From Persecutor to Preacher

Transcript

GR 2083
4/30/2017
From Persecutor to Preacher
Galatians 1:18-24
Gil Rugh

We are studying the book of Galatians together. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Galatians. It is that first of the smaller letters after the larger letters; Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, so the larger books that began even with the Gospels and through Acts then Romans, I and II Corinthians then we come to Galatians; a small epistle yet a very forceful one, very strong. Usually it is agreed that this is Paul’s most severe letter.

When we studied the letter to the Corinthians, Paul had somewhat we might say, harsh things that had to be said to them but the letter to the Galatians is small, compact but from beginning to end it is a rebuke to the Galatians for being led astray from faithfulness to the Gospel.

Just read the opening verses with you so we don’t lose the continuity of what Paul is saying as we take it piece by piece. He opened up saying “Paul, an apostle not sent from men nor through the agency of man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” Right at the beginning, I am the representative of Jesus Christ directly appointed by Him. I am writing with “all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia; Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forevermore. Amen.”

Very quickly now, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different Gospel; which is not really another gospel” because there is only one true Gospel but “there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before so I say it again, ‘If any man is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed.’ For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ;” very crucial.

Understand that the Gospel that Paul preached is the Gospel given to him by God. It is the only Gospel. There can be no variation of it, no departing from it and yet the Galatian churches are. What is the problem? What has happened? So his defense of himself, they are intertwined.

We noted as we moved into the section that we have looked at where he defends himself and his Gospel because Paul has been chosen by God to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. He had been chosen by God to give the fullest development, explanation of the Gospel through the letters that he writes; the book of Romans being the fullest, most complete theology of the Gospel that we have in our Bibles. It is not a different Gospel than Peter preached or John or others but Paul will be unique. So the attacks on him personally and his trustworthiness and the attacks on the Gospel that he preached are so intertwined. If those who are confusing the church, the churches in the region of Galatia can be caused to lose confidence in Paul they will lose confidence in the message that Paul has preached to them.

So in verse 11 he says, “I would have you know brethren, the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. I neither received it from man nor was I taught it. I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” And now he is going to explain further.

First it came from Christ. I didn’t learn it before I was saved. “You have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure, tried to destroy it. It was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.” Before God took hold of me and changed me completely I was an adamant foe of the Gospel that I now preach.

“But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I do not immediately consult with flesh and blood. I didn’t go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. I went away to Arabia, returned once more to Damascus.” And that is where we pick up where we left off.

Extremely important to understand the unique role God has given to Paul and the importance of the message communicated through him and the undermining of confidence in Paul and the confidence in his message was causing them to abandon their faithfulness to Christ. That is why he said in verse 6, “I am amazed you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different Gospel.” But it is not a different Gospel because there is only one Gospel. It is abandoning of the only Gospel; crucial issues. Right down to our day this is crucial. If confidence in Paul and his ministry and message had been lost at this point in time what will we have today? It depends on God’s faithfulness in keeping His message pure.

It is under attack today. We have those who claim to be believers but they distinguish between the genuine letters of Paul and the questionable letters. Well Paul may not have been the author of the Pastoral Epistles but someone presenting himself as Paul, may be one of his students later put together some of Paul’s material and presented as Paul’s. Wait a minute; that is a major issue. Now we have to sort out, maybe not everything in there would have come from Paul; this kind of confusion. Those who claim to be writing commentaries on the Gospels say, “well Matthew didn’t get his inspiration directly from the Spirit; they took other things and other material and they collaborated and they edited what they found and that created a document called ‘Q’.” And “Q” is just a document for the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke that scholars have created. There has never been even a portion of the document “Q” that has ever been found. They created it and so now you read material by evangelical writers and they say “Well, Luke drew from “Q” and Matthew drew from “Q” and that accounts for why they have similar material and now we are just out here floating in space.

