Galatia 1:6

Occasion of the Letter

1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one ¹  who called you by the grace of Christ ²  and are following ³  a different ⁴  gospel –

Galatia 2:17

2:17 But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then one who encourages ⁵  sin? Absolutely not!

Galatia 3:11

3:11 Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous one will live by faith. ⁶ 

Galatia 4:20

4:20 I wish I could be with you now and change my tone of voice, ⁷  because I am perplexed about you.

Galatia 5:1

Freedom of the Believer

5:1 For freedom ⁸  Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke ⁹  of slavery.

[1:6]  ¹ sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).

[1:6]  ² tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (Ì⁵¹ א A B F^c Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï f vg sy^p bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, cariti Cristou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (cariti Ihsou Cristou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241^s pc sy^h**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (cariti qeou, “by the grace of God”; 327 pc Thret^lem), a few mss (Ì^46vid F* G H^vid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (cari", “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the original wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.

[1:6]  ³ tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “another.”

[2:17]  ⁵ tn Or “does Christ serve the interests of sin?”; or “is Christ an agent for sin?” See BDAG 230-31 s.v. διάκονος 2.

[3:11]  ⁶ tn Or “The one who is righteous by faith will live” (a quotation from Hab 2:4).

[4:20]  ⁷ tn Grk “voice” or “tone.” The contemporary English expression “tone of voice” is a good approximation to the meaning here.

[5:1]  ⁸ tn Translating the dative as “For freedom” shows the purpose for Christ setting us free; however, it is also possible to take the phrase in the sense of means or instrument (“with [or by] freedom”), referring to the freedom mentioned in 4:31 and implied throughout the letter.

[5:1]  ⁹ sn Here the yoke figuratively represents the burdensome nature of slavery.