Galatians is the "go-to" book when it comes to countering trying to follow the Father's commands post-Christ's-resurrection. Many of its verses are taken out of context due to the difficulty of how to read Galatians. Just as Peter warns, Paul is very difficult to read in this book and you can easily turn to Law-lessness by misunderstanding his words. This is what those that are using this book to counter following the commands are doing.

In the comic I provide three illustrations of things to look out for in Galatians. If we keep the whole book in context, reading it from front to back, and keeping the book itself in context of the rest of the Bible; we have these three main points that Paul is talking about in Galatians.

1) Slavery/living like Jews/circumcision party - Words like this, Paul is point to all the EXTRA laws that were put in place in Judaism. He talks about this specifically in verse 1:14. He speaks out against Peter for falling back into these extra laws in 2:11-14. Paul closes out Galatians talking about those who promote these extra laws and point out that they don't even keep God's Law, which is reminiscent of Jesus' words in Mark 7 and Stephen's words in Acts 7.

2) Freedom in Christ - Taking off the man-made bondage of the last point, we have freedom in Christ to follow His example. We have the freedom to follow the Law, which is liberty, which is of the Spirit, which talks against doing the works of the Flesh. Those works of the Flesh that put us in a different bondage, the bondage of sin.

3) Works of the Law - Most importantly, when Paul is talking of works of the Law, he is referring to it in a legalistic sense. Doing things because you have to. Doing things to check off a mark. "Oh hey, I didn't commit adultery today, even though I wanted to. God will surely be proud of me". Didn't even out parents teach us to not do things by the letter only? How many of us when having to apologize were told that "just saying sorry" isn't good enough? Sure, saying sorry, you kept the commandment of your parents, but that wasn't their intention. You are doing the work of the letter only because you have to - being legalistic. Just like our parent's commands, God's commands work the same way. If you think you are going to save yourself, make yourself righteous, or anything down this line of thinking by trying to keep the commands to the letter on your own - you'll never make it as you will stumble.

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; AGAINST such things THERE IS NO LAW. (i.e. The Law is not against the Spirit)

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