the issue which Paul is addressing before we apply the contents of the letter to our own situation. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile Paul’s thought about the law of God in Galatians 3 with some of his comments in other epistles. The first step toward understanding this passage is to recognize that Paul is confronting a specific problem (the Galatians’ tendency to depend on the law) rather than writing a systematic exposition of the relationship between the law and the Christian. From our