So the issue, the devil and the way he attacks, he doesn’t change but at the root we who truly believe the Bible believe what the Spirit has done here in using Paul. So it is of utmost importance at the beginning that Paul’s position, appointed by God to be the recipient of the Word of God and the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ, be absolutely clear. The attacks that evidently the Judaizers are raising, Jews who profess to be believers, is Paul is not presenting the true Gospel in his background, in his contacts with perhaps some who have gotten off the track, he himself is off the track. Paul says, “I am not off the track and I wasn’t led off the track by anyone because what I have and what I am preaching came directly from Jesus Christ Himself.” So it is important that he talks about his life because it is intimately and intricately connected to the message that he preaches.

Now you will note in the sections we are looking at God in verse 15, God had called him from his mother’s womb. He revealed His Son to him. That happened on the first initial confrontation with Christ on the road to Damascus but what Paul said “When He was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.”

Why don’t you put that first map up, just an overview here? It is small so we will break it down in two parts and we are going to break it down here. We are looking at the whole section. Then we will have two parts that will basically look from here south and then also from here north so we can see things more clearly. But I want you to get the overall perspective. On the screen I am looking at I almost have to look at yours to get it big enough to see but here is Jerusalem down here, just so you have the overall perspective.

Paul was on the road to Damascus, which is right here, when God saved him. He was just outside Damascus. He was struck blind on the road. For three days he was blind and was led into the city of Damascus. God sent the prophet Ananias to him and then we were told in verses 16 and 17 that “Then God had revealed His Son in Paul, set him apart through His grace,” the end of verse 16, “I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.” He is not discrediting them. He wants it clear. “My message came directly from Christ.” Now it will be confirmed because it is the same truth that is communicated through Peter. So there are not two Gospels but Paul wants to be clear so there is no confusion. He didn’t have any misunderstanding. What he has he didn’t get from other men that they may be discredited. This is independent revelation that just confirms what God has revealed through other apostles but it will add to it because the Gospel is not carried to the Gentiles in an expansive way until Paul is called. Peter first brought the Gospel to the Gentiles in chapter 10 but he doesn’t carry on a ministry to the Gentiles. That will be done with Paul.

So when Paul, here in Damascus, he didn’t go to Jerusalem. So you can’t say Paul has gotten confused. He got some bad information or he is misunderstood or anything because he didn’t go to Jerusalem. It said, “I went away to Arabia.” Now he is in Damascus so he goes away to Arabia and Arabia is a broad term. You can see here the Arabian Desert and Arabia goes all the way from the north all the way down here into Sinai. You hear in the news today of the Sinai Peninsula. So somewhere over here, he didn’t have to go far away but the point is he moved out into this region. This part here would be where Jordan is today. That would be Arabia and spent some time there and then he will return back. So you have this little arrow here showing you he went to Arabia and then he went back to Damascus.

Then we are told and this is where we pick up in verse 18. You will note the word “then.” There is going to be a progress here because it is important that we see this so there is no misunderstanding about Paul and the revelation that he received because it is said, “Well, it wasn’t revelation that was given to him, well then you open the door. Maybe then he misunderstood it or he added to it in a confusing way. You will note the word “then” begins verse 18. The word “then” begins verse 21 and the word “then” begins chapter 2, verse 1. So we are following a progression here so that you understand, what I am telling you is true. The Gospel I received.

There will be further clarity but it is no different than the Gospel Peter was preaching; the first day there of the church in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost when the church was founded. At different times through the book so facts we find Peter particularly through the first portion of Acts preaching the Gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ but understand Paul didn’t get it from Peter or other apostles. It is direct revelation.

So “Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem.” So Paul has been a believer for three years before he travels now from Damascus down to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas in verse 18. And he stayed with him fifteen days.

Interesting, it didn’t say I stayed with him for a while. Well it is clear, it was a short time. I went down to get acquainted with Cephas, not to get information from him. He didn’t go down there to become a student of Peter. Cephas, we usually pronounce it because the ‘e’ we have transliterated it over in English as ‘e’, Cephas, sort of like we would have in our English. Sometimes you know the same letter but it’s Cephus or Cephan, a word like our Kevin is the actual pronunciation. This was the name given to Peter by Christ back in John chapter 1, verse 42. Why don’t you turn back there?

