God’s Word for You

Galatians 6:11 What large letters

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, August 20, 2024

11 SEE WHAT LARGE LETTERS I USE WHEN I WRITE TO YOU WITH MY OWN HAND!

This sentence begins the conclusion of the letter. But before we apply the verse, we need to agree about what Paul means. There are two schools of thought here. Martin Luther thought that Paul was talking about the whole document: “See what a large, long letter I wrote.” Luther’s point is that Galatians is, after Romans and the two letters to the Corinthians, one of Paul’s longest letters (Ephesians is just about the same length). The rest are all shorter. Therefore this would be something like Paul saying, “Phew! What a long letter I’ve written, and all in my own handwriting!” Luther bases his thinking on his understanding of the order of Paul’s letters (he thought that Galatians was written after Romans), and he is also swayed somewhat by a similar argument by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in his Paraphrasis.

I think that in this matter, Luther is at odds with the Greek text. But since it is a minor point and not a great matter of doctrine, Luther may not have given it as much study and reflection as he usually did to other matters. Let us examine a few points about grammar and Paul’s typical usage:

1, When Paul talks about a “letter” meaning something in writing, such as an epistle, he always uses the word “epistle” (Greek epistolē, ἐπιστολή): Romans 16:22; 1 Corinthians 5:9; 2 Corinthians 7:8; Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27; 2 Thessalonians 2:2, 3:14, etc.).

2, Here Paul uses the word gramma (γράμμα), which means “character, letter of the alphabet.” Compare 2 Corinthians 3:7.

3, Paul does not say “what a large letter” in the singular, but “what large letters” in the plural.

4, Paul uses the dative case, showing means of writing (“with large letters”) whereas it would have been more natural to use the accusative case if he simply meant “the letter / epistle” as the object of the verb “to write” as we find in Romans 16:22, “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter…” or “He wrote a letter” (Acts 23:25).

For these reasons, I am confident that Paul is talking about the unusually large characters or penmanship he employs as he takes up the pen himself to write this sentence. Here is the equivalent of our modern habit of including a hand-written signature, often included today even on electronic documents.

What might be the reason Paul uses large letters? There are a few possibilities:

1, His handwriting was simply larger than that of the scribe. However, this doesn’t seem to account for Paul’s “what large letters” comment, if his writing was just a little different.

2, Paul could be injecting emotion into what he writes, the way we use underlining or bold type.

3, Paul might have had poor eyesight. Remember his comment about the Galatians being willing to tear out their own eyes for him (4:15). This could even have been the result of his being stoned almost to death in Galatia on his first visit (Acts 14:19).

4, Paul is emphasizing his distinctive handwriting.

The last one or two points seem to be the most likely. Later on Paul had trouble with men writing false letters claiming to be from him, so that he has to warn the Thessalonians about it and to look for his handwriting (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

So Paul takes the pen from the secretary he was dictating to, and dashes off a line of his own. He does something like this, offering greetings or a comment about his handwriting in several of his letters, to show that this was written or dictated by Paul himself. “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand” (1 Corinthians 16:21; Colossians 4:18). He says the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 3:17 and again in Philemon 1:19. Paul’s letters are not pious forgeries of the early church. They were written by Paul, often dictated to a special kind of secretary known as an amanuensis, but certainly proof-read and often signed in this way by Paul himself. His letters were sent by trusted couriers like Phoebe (Romans 16:1) and hand-delivered. But most especially we must always remember that everything in Paul’s letters was inspired by God the Holy Spirit. He has this in common with all the other Scriptures, as the Apostle Peter declares (2 Peter 3:16). And we read: “Remember your leaders, who spoke the Word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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