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Paul’s fiercely passionate letter to the Galatians offers a rare glimpse into the early history of the emerging Christ-believing movement. Paul is seething with righteous indignation over the events at Galatia even as he conveys his hope that the Galatians might be coaxed back to the true Gospel.
The Galatians’ young faith was grappling with issues that would prove to be a watershed. Do gentile Christians need to adopt Moses’ Law and be circumcised as Jews in order to worship the God of the Jewish Savior? Or does Baptism incorporate every manner of person—without distinction—into Christ? Does faith alone suffice for salvation? Across the divide of two thousand years of time and cultural space, the letter to the Galatians is an authoritative witness to the catholic Gospel of salvation by grace alone, for all people alike.
A. Andrew Das is the Donald W. and Betty J. Buik Chair at Elmhurst College. Dr. Das authored Solving the Romans Debate (Fortress, 2007); Paul and the Jews (Hendrickson, 2003); Paul, the Law, and the Covenant (Hendrickson, 2001); and Baptized into God’s Family (Northwestern, 1991; 2d ed., 2008). He coedited The Forgotten God (Westminster John Knox, 2002). His Grand Thematic Narratives of Galatians is forthcoming from Fortress.
His articles have appeared in Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, New Testament Studies, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Biblical Research (forthcoming), Concordia Journal, Concordia Theological Quarterly, and Logia, as well as in Paul Unbound (Hendrickson, 2010), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 2009), Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), Unity and Diversity in the Gospels and Paul (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), The Law in Holy Scripture (Concordia, 2004), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics (forthcoming), and The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies (forthcoming).
He was an invited member of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Paul and Scripture Seminar and has presented at the Society of Biblical Literature; the African Society of Biblical Scholars; the Chicago Society of Biblical Research; the international Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, of which he is an elected member; and the Evangelical Theological Society. He is also a member of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and serves on the Holman Christian Standard Bible revision committee.
He received his M.Div. from Concordia Theological Seminary and did his graduate work at Yale University, Duke University, and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He served as a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Lombard, Ill., from 2000–2002 and assisted as a pastor at St. John’s Lutheran in Lombard from 2002–2004.
