That I might preach him among the nations

One of the major issues that threatened the ecclesial communion and unity of the early Church and even questioned the authenticity of Paul’s apostleship was how to harmonise the faith and the religio-cultural sensibility of the early Jewish Christians with those of their Gentile counterparts. Questions arose as to whether it was necessary for the Gentiles to become Jews first by means of the rite of circumcision, and thus pledge to observe the Jewish laws, before they could be fully incorporated into the body of the believers in Christ. Paul and the early Church leaders, as Paul himself recounts in the letter to the Galatians, by means of frank dialogue and mutual respect found a solution to this problem, a solution which gave credence both to Paul’s vocation as an apostle and to his missionary strategy that guaranteed what today we could call the cultural autonomy of the evangelised, while insisting, nevertheless, on the inalienable transforming and recreating power of the Gospel. In this dissertation, an exegetical analysis and a theologico-ecclesiastical appraisal of Paul’s argumentation in Gal 1:1-2:10 that concerns the divine origin of his apostleship and the Gospel he preached among the Gentiles are done and their practical application in the particular socio-cultural milieu of Igboland, Nigeria investigated upon. The attempt is to understand how the text of Gal 1:1-2:10 could be paradigmatic especially in this new era of evangelisation and how it could forge a solid base for the process of inculturation in Africa, in general and Igboland, in particular.