The closing greeting was written and signed by Paul himself with his own hand. The rest of the letter was written by another person acting as his amanuensis, which was his practice in nearly all his letters except on rare occasions. The handwritten greeting served as a token proving a letter was genuinely his, which mattered because fraudulent letters were being circulated as if from him.
He used another writer because his eyesight was defective and had never been fully restored since he was blinded on the road to Damascus. That defective eyesight was his thorn in the flesh. It was the affliction under which he preached that moved the Galatians to be willing to pluck out their own eyes and give them to him. It was the affliction he prayed to have removed and for which he was assured that divine grace was sufficient.
The closing greeting was written and signed by Paul himself with his own hand. The rest of the letter was written by another person acting as his amanuensis, which was his practice in nearly all his letters except on rare occasions. The handwritten greeting served as a token proving a letter was genuinely his, which mattered because fraudulent letters were being circulated as if from him.
He used another writer because his eyesight was defective and had never been fully restored since he was blinded on the road to Damascus. That defective eyesight was his thorn in the flesh. It was the affliction under which he preached that moved the Galatians to be willing to pluck out their own eyes and give them to him. It was the affliction he prayed to have removed and for which he was assured that divine grace was sufficient.