Resources for Preaching on Galatians

For the weeks leading up to December 25 (what the un-RPW world calls otherwise known as “Christmas” & “Advent”), we’re taking a 30,000 ft aerial flyover of the book of Galatians. Thinking especially that God sent His Son “in the fullness of time,” we’ll be using Galatians as a foil for considering Christ – and His benefits – that have come to us in these last days where we have the fullness of Christ. Topics like justification, adoption, freedom, covenant, the apostolic ministry, sanctification, and the Gospel will be addressed. And with the short window we’re giving ourselves, along with the 30k ft approach, that means I have to be pretty concise; so no, I won’t be doing any extended reflections in this series on “what are the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου?”Here are some of the resources that I’ve found helpful for thinking about Galatians:
F.F. Bruce’s commentary in the NIGTC series. I love this series (usually) and I enjoy Bruce.
 

 

 
Leon Morris’ commentary – a sturdy middle level monograph.

 

 

 
Luther’s commentary on Galatians. Known more for its theological and devotional weight than exegetical depth, it is online free here.

 

 
Calvin’s commentary, online at CCEL.

 

 

 
James Buchanan’s Doctrine of Justification. This is useful for handling a lot of the forensic stuff in Galatians. This was a real standard, and can be had in a free .pdf download as well. For a more modern take on this doctrine, I’m slowly scanning Fesko’s monograph.

 

 
Ridderbos’ magnum opus on Paul. Don’t leave home without it.

 

 

Two helpful articles are by NT professor S. M. Baugh (for WSCal):
“Galatians 3:20 and the Covenant of Redemption,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2004): 49-70.
“Galatians 5:1 – 6 and Personal Obligation: Reflections on Paul and the Law,” Evangelical Theological Society: San Antonio, TX, 2004.

Sermon series:
The WSCal faculty have been working through Galatians for their weekly devotions. You can find them online here.

 
Calvin again. Several of Calvin’s sermons from Galatians can be purchased or found online here.
McWilliams series on Galatians at Covenant Presbyterian Church
Brown series on Galatians at Christ URC

Wish list:
If we were spending more time to tear into the exegetical arguments of Galatians for a lengthier and more in-depth study, two further resources I’d love to have are T. Schreiner’s commentary for the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament and P. Ryken’s commentary for the Reformed Expository Commentary series. Of course, by the time I get back to Galatians I’m sure there will be even more valuable resources.

Are there any I’m missing? What “must have” Galatians resources do you recommend? Hit them up in the comments.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s