An Introduction to Galatians – Ryan Rhoden

The Bible is a gift, and we treat it as such. When studying the Bible, we aren’t only pursuing information about God or correct doctrine. We should be pursuing and experiencing REVELATION and INTIMACY from God Himself. We want to know the Author, not just the book.

While the Bible may not be written to us, or about us, it was Divinely inspired and has been miraculously preserved, compiled & translated over generations FOR US (to learn about and know God as He revealed Himself in and through Jesus Christ).

How, then, should we read and study the Bible? The interpretive process we teach and live by at Living Waters is called “historical contextual,” which challenges us to dig out the original meaning of the verses rather than insert meaning into them (which can happen when we read with ourselves as the central perspective of the text).

We ask two fundamental questions of the Biblical text before we interpret the meaning or apply verses to our lives:

• What would this passage have meant to the original writer?
• What would this passage have meant to the original reader?

As we study Galatians together, I want us to do our best to discover what each verse meant to Paul when he wrote it. I want us to use the passages’ historical, cultural, and linguistic context to dig into what they meant to the people (original audience) who read them. Only then can we confidently apply these ancient Scriptures to our lives!