Peter has three names in Scripture in John’s Gospel chapter 1. Here you have Christ calling together those original disciples. John the Baptist has been preparing the way for all of this and then you have Jesus here in verse 38: “Jesus turned and saw them following Him,” these disciples who had been disciples of John the Baptist. They want to know where He is staying. They say “Come.” Verse 40 “One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.” So you see here Simon would have been his Jewish name, Peter his Greek name. It is not first and last name like we have, first and last but Simon Peter. And then Andrew “first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’” Verse 42: “He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is translated Peter.)’” Cephas is Aramaic. So you could talk about Simon but there are different Simons. You have to clarify. We are talking about Simon who is also Peter who is also Cephas. Interestingly Paul. usually refers to Peter by this name, Cephas or Cephas as we sometimes pronounce it. He will refer to him as Peter in chapter 2 of Galatians but Paul is the only one in the New Testament who refers to Peter by the name Cephas. The only other use of it is here in John 1:42. So interesting Jesus gives him the name, Cephas, I will call him Cephas instead of going back and forth and you know who we are talking about. The “C” is a hard “C” like a “K” but Paul refers to him that way. Why would he keep calling him Cephas? Why didn’t he call him Peter? He calls him both. Nobody else calls him Cephas after this. You would think his name since Jesus said, “You will be called Cephas” that’s what they would have called him from now on but they don’t but Paul does and that’s who He is referring to back in Galatians chapter 1.

This is a reminder of where he got the name and why Paul refers to that. It is a legitimate name for him. It is not used negatively or anything and it does connect him with Christ very initially in that Christ chose to give him this particular name from Simon to Cephas and also known as Peter.

So three years after he is converted he went to Jerusalem. That indicates that he didn’t go off to Jerusalem to learn. For three years he has been a believer. He had been some time; we don’t know how much of those three years was spent in Arabia but perhaps there the Lord was instructing him. Remember Paul comes into the salvation in Christ with a very helpful background; he is a Pharisee. He is saturated with the Old Testament. Now he didn’t have a true understanding of it all but he knew the facts of the Old Testament extremely well. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, remember. So that was a great benefit to him.

So now in the revelation given God could be revealing to Paul the truths concerning Christ. He is giving direct revelation so I take it much of what would have gone on during this three years in his time in Arabia, however much of those three years that was Paul was getting revelation from God because he is going to be a unique instrument and so he needs to have this input, instruction. So he didn’t get it from Peter.

He went up after three years to become acquainted with Cephas. I thought it was good I go up and learn what Peter had to teach me. No, “I just came up to get to know the man so we could get acquainted because we do have the same kind of ministry, making Jesus Christ known.” “I stayed with him for fifteen days.” So this is a personal visit. It is short and it is getting together. There will be, I take it, ministry going on during that time.

Why don’t you jump back to Acts 9 and you can leave something in Acts 9 as we will probably come back here in a little bit and we will put together for some of these other passages but in Acts 9 you have Paul’s conversion in the opening part of the chapter. You have him confronted by the resurrected Christ so you see even in his conversion it was a personal direct confrontation with Jesus Christ. In I Corinthians 15, remember he referred to “last of all the resurrected, glorified Christ appeared to me, the least of the apostles. I persecuted the church. The most unworthy of the unworthy” is how Paul saw himself.

Then verse 15: “The Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go. He is a chosen instrument of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.’” Paul is not excluding Israel but he will be unique in being the apostle to the Gentiles and he will preach to Jews but the focus of his ministry will carry the Gospel to the non-Jewish parts of the world. “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” Verse 19 after he gets his sight back he hadn’t eaten for three days so he has time to eat, get some strength “then for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus and he immediately began to proclaim Jesus in the Synagogue saying ‘He is the Son of God’” and they are amazed. And this is the One.

Remember when Paul was on his way to Damascus and word that preceded him among the Jews he had gotten authority from chief priest to arrest any Jews who were followers of Christ. The Romans were happy. All they were concerned about, they were concerned about the religious issues that there was peace in the empire and so the Jews were given a certain amount of freedom if it helped keep peace. So the chief priest had given Paul the authority to arrest any Jews who had become Christians at Damascus. They reached out with the persecution and so they heard, they were amazed.

Verse 22: “Paul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.” And then there is a plot. We will pick that up.

