Outlining Galatians

In preparing to preach through Galatians in our current Sunday AM sermon series at CRBC, I have been thinking through how best to outline the book.

We could divide Galatians into three sections:

1.     Galatians 1-2:  Paul’s life (written in response to challenges to his authority as an apostle);

2.    Galatians 3-4:  Paul’s doctrine (written in response to challenges to his preaching of the doctrine of justification by faith);

3.     Galatians 5-6:  Paul’s ethics (written in response to those who had twisted Paul’s teaching and falsely accused it of being antinomian).

Clark Pinnock in Truth on Fire:  The Message of Galatians (Baker, 1972) offer a similar threefold division of two chapters each calling the three sections:  truth (chapters 1-2); salvation (chapters 3-4); and holiness (chapters 5-6) (p. 6).

Timothy George, likewise, in his Galatians commentary in the New American Commentary series (Broadman, 1994) follows C. K. Barrett in offering a threefold division under the following heads:  history (chapters 1-2); theology (chapters 3-4); and ethics (chapters 5-6) (p. 65).