Galatians 1.10
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
It seems that Paul’s detractors had accused him of being a man-pleaser who adjusted and changed his message to appeal to his Gentile audience. Paul refutes that accusation, citing as evidence the confrontational challenge he gives in the previous verse. His outspoken condemnation of false teachers is definitely not the strategy of someone who is motivated to please his audience.
Further, Paul declares that he serves Christ, not some group of people. His allegiance is to the Lord and the kingdom of God. Indeed, Paul understood that the only way to truly serve the needs of people is to serve Jesus first. He was definitely not afraid to deliver hard messages!
Galatians 1.11-12
“For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Paul declares that neither his mission nor his message were derived from man. Just as his apostleship originated in Christ, so did his gospel; it was not a human invention. It’s as if he is saying, “I preach the gospel, but I did not invent it.” Paul declares that he “received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul learned the gospel directly from the resurrected Christ. The enormity of his claim is profound. Paul affirms that his message is God’s message, his gospel is God’s gospel, his words are God’s words.
Next Paul defends his authority as an apostle of Jesus by reviewing his personal history. Specifically, he relates what happened before his conversion, at his conversion, and following his conversion.
Galatians 1.13-14
“For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.”
The reputation of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion was well known. He was completely and thoroughly devoted to Judaism, and he hated Christianity. He did not merely persecute the church, he sought to destroy it. Someone in that mental and spiritual state was virtually impossible to convert. No person could have changed his mind. Only God could break through his hardness of heart, and that’s exactly what God did.
Galatians 1.15-17
“But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles…“
Paul testifies that while he was fighting against Christ and against the people of Christ, Jesus himself appeared to him. Paul did not deserve the Lord’s mercy, nor did he ask for it; yet through grace, the Lord extended mercy to him. As a display of the transformative power of God, the Lord called him — Paul, the ultimate protector of Judaism and persecutor of Christians — to preach the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles.
The Lord had a claim on Paul’s life, and when Paul least expected it, the Lord called him. Paul’s raging fanaticism was no match for the presence and power of God.
I pray that you see yourself in Paul’s testimony. You were not born a Christian. You are not a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home. At some point in your life you came to the realization — the conviction — that you are a sinner separated from God by sin, and you responded by repenting of your sin and receiving the gift of God’s forgiveness through Christ. That was the grace of God working in your life; that was the Lord intervening in your life and calling you to himself. Like Paul, you neither deserved nor asked for God’s mercy; nevertheless, the Lord extended his mercy to you so that he might accomplish his purpose in and through your life.
Like Paul, the defining and transformational event in your life was Jesus calling you to himself. I pray for you as Paul did in the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus … God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.“
