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Greeting 1 Paul, an apostle— not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. No Other Gospel 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying stop please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Both Galatians and Colossians are part of the body of writings by the apostle Paul contained in the New Testa-ment. Although the process of dating Scripture is always an imprecise one, it appears most likely that Galatians was written about A.D. 50, between his first missionary journey and his visit to Jerusalem in Acts 15, in an effort to help the Christians he converted in the cities of Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia. Colossians was most likely written 10 or 15 years later, at the behest of the evangelist Epaphras when he and Paul are in captivity together in Rome. It is a companion letter to the book of Philemon.At first glance, Galatians and Colossians appear very different. Underneath these apparent differences, though, both books sport the same basic message. Both books are meant largely as a rebuttal of false teachers, and some of the same problems appear in both. Even more fundamentally than that, however, both books are oriented squarely toward Jesus. Galatians emphasizes the Christ as the Redeemer from the curse of the Law; Colossians portrays Him as the transcendent Son of God in whom all true knowledge is hidden. Paul argues that the child of God must reject all false doctrine in order to maintain his connection with this revealed Lord. This message is no less pertinent 2000 years later. If we wish to please God, we too must continue in the blessings that only come from being crucified with Christ. ©Copyright Matthew W. Bassford, 2008. This material is subject to a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial-no derivative works license. This means that it may be reproduced, shared, and used freely, provided it is attributed to the author, not used for commercial purposes, and not altered in any way. For more information, please see creative commons.org.