The Apostle Paul had to contend with the Judaizers in the church at Galatia who tried to bring back the age-old practice of circumcision as a mark of belonging to Yahweh. According to Judaism, all descendants of Abraham must be circumcised and they wanted to extend this practice into the church.
Galatia is in the part of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) overlooking the Black Sea and it had a sizeable community of Jews living in the province and so naturally, when the church first started, they met in the synagogues for worship and the study of the word. When Paul first preached the Gospel in Galatia, many of these Jews became Believers but they would still cling on to their tradition of circumcision and even insist that since Jesus was a Jew and Christianity started from Jerusalem, naturally the church needed to carry on its Jewish roots.
Paul preached strongly against the notion that a person can only become a Believer when he had gone through circumcision - Galatians 5:6, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love." Circumcision is only an outward sign having a mark on a man's body but if there is no change of heart through an act of faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, that person is still not a Believer even after he had undergone the ritual of circumcision.
When a Believer exercises his faith in Christ, an outpouring of love will be the natural consequence and that is a clear sign or mark of faith in Christ.
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