🗣️ Galatians 2:20 | Your Testimony

Happy Friday, everyone!

We’ve covered quite a wide range of topics for this verse!

If you missed any of this week’s emails, you can read them here: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday! 

In today’s email…

• 🩸 A summary of everything we’ve learned this week

• 💬 How to write YOUR testimony

• 📚️ In case you missed it…

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MEMORIZE 🧠 

I ____ ____ ________ ____ ______. It is __ _______ _ ___ ____, but _______ ___ ____ __ __.

And ___ ____ _ ___ live __ ___ ______ I ___ ___ _____ in the ___ __ ___, ___ _____ __ and ____ _______ for me.

Galatians 2:20

CONTEXT 📕 

What a week! Here’s where we’ve been:

On Monday, we zoomed out to see the big picture of Galatians.

We discussed Paul writing urgently to the churches of Galatia (new believers in central Asia Minor) who were wrestling with a big question: Do Gentiles need to keep the Jewish law to be saved? 

Paul’s answer was clear: No one is justified by works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16).

God’s grace is a magnificent gift, and we have to avoid the temptation to add or take away from that gift.

On Tuesday, we watched Paul go toe-to-toe with Peter in the immediate context of our memory verse.

When Peter stopped eating with Gentiles to appease the “law-keepers,” Paul publicly called him out. Yikes. Why would Paul do that?

For Paul, the gospel’s integrity was at stake, and his old way of life—built on rule-keeping with the Law—was dead. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

The Christian life is radically new. Jesus is not an addition to our old life, but the entirety of our new life.

On Wednesday, we dove into the ancient torture of crucifixion and how that plays into how Paul thinks about this idea of being crucified with Christ.

Crucifixion in the first century was public, painful, and humiliating. Paul draws on all that to say that the old Paul has been executed.

Faith in Jesus means total surrender: your old life dies and a Christ-centered life resurrects in its place.

And on Thursday, we connected Paul’s words to Jesus’ call to discipleship.

Before Galatians 2:20 was ever written, Jesus had already said: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Reinventing our lives in light of Christ is a daily practice. We must constantly and intentionally be laying down things like revenge, greed, and bitterness to embrace forgiveness, generosity and love.

APPLY AND RESPOND 🏃‍♂️ 

This week has been a journey to the cross with Paul.

Galatians 2:20 shows us that the true Christian life is radical.

Our old selves are nailed to the cross with Christ, and the life we now live is by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave up everything for us.

Paul’s words in Galatians remind us that we are living testimonies. There was an old—but because of Jesus, there is now a new.

Sharing your faith doesn’t always require a sermon. Sometimes it starts with a simple story of God’s work in your life.

So here’s your challenge:

Write out a short testimony and share it with someone this week.

Focus on one way Christ has changed your life or sustained you recently.

Talk about what sins of yours have been nailed to the cross, crucified once and for all.

Then, share it in a conversation, text, or social media post.

Let the Christ in you shine through your story!

RESOURCES 📚️ 

In case you missed it, here are a few resources to help you dig deeper into the verse and its themes:

• 📚️ The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (link)

• 📚️ Galatians (The NIV Application Commentary) by Scot McKnight (link)

• 📚️ Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians by Ben Witherington III (link)

• 💻️ “What Does It Mean to Be Crucified with Christ?”, GotQuestions (link)

• 🎥 BibleProject Overview on the Book of Galatians (link)

• 🎵 Galatians 2:20 by The Corner Room (Spotify | Apple)

• 🎵 Yesterday is Dead by Josiah Queen (Spotify | Apple)

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ANSWER KEY ✅ 

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20