Galatians Outline – first pass

 This is part three of a six post series showing how to study a book of the Bible, using Galatians as a model. The first of the series can be found here: How to study the Bible – using Galatians as an example.

By now, you should be praying regularly concerning your study, and you should have read Galatians (preferably at least three times), as well as written a summary of the book you are studying (Summary of Galatians). Remember you should pray before, during, and after each step. What follows is the next step of the study process: an example of the first pass of breaking the book down into an outline. This describes the text of the Bible, telling us what the author was saying to his audience then and there. This is known as a hermeneutical outline. First pray. Then start the outline using paragraph divisions (remember to keep praying while reading and while writing). I prefer to start by finding a Bible version I trust with paragraph divisions and using those divisions as my starting point, and then adjusting as I conitnue to work the outline later. I tend to use the paragraph divisions of the NIV as my starting point, and use the NASB for the text. This outline will use descriptions of the text, rather than the text itself. Every outline will likely be different from every other one – even if the same person were do the the outlining again. Please understand – this is what I came to understand from what I read when I read it. Each person will likely come up with their own ideas and outline – and indeed it might be different based on what was going on in your life and how God is working on you when you wrote it:

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Outline of Galatians (Paragraphs)

 

1:1-2	Paul introduces himself as someone who was sent by God the Father and Christ Jesus, whom God raised from the dead.
1:3-5	Paul gives a blessing of grace and peace from God the Father and Christ, telling why Christ’s peace and grace are important, in that He gave Himself for the sins of believers to rescue them from the age of evil, just as God the Father had willed.
1:6-9	Paul tells the Galatians they are being deceived by a false and distorted Gospel, and that if anyone, even an angel or himself, teaches a Gospel different than that which Paul first taught, he is to be cursed.
1:10	Paul gives additional proof why he should be believed, in that he is not seeking the favor of the people, but is a servant of Christ.
1:11-12	The Gospel Paul teaches did not come from men, but was a revelation from God.
1:13-17	Paul gives further proof that the Gospel came from God by reminding the Galatians how he had been advancing in Judaism farther than his contemporaries and had been extremely zealous for the traditions of his ancestors, and had persecuted and tried to destroy the church of God, but when God revealed His Son in Paul, he went without consulting anyone into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
1:18-24	Three years later, Paul went to Jerusalem and met Peter and James, after which he continued preaching the Gospel.  Although he was unknown by sight to the churches in Judea, the people did know that he had once tried to destroy those who believed what he was preaching, and they glorified God because of it.
2:1-5	Fourteen years later, false brothers had tried to subject those Paul was teaching to slavery and he would not yield the truth of the Gospel.  So in response to a revelation, Paul went to Jerusalem and privately submitted to those who seemed to be of high repute what he had been teaching to the Gentiles, and not even Titus, a Greek, was forced to be circumcised.
2:6-10	Those who were of high repute added nothing to Paul’s message, but saw that God was at work in Paul’s preaching of the Gospel to non-Jews. James, Peter, and John recognized the grace given to Paul, fellowshipped with him, and agreed he should go to the Gentiles and only asked that he remember the poor.
2:11-13	Paul opposed Peter for hypocrisy and causing others to be hypocritical.
2:14	Paul asks Peter why a Jew who lives like a Gentile should force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs, contrary to the truth of the Gospel.
2:15-16	People are justified by faith in Christ Jesus, not by doing the things of the Law.
2:17-21	Righteousness does not come through the Law, but neither does Christ teach sin. Believers should live through faith in Christ, who died for them and now lives within them.
3:1-5	Believers receive the Spirit of God because they believe what they heard. The Spirit began the work because of faith, man should not try to finish it by works.
3:6-9	Abraham’s belief in what God said was credited to him as righteousness, and all who are of faith as sons of Abraham.
3:10-14	Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
