Galatians 3:1-3
“You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?”
Paul writes this letter to churches in the region of Galatia (modern-day Turkey) in the mid-1st century CE. He's passionately correcting them because they are being swayed by other teachers who insist that Gentile Christians must follow certain Jewish laws, like circumcision, in addition to believing in Jesus. This passage is a direct challenge to their understanding of how they became Christians.
What external expectations, old or new, might be obscuring the core of your faith today?