NOTES for Gal 1:11-19
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. |
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. |
13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: |
14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. |
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, |
16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: |
17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. |
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. |
19 But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. |
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With honesty and directness worthy of imitation, the apostle Paul in today's reading from the Epistle to the Galatians contrasts what is human and what is gracious in service to God. He says that while trying to serve God according to his own human understanding, he "persecuted the Church... being exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers." But when God was pleased, He revealed, that is, made manifest, the presence of the Son of God in him and appointed the apostle to preach Him among the Gentiles. It was no longer Saul of Tarsus himself, but God who was pleased to choose him for service; he could no longer bring himself and his zeal to people, but the Son of God; he was no longer sent to be zealous for correctness, but to proclaim salvation. This is the choice offered to us, Christians who read these words: to be exceedingly zealous for the traditions of the fathers, or to proclaim the Son of God. As the Didache says in its opening words (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a monument of Christian writing from the end of the first century), "There are two ways: one of life and one of death..."
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