Paul brings Galatians to an end with notes of exhortation and encouragement and, yes, warnings and challenges. As a good parent, he also manages to tell them in no uncertain terms not to make any trouble for him any longer, the parental “Enough!” Let’s begin with exhortation and encouragement. In keeping with the theme of walking according to the Spirit, that is, enacting the love of neighbor and the love of God. Paul asks that when we find a brother or sister engaged in a transgression, we correct each other in a Spirit of gentleness (6:1). Paul adds, “take care that you yourselves are not tempted” (6:1). This spirit of gentleness is essential to the Christian walk, which does not imply a lack or directness or forthrightness, and must be enacted at all times. So often groups or factions of Christians play a game of “Gotcha!,” delineating the many sins of “conservative” or “liberal” members of the Church (or whatever other group is not sufficiently “Christian” or “Catholic”). A “spirit of gentleness” would go a long way to open communication and genuine koinonia amongst those of us who are members of the same family. We might also remember that Paul warns against dissensions (dichostasiai) and factions (haireseis) in 5:20. I have often wondered what Paul means when he says, “take care that you yourselves are not tempted,” interpreting it generally to mean “don’t be tempted by the sin you find your brother or sister engaged in.” But I wonder now if he means “don’t be tempted to correct your brother and sister in a spirit of superiority and condescension and not gentleness.” Paul adds that we must “bear one another’s burdens” and so “fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2). Some scholars in the past have tried to delineate an actual “law of Christ,” that is, a code of Jesus’ rules and regulations, but I think Paul, perhaps tongue in cheek given all the discussion of “law” in this letter, is simply encouraging us to walk according to the Spirit, according to the law fulfilled by Christ, according, that is, to Christ himself. It is essential in this walk for Christians to “test their own work” (6:4), for Paul says we “reap whatever (we) sow” (6:7) and so must “not grow weary in doing what is right” (6:9). “Whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (6:10). Paul consistently, at the end of Galatians, speaks of the need to work for our own good and that of the entire Church, and those outside of the Church. He takes this opportunity to enjoin a faith that works, that does, that reaches out to others. There is no question that this all comes in the context of a continued warning against those who would call for circumcision amongst the churches of Galatia (6:11-16). Paul takes a last opportunity to state clearly that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” This “new creation” is the transformed disciple of Jesus Christ, the one who follows in faith and so enacts the love of God and neighbor that is incumbent upon us. Paul wishes peace and mercy upon all those who follow this ’rule” (kanon), which alerts us to the seriousness with which Paul understands his epistolary directions, and to the Israel of God. “Israel” could, of course be seen as the Church, the “new Israel,” but since Paul has already wished peace and mercy upon the Church (“those who will follow this rule”), I believe he is offering a blessing of peace and mercy to Israel, the Jewish people. However Paul understands the blessings and mercies of God now poured out on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, he would never abandon his people or propose that God has abandoned them. God has not and will not, though Paul will struggle elsewhere to explain what he sees as the mystery of the Jewish response to Jesus (Romans 9-11). Finally, Paul states that no one is to make trouble for him, for he carries the “marks” (stigmata) of Jesus branded on his body. These are not the stigmata as will be understood in the medieval period, but simply the wounds all over Paul’s body that he has suffered for his faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is arguing that they mark him as the slave of Jesus, in a formal way, or perhaps Paul simply wants to say that these are the marks of one who follows Jesus. At any rate, they are the sign of fidelity to the cross. They are a sign of a faith lived fully in the body of Christ. They area sign of the salvation Paul has found in Jesus Christ and not through the law. John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.