Martin Luther thought very highly of Galatians. He compared it to his wife whom he loved deeply:

“The letter to the Galatians is my little letter, and I am married to it. It is my Käthe von Bora.”1

Luther lectured on Galatians at least two times, once in 1516-1517 and again in 1531. These two commentaries are often dated 1519 and 1535 or 1538 respectively due to when they were published. The second set of lectures was published twice with Luther’s direct cooperation. The 1538 edition seems to be the definitive edition. In 1545 Luther said of his many books:

If they took my advice, they would print only the books containing doctrine, like Galatians.2

Galatians was very important to many of the Reformers. Timothy George characterizes the central role of Galatians and Romans in the Protestant Reformation:

During the Protestant Reformation, Galatians and Romans became the bedrock of a Pauline renaissance as Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers rallied around the doctrine of justification by faith over against a compromised theology of grace in the prevailing late medieval systems of theology.3

Galatians is also very important to us. We need Paul’s logic of righteousness just as much as Luther, Calvin, et. al. needed it. Paul argued that we must be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified (Galatians 2:16). The issue of justification has troubled the church from the first century of the Christian era till now. We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Many who call themselves Christians dispute the Protestant position but Paul, in Galatians, makes it all very clear.

  1. Herman Selderhuis, Martin Luther, A Spiritual Biography, published 2017, page 249. Note that Selderhuis translated this statement himself. ↩

  2. Timothy George, Galatians:The Standard Christian Commentary, published 2020, page 95. ↩

  3. Timothy George, Galatians:The Standard Christian Commentary, published 2020, page 94. ↩