Galatians 1:11-24

Read Galatians 1:11-2:10

The Big Picture

The book of Galatians can be divided into three sections: autobiography (chapters 1–2), theology (chapters 3–4), and ethics (chapters 5–6).

The Judaizers who had been ravaging the Galatian churches with their false gospel were trying to dismiss Paul’s apostleship, as well as his apostolic message.

To undermine his message, they attacked the messenger.

This is precisely why Paul begins, in this section, by recounting his personal testimony.

Reading biographies and hearing testimonies can be a great source of encouragement.

What God did in Paul’s life is an amazing story of redemption.

Questions

1 - Why is it so important to know people before you entrust yourself to them—or even believe what they say? How does hearing someone’s background story help build trust?

-Trust takes time.

-there has to be opportunities for testing or revealing of the character of the messenger, which comes up when he tells ‘his’ story

-there has to be opportunities to test the message (truth is consistent, and while we don’t always see it, truth “fits”)

-to be able to trust what is said regarding the future, we assess the reliability of that message based on the character and consistency of the messenger and the messenger, based on what we have seen from them in the past.

Anyone who has been sold something quickly that they later regretted and perhaps didn’t need, or trusted and got burned by a ‘con-man’, knows that it is a risky thing to put our confidence on someone or something outside of themselves.

Anyone who has seen the selfish and deceitfulness of their own heart, and their ability to be deceived, proven by past experience, knows that it is a risky thing to put our confidence in ourselves.

-The certainty of our own death as the wages of our sin should bring that door too a close, as each of us look at the sand slipping through the hourglass and we are utterly unable to control or stop it.

The inescapabilty of our death and judgement drive us to anchor our hope and put our trust somewhere, since we cannot stop the clock, and Hebrews 4:13 states this need and the solution as well as anywhere.

The solution is in the surrounding verses, but hear just verse 13 first: “And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

With something so precious as our lives in eternity at stake, we ought to be thoughtful, prayerful and careful to who we are to listen to, and what we give our ears to hear.

We might think of questions like “does this person really understand me and my problem? Is their solution “a solution”, or “the solution”?

As nearly every book in the New Testament gives warnings against false teachings and teachers, we must weigh carefully to consider if the hope of the message proclaimed will perish with the messenger, or if it will actually pass through death unto life.

Said another way, will it only provide hope for the short term but prove false in the end, or will it be vindicated as true and hold me fast in the end when we are exposed naked and giving an account?

I’ll circle back to that exposing verse in Hebrews, and see a bit more of the context as we think about where to place our confidence:

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

As we’re about to look at Paul’s background a bit more, we’ll see how Paul will completely switch from trying to serve God while trusting himself and his own righteousness through zealousness for the traditions of his fathers.

When Paul is confronted with the righteousness of God in Christ, he is laid bare, exposed and humbled, and the resultant conversion of his heart is demonstrated in his actions, as his devotion switches soley to Christ and as he holds fast to the word of life.

2 - How would you describe Paul’s former manner of life according to verses 13-14? What kind of person was he?

People like Paul were prophecied by Christ Jesus Himself in John 15:18-16:4

We can see this in Acts 8:1-3, as Saul is zealous for the traditions of his fathers, but because his heart is manifestly against God, it comes through in an antagonizing opposition to Christ and His people.

I’m going to risk interjecting a rabbit trail here, but doesn’t verse 4 bring to memory what Paul encouraged the Philippian Church with, not to be discouraged at the persecution that it might stamp out the gospel, but that it actually worked to further it’s advance?

Ok, but our focus here is to see how Paul’s religious zealousness was manifested, —>now some would argue he was zealous for the same God as the Christians, because the Judeaizers and the Christians share the Old Testament Scriptures....

—>However, we can see that in reality his zealousness for the traditions of his fathers was manifestly vitriol against God and His people.

When He sent them some disciples to proclaim that the Kingdom of God come near, Jesus said in no uncertain terms “The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”

and also, “You will know the by their fruit.”

After much public contention with the Scribes and Pharisees which is the group Paul was in before the Lord changed his heart, Jesus pronounces a series of scathing woes on them, condemning them before God even as He is about to be condemned before men. We don’t need to go through the whole list, but I’ll read the latter portion in Matthew 23:25-36. In this, we will see that Paul is actually in keeping with his fathers, as they were certainly the ones who killed the prophets, and ultimately their Christ.

Now, Paul is carrying that same torch further, to kill those who belong to Christ to try and stamp out the sons and daughters of God and true religion. In all this he was very zealous, and even thinking he was all the more righteous against those he thought was misrepresenting God.

