Abstract:
In this article, it is investigated how the concepts identity, ethics and ethos interrelate, and
how the ethics of the Pauline communities in Galatians functioned against the background of
the missionary context of the early church. The author argued that the missionary dimension
originated in the context of the missio Dei, and that God called Paul as a missionary to be taken
up in the latter. The missionary process did not end with Paul, but was designed to be carried
further by believers who should be, by their very nature, missionary. In the process, the
author investigated how the transformation of identity (the understanding of self, God and
others) leads to the creation of ethical values and how it is particularised in different socioreligious
and cultural contexts in the development of the early church. The author argued that
there is an implicit missionary dimension in the ethics of Paul in Galatians. In the process, it is
argued that those who want to speak of ethics should make something of mission, and those
who speak of mission in Galatians, should speak about the role of identity, ethics and ethos
in the letter.
