Office Of Readings | Week 5, Sunday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From Saint Augustine’s Explanation Of Saint Paul’s Letter To The Galatians | The Need To Understand The Power Of God’s Grace

Christian Art | Jesus Christ Is Crucified For Our Sins | Love Revealed By God, Jesus Christ

Office Of Readings | Week 5, Sunday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From Saint Augustine’s Explanation Of Saint Paul’s Letter To The Galatians | The Need To Understand The Power Of God’s Grace

‘Let us understand the workings of God’s grace.’

In this reading, Saint Augustine explains the situation that prompted Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians and clarifies its central theological concern: the nature of God’s grace and the freedom it brings. Augustine reads the letter as a defence of the Gospel against a misunderstanding that threatened to obscure its core message.

Augustine begins by identifying Paul’s purpose. The Galatians had been taught that, through grace, they were no longer bound by the law. However, some Christians of Jewish background, whom Augustine calls ‘circumcisers’, insisted that faith in Christ was not sufficient for salvation unless it was supplemented by circumcision and observance of the Mosaic law. These teachers failed to recognise what the Galatians had already received.

The law, Augustine explains, had a specific role in God’s plan. It was given to reveal sin, not to remove it. Its purpose was to show human beings their need, not to provide the remedy. Sin is taken away only through faith, and not through faith alone in a narrow sense, but through faith that is active in love. This gift had already been given to the Galatians through the preaching of the Gospel.

The problem arose because the Galatians began to doubt Paul’s authority. Since he did not require Gentile converts to adopt Jewish practices, they wondered whether Paul’s Gospel was incomplete. Augustine notes that even Peter had once acted inconsistently under pressure, withdrawing from Gentile believers. Paul corrected this behaviour openly, not to undermine Peter, but to protect the truth of the Gospel.

Augustine points out that Paul faced similar tensions in other communities, particularly in Rome, where Jewish and Gentile believers struggled to live together. In that case, Paul was able to resolve the conflict more fully. In Galatia, however, the influence of the circumcisers was stronger, and the community had already begun to turn away from Paul’s teaching.

This explains the sharp tone at the beginning of the letter. Paul expresses astonishment that the Galatians are so quickly abandoning the one who called them through grace. Augustine draws attention to Paul’s insistence on the divine origin of his apostleship. By stating that he was called not by human authority but directly by God through Christ, Paul places his teaching on the same level as that of the other apostles and exposes the circumcisers as acting on merely human authority.

For Augustine, the reading underlines a decisive truth: salvation is the work of God’s grace, received through faith and expressed in love. Any attempt to place additional burdens on believers risks emptying the Gospel of its freedom and power.

A Reading From Saint Augustine’s Explanation Of Saint Paul’s Letter To The Galatians | The Need To Understand The Power Of God’s Grace

Paul writes to the Galatians to make them understand that by God’s grace they are no longer under the law. When the Gospel was preached to them, there were some among them of Jewish origin known as circumcisers – though they called themselves Christians – who did not grasp the gift they had received. They still wanted to be under the burden of the law. Now God had imposed that burden on those who were slaves to sin and not on servants of justice. That is today, God had given a just law to unjust men in order to show them their sin, not to take it away. For sin is taken away only by the gift of faith that works through love. The Galatians had already received this gift, but the circumcisers claimed that the Gospel would not save them unless they underwent circumcision and were willing to observe also the other traditional Jewish rites.

The Galatians, therefore, began to question Paul’s preaching of the Gospel because he did not require Gentiles to follow Jewish observances as other apostles had done. Even Peter had yielded to the scandalized protest of the circumcisers. He pretended to believe that the Gospel would not save the Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burden of the law. But Paul recalled him from such dissimulation, as is shown in this very same letter. A similar issue arises in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but with an evident difference. Through his letter to them Paul was able to resolve the strife and controversy that had developed between the Jewish and Gentile converts.

In the present letter Paul is writing to persons who were profoundly influenced and disturbed by the circumcisers. The Galatians had begun to believe them and to think that Paul had not preached rightly, since he had not ordered them to be circumcised. And so the Apostle begins by saying: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you to the glory of Christ, and turning to another gospel.

After this there comes a brief introduction to the point at issue. But remember in the very opening of the letter Paul had said that he was an apostle not from men nor by any man, a statement that does not appear in any other letter of his. He is making it quite clear that the circumcisers, for their part, are not from God but from men, and that his authority in preaching the gospel must be considered equal to that of the other apostles. For he was called to be an apostle not from men nor by any man, but through God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ

God of grace and truth,
you call us not through human effort
but through the gift of your Son.

Give us understanding hearts,
that we may trust fully in your grace
and not place our confidence
in what cannot save.

Keep us faithful to the Gospel we have received,
a Gospel of freedom, love, and new life.
Guard us from confusion and fear,
and strengthen us to live by faith
working through love.

May your grace shape our lives
and lead us into the freedom
of your children.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

Glossary Of Christian Terms

Grace | God’s free and undeserved gift of salvation
Law | The Mosaic law given to Israel
Circumcisers | Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision for salvation
Faith | Trust in God’s saving action through Christ
Faith working through love | Faith expressed in active charity
Gentiles | Non-Jewish believers
Mosaic law | The religious law given through Moses
Apostleship | Authority and mission given directly by God
Dissimulation | Pretending or acting insincerely
Gospel | The good news of salvation in Christ
Justification | Being made right with God through grace
Servants of justice | Those living in right relationship with God
Human authority | Authority based on human appointment rather than divine call