The Shape of Galatians

How foreign the clinical instruments of theology are to the lyrical texts of the Bible! At heart, Paul’s letter to the Galatians is neither a stream of propositional truth, nor a logical argument. Certainly, it communicates truth in a well-reasoned order, but it does so in a captivating “musical” form. The Apostle arranged all his texts in patterns drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures. Paul not only used words to convey meaning, but conferred greater meaning upon each word and phrase through its placement in relation to every other word and phrase. The literary conventions and historical outcomes which shape the Old Testament are the tunes playing inside Paul’s head as he writes to the Galatians. If we use these patterns as a lens through which to view his highly structured prose, Paul’s internal logic becomes immediately apparent, and the skillful allusions he makes hammer home his message of freedom for us with greater depth and clarity than ever before.