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160727 Galations Lesson 2-1 The Works of the Law

Both Galatians and Colossians are part of the body of writings by the apostle Paul contained in the New Testa-ment.  Although the process of dating Scripture is always an imprecise one, it appears most likely that Galatians was written about A.D. 50, between his first missionary journey and his visit to Jerusalem in Acts 15, in an effort to  help  the  Christians  he  converted  in  the  cities  of  Lystra,  Derbe,  Iconium,  and  Antioch  of  Pisidia.    Colossians was most likely written 10 or 15 years later, at the behest of the evangelist Epaphras when he and Paul are in captivity together in Rome.  It is a companion letter to the book of Philemon.At first glance, Galatians and Colossians appear very different.  Underneath these apparent differences, though, both  books  sport  the  same  basic  message.    Both  books  are  meant  largely  as a rebuttal  of  false  teachers,  and some of the same problems appear in both.  Even more fundamentally than that, however, both books are oriented squarely toward Jesus.  Galatians emphasizes the Christ as the Redeemer from the curse of the Law; Colossians portrays Him as the transcendent Son of God in whom all true knowledge is hidden.  Paul argues that the child of God must reject all false doctrine in order to maintain his connecti