3:15-18	The promise made to Abraham and his seed was not made null when the Law was introduced 430 years later.
3:19-20	The Law was given because of transgressions until the Seed, to whom was referred, came.
3:21-22	Since no law can impart life, the Law is not opposed to the promises of God. Everyone one is a sinner so that what was promised might be given to those who believe.
3:23-25	The Law was a tutor that led us to Christ, so we could be justified by faith and freed from the Law’s tutelage.
3:26-29	Everyone who has faith in Christ is a son of God and an heir to the promise made to Abraham, regardless of his or her status or gender or heritage or biological ancestry.
4:1-7	God sent His Son to redeem those under the Law to change their status from that of slaves to that of sons and heirs. God sent the Spirit into the hearts of His sons.
4:8-11	Having come to know God and being freed from slavery, no one should return the things that had kept him or her in slavery.
4:12-16	The Galatians loved the Gospel when they first heard it, but lost their joy & love for the truth
4:17-20	It is good to be zealous for the right thing, but the people who are zealous to win the Galatians over are trying to alienate them from believers.
4:21-23	The Law teaches that the son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise, while the son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way.
4:24-27	The slave woman Hagar represents the Old Covenant, which bears children destined to be slaves. Hagar corresponds to the physical Jerusalem, while the heavenly Jerusalem is free and the mother of believers.
4:28-31	Believers are the free sons of promise. Scripture said the slave woman’s son would not share in the inheritance of the free son.
5:1	Since Christ set believers free, do not return to slavery.
5:2-6	If you try to keep any part of the Law to be justified, you are obligated to keep all of it.  Attempting to be justified by the Law causes one to fall from grace and be cut off from Christ. In Christ, only faith expressed through love matters.
5:7-12	Anyone who tries to convince believers circumcision is needed to be justified will pay the penalty.  The one who called the believers certainly did not try to persuade them of such, otherwise why would Paul be persecuted if he were preaching a gospel of circumcision?
5:13-15	Believers, called to be free, should not indulge the sinful nature, but instead should serve one another in love – which sums up the Law.
5:16-18	The sinful nature wars with the Spirit, but those who are led by the Spirit will not gratify the sinful nature.
5:19-21	Those who live by the sinful nature, who se signs are obvious, will not inherit the kingdom of God.
5:22-26	Those who live by the Spirit should walk by the Spirit and exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.
6:1-5	Those who are spiritual should carefully and gently restore a brother who is caught in sin. While we should bear each others’ burdens, each of us has to carry his own load and take pride in himself without comparing himself to others.
6:6	Students should share all good things with teachers.
6:7-10	Those who live to please the sinful nature will die by it. Those who live to please the Spirit will live eternally. Don’t grow tired of doing good, but do good to all when you have the opportunity, especially to those who are in the family of God.
6:11	Take heed of what Paul writes here.
6:12-16	Those who want you to be circumcised want to have an outward appearance of following the Law and avoid persecution for the cross. Outward appearances do not matter, only being born again does.
6:17	Paul carries the marks of being Christ’s on his body and should not be troubled.
6:18	Paul wishes the grace of Jesus Christ to the Galatian believers.

 

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The next step is to revise the outline you have prepared, focusing on the timeless principles. Before doing so, pray (remember to keep praying while reading and while writing). Then ignore the paragraph divisions and make sure the ideas flow. Summarize the  ideas found in the text, and descriptions of the text, rather than the text itself.  The idea is to present what was written in the text in a general idea, focusing on the theological ideas. The outline will present timeless principles that would apply to both the original audience then and there, as well as your intended audience here and now. Now we make general summaries of what was written. On this pass, the summaries and descriptions will also be in actual outline format, with main ideas being presented, followed by indented subordinate ideas, followed by descriptions of the text indented still further.  We may want to rearrange any sentences or ideas, ignoring paragraph divisions (they were just for a starting point).  Remember that the original manuscripts had no punctuation or sentence or paragraph divisions.