You see what is going on in Damascus and then he has gone to Arabia in this time, then he is back in Damascus preaching so you have these events going on. Then he comes down to Peter and that event is recorded later down in Acts chapter 9. We will pick it up there. There is a plot in Damascus so we are three years along and there is a plot and Paul has to leave and he comes down and he will meet with Peter and James and he is preaching there for a while.

Before we take in all of this come back to Galatians chapter 1. Now it says here, verse 19: “I didn’t see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.” This visit, he went down to see Peter, he didn’t get involved with the other apostles. Now you think that is strange. There are 15 days and he only saw Peter and James. Well why wouldn’t he have visited with the others? This would be an amazing event. We are not given any insight because remember Luke’s purpose in writing Acts is to write the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ. He left off at the end of the book of Luke with recorded Christ’s earthly ministry. It ended there with Christ’s resurrection and His contact with His disciples after His resurrection.

He picked up in Acts chapter 1 with the ascension of Christ, the promise of the coming Spirit so really the book of Acts is the continuing ministry of Christ who is now in heaven but the Holy Spirit is carrying on that ministry on earth of making Christ known in the preaching of the Gospel.

So it isn’t to give a life history of the apostle Paul. The only things recorded about the apostle Paul are those things that are pertinent and important to understand the movement of the Gospel. So there are many things left out. I mean he can say after three years well, that’s a pretty brief summary here. You got saved, you went over to Arabia, you came back and then we go to Acts and we get a little bit of fill in, you are preaching the Gospel but there are a lot of details here. You know, what about Paul’s family and all of this? We would have thought, well he probably didn’t have any brothers or sisters and his parents were probably dead.

Then we go to Acts chapter 23 and we find Paul had a living sister and her son told Paul about a plot against his life. So here it is. Well wait a minute. He’s got a sister. Evidently perhaps she has been converted because her son which would have been Paul’s nephew is helping to protect Paul and make him aware of what the enemies of the Gospel and the enemies of Paul that want to kill him are doing. You say what? It would have fun to know how did Paul and Gospel get into Paul’s – well that might have been interesting but we have a hard enough time getting our minds around what God has revealed. If we had 35 volumes like this would you be encouraged or discouraged? So keep in mind he is just giving us enough to understand how the Gospel. So Paul’s purpose isn’t to give his life’s story. The only part of his life that is brought in is what is important for the movement of the Gospel. So that is what is going on.

After three years he went down and when he was there visited with Peter. For whatever reason he didn’t see the other apostles. Maybe it was purposeful. He wanted to get acquainted with Peter but he wasn’t there on a learning trip. Perhaps the other apostles, we don’t know. Maybe they were out of town doing ministry. James is there. “I didn’t see any of the other apostles.” We just have to take that he didn’t. He’s in Jerusalem for two weeks, stays with Peter, gets to know him and he met with James. This James is the brother of the Lord, the half-brother since he is the child of Mary and Joseph but he is a brother. He can be referred to as the brother even though there is uniqueness obviously in Christ’s birth.

James, the Lord’s brother….he is identified this way to distinguish him from other James. For example we open chapter 2 and it will open up, “After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas.” There is a period where there is not any information given of about 11 to 14 years. We will talk about the difference when we start chapter 2. Well what about it? It has dropped out but in Acts chapter 12 James, the brother of John is executed by Herod you will remember. So there are different James’ in the Bible, men with the name James that we don’t want to confuse. There was Peter, James and John and James, the brother of John. James is the one that gets executed, the brother of John in Acts 12 but he is distinguished from James here. This is James the brother of the Lord. He was not a believer during Christ’s earthly ministry. Jesus had four earthly brothers.

Roman Catholicism teaches that these were cousins, I believe of Christ as they believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary but the Bible indicates that Joseph and Mary did not have sexual relations until after Jesus was born, Jesus having been conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary but after the birth of Jesus He has four brothers.

Come back to Matthew chapter 10, verse 2: “Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother.” So that is the James that will get executed in Acts chapter 12.

