Galatians
Chapter 6
Overview
Paul closes his letter to the communities in Galatia by bringing a heated argument down to everyday life. Some teachers are pressuring non-Jewish believers to accept circumcision, the physical mark of belonging to the Jewish covenant. Paul answers with a different picture of faithfulness: gently restore people who fail, carry one another’s burdens, support teachers, and keep doing good. Actions, he says, grow into consequences like seeds into a harvest. He then takes up the pen himself, rejects outward status, and points to a new creation shaped by Jesus’ cross.
1Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught doing wrong, you who are guided by God’s Spirit should gently help that person get back on the right path. But watch yourself, so that you are not tempted too.
2Carry one another’s burdens. In this way you will fulfill the law of the Messiah.
3Anyone who thinks they are important when they are nothing is fooling themselves.
4Each person should carefully examine their own work. Then they can take satisfaction in what they themselves have done, without comparing themselves with someone else,
5because each person will have to carry their own responsibility.
6Those who are taught God’s message should share every good thing they have with the person who teaches them.
7Do not fool yourselves: no one can mock God and get away with it. People will harvest whatever they plant.
8Those who plant to satisfy their own selfish desires will harvest ruin from those desires. But those who plant to please God’s Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit.
9Let us not grow tired of doing what is good. If we do not give up, we will harvest the results at the proper time.
10So whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially to those who belong to our family of faith.
11Look at the large letters I am writing to you with my own hand!
12Those who want to make an impressive outward showing are the ones pressuring you to be circumcised—to have the foreskin removed as the Jewish covenant requires. Their only purpose is to avoid being persecuted because of the Messiah’s cross.
13Even those who accept circumcision do not themselves obey the law. They want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about what was done to your bodies.
14But I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Through his cross, the world and all it values has been put to death as far as I am concerned, and I have been put to death as far as the world is concerned.
15Being circumcised means nothing, and being uncircumcised means nothing. What matters is becoming a new creation.
16May peace and mercy rest on everyone who lives by this principle, and also on Israel, the people who belong to God.
17From now on, no one should cause me any more trouble. I carry on my body the scars that mark me as belonging to Jesus.
18Brothers and sisters, may the grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah be with you in your deepest selves. Amen.