Romans didn’t wanna be associated with crosses. The idea of us walking around with crosses as jewelry would really weird them out.

But this just goes to show how radically Jesus has transformed what the cross means. He used the nasty practice of crucifixion to save the world.

(Boasting instead about how we’ve been ritually circumcised?—also really weird, when you think about it. And silly in comparison with what Jesus did for us.)

What matters instead is a new creation. [Ga 6.15] Isaiah wrote about New Heaven and New Earth in Isaiah 65.17, and Pharisees looked forward to that as something Messiah would bring about. Well, Jesus is creating that. We’ll see it eventually. Again, in comparison with ritual circumcision: Really silly.

Peace and mercy [Ga 6.16] are common Jewish greetings. They still say שָׁלֽוֹם/shalóm and חֵֽן/khen, “grace” (which means the same thing) as greetings and blessings. Paul’s using them to say farewell to the Galatians.

Bear on my body the marks of Jesus. [Ga 6.17] Paul’s talking about the literal scars he’s suffered as a result of getting persecuted for Christ. And again, in comparison with ritual circumcision: Extra silly. Paul’s wounds are far more profound than circumcision.