3 - How would you describe Paul’s manner of life after meeting Christ? What kind of person did he become, and how did people react to it? See verses 23-24.

We see Paul is changed, in Acts 9:1-22, as he is converted, baptized and equipped and sent out (commissioned). We could keep reading the next 10 or so verses and see a brief overview of the history that Paul writes about in Galatians as Luke records a few of the details, but the focus here is Paul’s before and after, of the old man of Paul when he was religiously zealous but still dead in Adam, his flesh. In contrast, after he saw Christ and was devinely convinced who was God and who was not, and who was guilty and who was not. There are not a lot of words recorded in that exchange—>there didnt have to be. Paul was made a new man, and after Christ spiritually opened his eyes, even as his physical ones were closed for a time, all those Old Testament scriptures that he was so well studied in as a Pharisee—> they all came together in revealing Jesus as the Christ, and he ended up being an amazing tool in Christ’s hands to prove Jesus is the Christ from those scriptures and gather up His lost sheep.

The Jews who tried to argue with him were confounded it says, and the new few verses described how it took time for the Christians to trust Paul, and accept him as one of them, since he had terrorized them so much only a brief time ago, but after watching his life and his preaching, we see the same thing as in our passage in Galatians 1:24 and the Christians glorified God because of what He has done in Paul.

So just like we saw in Philippians 3, where Paul went from self-righteous and self assured, chasing God’s blessing by his own efforts, but spiritually dead and blind, once his heart was regenerated and he was given spiritual sight to see CHrist, he could actually say with a straight face “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”, and he bore the marks of Christ in his body to prove it. We remember Paul encouraging the church there to follow him and join in the struggle and no matter what happens, to take great joy in Christ being proclaimed and His gospel advancing unstoppably.

To see a bit of what Paul’s manner of life after Christ revealed Himself to Paul and changed his heart, in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 , we can see a bit of a snapshot of the manner of life of Paul, after Christ revealed Himself to Saul and changed his heart, and subsequently his mind.

Saul is a new creation—>now Paul, and his manner of life is one devoted to Christ, and he follows Him through suffering and overcoming through the power of the Holy Spirit and prayer.

4 - Paul’s conversion story is traumatic and dramatic, but how is it similar to the conversion experiences of all Christians?

Paul was extreme in the outward manifestation of his rebellion, as well as his fulfilling his calling as Christ’s apostle to the Gentiles, where the Lord Jesus Himself told him how much he must suffer for His name...however, as much as the outward manifestation of the dramatic conversion of Paul, the true internal conversion that bears some measure of true outward fruit never is less necessary or total in anyone. There is a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light. There is a present evil age, and there is the age to come, where only righteousness dwells. We all are born dead in our tresspasses, under the sway of the evil one, and are enslaved in sin. Jesus came to set the captives free, but we cannot have more than one Master, or more than one Lord. Either we will hate the one and serve the other, or we will serve the one and despise the other. On the same point, Jesus’ half brother Jamesis speaking to believers who were not receiving their prayer requests because their hearts and subsequently their prayer requests were self-centered, and after diagnosing the issue, he says very poignantly “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. This war between the present evil age and Christ and His kingdom will happen whether we wish it or not, but we cannot be in-between or be friendly to both camps. We are either in Christ as the ark, or we will be in the water of Noah’s flood in the end, so to speak.

Observations

Paul wasn’t saved by good works but by grace.

He was set apart before he was born (Jer 1:5).

He was called to preach to the gentiles (Gal 1:16, 2:8).

After God saved him, he didn’t consult anyone but instead waited three years until he went to Jerusalem to visit Peter and James.

Fourteen years later, he went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas and Titus.

Paul is defending his apostleship.

He is speaking with sincerity and truth.

He’s not moved by people who seem influential.

He received the “right hand of fellowship” from the other apostles.

As Richard Phillips says, “Paul’s point is clear: I was saved by God in Christ, set apart as an apostle by God in Christ, and the gospel I preach comes directly from God in Christ!”

Questions

5 - Why is it so important for Paul to insist that he did not receive the gospel “from any man” (1:12)?

6 - In Galatians 2:4, Paul called the false teachers “false brothers.” What does that say about their spiritual state?

7 - What were the false teachers trying to accomplish according to Galatians 2:4?

8 - In Galatians 2:1-5, we see Paul doing whatever it took to preserve the gospel in word and deed. How should Paul’s actions affect the way we live?