Words Worth Noting - November 1, 2026

“Why should this [the inherent implausibility of the message, and the regular severe physical abuse he suffered for preaching it] have persuaded anyone in Galatia to accept the truth of Paul’s message? To abandon the cult of the Caesars was not merely to court danger, but to risk the very stitching that held together the patchwork society of the province’s cities. Yet some, for all this, did find the new identity proclaimed by Paul not a menace, but a liberation. The love felt by the Jewish God for his chosen people – so unlike anything displayed by the heedless gods of Galatia – had long aroused in Gentiles emotions of envy as well as suspicion. Now, by touring cities across the entire span of the Roman world, Paul set himself to bringing them the news of a convulsive upheaval in the affairs of heaven and earth. Once, like a child under the protection of a tutor, the Jews had been graced with the guardianship of a divinely authored law; but now, with the coming of Christ, the need for such guardianship was passed. No longer were the Jews alone ‘the children of God’. The exclusive character of their covenant was abrogated. The venerable distinctions between them and everyone else – of which male circumcision had always been the pre-eminent symbol – were transcended. Jews and Greeks, Galatians and Scythians: all alike, so long as they opened themselves to belief in Jesus Christ, were henceforward God’s holy people. This, so Paul informed his hosts, was the epochal message that Christ had charged him to proclaim to the limits of the world. ‘The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.’”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World