When we study the epistles of the great missionary Apostle Paul, as they are now printed in our Bible, meticulously divided up into chapters and verses, and provided sometimes with rather lengthy titles, it is all too easy for us to forget that they were rarely, if ever, intended by their author to be elaborately worked out treatises, or even epistles, in any formal sense of the word. From first to last they were letters, and they can be more deeply appreciated when their essential character is thus understood.
Despite the fact, which even his enemies admitted, that his letters were "weighty and powerful" (II Cor. 10:10), there is not a little evidence to suggest that Paul was not primarily a writer. "Woe is unto me," he cries on one occasion, "if I preach not the gospel" (I Cor. 9:16). His epistles, then, may be justly regarded as representing the urgent correspondence of an exceedingly active missionary, who was always eager to return as soon as possible to his primary work of teaching and preaching. The driving force which impelled the apostle to write these brief letters, almost in spite of himself, makes them vastly more memorable than if they had appeared in the form of general, unhurried discourses on Christian life and doctrine. Paul's deep understanding of human nature, together with his wide experience in dealing with the stern vicissitudes of the Christian mission field, enabled him to realize and to go far towards solving the problems of churches, such as those in Ephesus. Rome, Corinth, and elsewhere, and of individuals, such as Timothy, Titus, or Philemon.
Subversive Judaic elements in Galatia had undermined the Christian communities which Paul himself had established there. The cause of Christianity seemed all but lost in that region, but the apostle's vigorous and outspoken epistle to the Galatians recalled them to their senses, so that when he visited them a few months later there was evidence of renewed loyalty and of Christian steadfastness.
