Was Peter and Paul writing to the same people in Galatia?
Question
How do I respond to the question that Peter and Paul wrote to the same people (Galatians specifically), as indicated in II Peter 3:15. And is the term “strangers”, as used in I Peter 1, limited to the remnant?
Response
The objection of Peter and Paul writing to the same people, particularly the Galatians, is a common objection, with the assumption being made that Peter and Paul must have wrote to the exact same people in the Galatian area. But it is evident from what Paul says in his epistle to the Galatians, and from what Peter says in I Peter, that this is not so. For as Peter states in I Peter 1:1, he wrote to “the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” and the term “strangers scattered” is clearly not a reference to the members of God’s “new creature” the church the body of Christ, but to the members of the remnant of Israel, who began to be “scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen” as described in Acts 8 and 11. The “strangers scattered” are the very same ones to whom James wrote his epistle, when he in James 1:1 says “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”
Paul, on the other hand, wrote to “the churches of Galatia” which came into existence as the result of God’s ministry through him as He “opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles” in the Galatian area. This God did as He advanced His new and unprophesied program of ‘visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name’ having suspended His program with Israel upon the stoning of Stephen and turning to the Gentiles in accordance with bringing in His dispensation of grace for the Gentiles. The Galatian saints to whom Paul wrote are the members of God’s “new creature” the church the body of Christ, just as Paul describes them to be in the epistle.
In view of the specific methodology by which God advanced His program of ‘visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name’ and in view of the role that specific regions of Asia Minor (including Galatia) will yet have in the final installment of God’s program with Israel, the Galatian area had both God’s “new creature” and “the Israel of God” in it, just as Paul mentions in Galatians 6:15-16. Hence it is only natural that both Peter and Paul wrote to saints in the Galatian area. But Peter in accordance with his specific apostleship and message wrote to “the Israel of God” that were the “strangers scattered” into that area, and what he wrote about clearly pertains to God’s program with Israel and to the members of the remnant of Israel as “the Israel of God” that they are. While Paul in accordance with his particular apostleship and message wrote to God’s “new creature” that were in that area, and what he writes about in Galatians clearly pertains to them, and to us, as the members of God’s “new creature” the church the body of Christ that we are, and to God’s program with us today during this present dispensation of His grace to us Gentiles.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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