Galatians 1: 10-24
For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men?
Paul has said that he would become like whoever he was preaching to, to gain common ground with them so they would hear his message and be saved, in I Corinthians 9: 23. But he was not doing it to please them or make them like him, but to win them for Christ.
If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
His focus was not on the people, but on Christ, to serve Him by serving those He loves.
Now he will set forth his own story, the path he was on before, and the path he is now walking.
For I would have you know, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
He's making a formal pronouncement here. He wants them to be aware of his Source, where his message came from, and that it was not made up by any man.
For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
So nobody taught it to him, he received it by revelation directly from Christ Jesus Himself, so there can be no mistake that what he preaches is Truth.
For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it;
His life was always an open book, everyone knew his lifestyle before his encounter with the Lord; how he tried to wipe out this new little sect that he thought was dangerous.
and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.
He was always a very determined and passionate person, and he was pushing himself to accomplish more and more in promoting what he had been taught in the Hebrew religion of obeying the Law of Moses, beyond many others of his peers.
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb
Since he was a child he's always been a go-getter, and was given by God the natural inclination to passionately pursue whatever he was after.
and called me through His grace, was pleased
to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,
So God graciously turned him around completely, to preach the faith he was destroying, going the opposite way from the path he had been on, even going to all the people who were outsiders to his previous religion.
I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,
This total change in direction didn't have him talking about it with anyone.
nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me;
He didn't even try to talk with the others who were the leaders in this new faith.
but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
Instead he went to a completely different place, to be alone with the Lord.
Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.
He waited a whole three years before he decided to meet Peter, so he went and stayed with him for two weeks getting to know him.
But I did not see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
Paul wants to be specific about which James he was talking about here, and says he was "the Lord's brother." Jesus' brothers didn't believe in Him until after His Resurrection, I think when He had Mary Magdalen tell them they were also invited to the meeting He had scheduled with His Apostles in Galilee (see Matthew 28: 10). And having grown up with Jesus as a big brother, they finally realized why He had never gotten in trouble for disobedience, that He really is who He claimed to be, and followed Him faithfully after that.
The Lord's brothers are named in Matthew 13: 55-56 and Mark 6: 3, as James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, and "all His sisters" are not named. So He grew up in a big family, and His brothers, James and Jude, both wrote Epistles that are in our Bible now as Scripture.
James was the leader, the pastor, of the church in Jerusalem. Being Peter's pastor, he probably stopped by sometime while Paul was there, so he got to meet him, too, but he didn't go out to seek him, only Peter.
(Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.)
He wants to make sure that these Galatians know that he's not exaggerating anything here, just the bare-bones truth of how everything happened.
Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
Then he still didn't converse with any other church people in Jerusalem, but he went far away from Judea altogether (Acts 9: 30; 11:25-26).
I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ;
Wow, this "bigger-than-life" Apostle of Christ is content to be "unknown" to the central core of the whole "church movement"! Would that we all who seek to serve the Lord would be content to be "unknown" rather than self-promoting, wanting to be popular and well-liked!
but only, they kept hearing, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy."
He never even met the rest of them, they only knew him by hearsay, the gossip that spread about this persecutor who became a promoter of what he had been trying to destroy!
And they were glorifying God because of me.
Only God could turn around a person to do that, it is not possible humanly to change that dramatically instantly!
This is what happened to me. God came to me, and turned my thinking around completely. I had been an idolater, an adulteress, a liar, a thief; and He Loved me so much that He had His own Son take my Death sentence upon Himself! This extreme Love that enveloped me that day, changed me completely.
That is the power of God's Grace! His Love! His authority over us to do with us as He wills, when we let Him.
He is not willing that any of humanity would be destroyed; He chose us to be His own children, in His own family. But He will not violate the free will He gave us to choose. If we don't want Him, He won't force His way onto us.
But I think that He will "jiggle our willer" to want to come to Him, even if we don't know it's Him we're seeking, when people pray!
O my Father, Your Love is so far beyond anything I can imagine! It's so deep, so high, so wide, so far, so thick, so all-encompassing! Even though You know we are only dust, with defective DNA, damaged goods!
You take us just as we are, but You don't leave us there. You do a supernatural work in us to re-mold us into the very image, the character, of Your Son. I don't understand this, either, but I see Your working in me and in others of Your children, in growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.
O Father, continue to help all Your children; remind us to be in constant prayer, continual conversation with You, remembering all of our loved ones and friends and acquaintances and neighbors and others we may not even know personally.
Keep us always firmly in Your hand, constantly aware of Your closeness with us, and your power in us to do Your good and gracious will. Use us as Your hands and feet to promote and finance Your great Kingdom, Your Family Business, which we are learning how to manage for You when we graduate.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus is our Lord God Almighty, King of the Universe, to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.
Even so, come swiftly, Lord Jesus!
