The last four words of our text today refer to Abraham as “the man of faith” (v. 9). As I thought about this description of Abraham this week, I thought about all of us in our own unique intersections of this journey of following Jesus as people of faith. Each of us are in our own unique seasons of this struggle to follow Jesus as aliens in a sin-soaked world that is not our home.

As we begin to study the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, it is apparent that the apostle Paul is in agony over the Galatians because he fears that they have become fools under the binding spell of Satan who wants to destroy the freedom they have found in Christ.

Our passage today, describes what seems like a street fight between two pillars of the early church. Now, I am sure this was not really a street fight, but I also do not think it was a just a polite disagreement between these two men.

In this passage, the apostle Paul is continuing to defend the authenticity of the gospel and his authority as an apostle. The church in Galatia was under attack from false teachers inside the church. These false teachers were most likely bonified members of the church who walked and talked like brothers and sisters in Christ. But they were actually imposters who were challenging the authenticity of Paul’s gospel as well as his authority as an apostle. They could not fathom the freedom that Paul proclaimed, and they were working overtime to put the church in the chains of slavery once again.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have learned that, in the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul is defending the message of the gospel as well as his qualifications to preach the gospel he preached.

When you survey this passage along with two other passages from the Apostle Paul located in Romans 1:16 – 17 as well as 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 6, you will quickly find out that the Apostle Paul was intensely devoted to the message of the gospel.

The opening lines of a letter can oftentimes be overlooked as a mere formality without any substance; we typically do not pay any attention to the greeting in a letter as we move on into what seems to be more substantial in the body of the letter. But I would argue that there is more substance in the first five verses of this letter to the Galatians than we might notice at first glance.