Now come to Mark chapter 6 and verse 3. “Is this not the carpenter?” They are asking about Jesus. They are amazed at what He is doing and the miracles He is doing, “The Son of Mary and brother of James” And that is the James we are talking about that Paul met with. He will become the leader of the church at Jerusalem. We will see that as we progress in Galatians as well. “And Joses, and Judas, and Simon.” So there are the brothers here; four brothers born after the birth of Christ. And He had sisters. They are not named so it becomes a large family. Four boys in addition to Jesus and then at least two sisters because it is plural but we don’t know how many more.

While you are in the Gospels come over to John chapter 7, verse 5. We are told “Not even His brothers were believing in Him.” So during His earthly ministry His brothers were not believing in Him. In fact they are antagonistic toward Him. If you are the Messiah why don’t you just get out in the open? I mean they grew up with Him indicates here that as Christ grew up he would have had what we would call somewhat of a normal childhood. He wasn’t doing miracles, making clay birds and causing them to fly so even his brothers were in awe of Him. You know they are telling Him, “You know if you are the Messiah go up to the feast and make Yourself known.” They weren’t in, if I can say it this way, they weren’t impressed. They just saw Him as their brother.

So it is not until He begins His public ministry that there is any real open display. That begins at the baptism of John when the Holy Spirit comes upon Him like a dove. He embarks on His messianic ministry. So He was growing in knowledge and understanding and His brothers viewed Him as the normal brother in that sense evidently.

Later after His resurrection, come over to Acts chapter 1, you see a change has occurred. In Acts chapter 1, verse 14, as they gather together in the upper room for prayer in verse 14: “These all with one mind were continually devotion themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brother.” This is where then Peter will take the initiative and they will appoint a replacement for Judas Iscariot. But you see here now somewhere the brothers have become believers.

Come over to I Corinthians chapter 9 and then we will go to 15; I Corinthians chapter 9, verse 5: “Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife even as the rest of the apostles?” Note, “And the brothers of the Lord and Cephas.” Again you see Paul likes to refer to Peter as Cephas. But here you have the brothers of the Lord. So Paul sees them as involved in the ministry of making Christ known but in their ministry they were married and their wives would evidently travel with them on occasion but they had a wife. Paul was unique and he didn’t. He said, “I have the right to have a wife, Peter has a wife, the brothers of the Lord are married and they are involved in ministry.” So we see they had become genuine believers.

While you are in I Corinthians come to chapter 15 and you have the appearances of Christ after His resurrection and this is evidently how gracious God is even though these family members persisted in unbelief. Christ evidently is revealed to them after His resurrection because we are told about in the appearances of Christ in the first part of I Corinthians 15, verse 7: “Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all to me, one untimely born.” So evidently it was a post-resurrection of Christ that brought them to faith in Him and become part of that ministering band in the early years of the church.

He will become the leader of the church at Jerusalem which is the center of Christianity where the apostles will remain when the church is scattered under the persecutions of Paul. The apostles centralized in Jerusalem. I mean this is important because in the early days of the church there has to be an anchor somewhat and that is in the church at Jerusalem where the apostles are centered.

Now Paul is going to become a unique case and he eventually will go to Jerusalem, not to learn more, not that the disciples there couldn’t have talked to Paul about Christ’s earthly ministry and so on but he doesn’t go there to learn about the Gospel or those things. So he will be uniquely prepared to go out and go to non-Jewish parts of the world.

So the focus of Paul’s ministry is not Jerusalem. That doesn’t mean he never ministers in Jerusalem, he does, but we see a portion of that for a short time but his ministry is focused outside Jewish areas. Sometimes he goes to synagogues but they are in Gentile cities and he will end up moving out from that synagogue to Gentile parts of the city and even in the synagogue impact Gentiles who had converted to Judaism and become ripe to hear the Gospel. So here is James and we will talk more about him in chapter 2 and the issues around that.

Come back to Galatians 1. Verse 18: “Three years later I went up to Jerusalem. I became acquainted with Cephas, stayed with him fifteen days. I did not see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.” Whatever reason he didn’t, the point he makes here, “I didn’t get involved with them.” He wants to make clear, I wasn’t there to learn from them and Paul is not doing that arrogantly but he had direct revelation. He didn’t have to get it from them is the point.

“Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God I am not lying.” This is strong language. It’s like an oath when you call God as a witness. “With God as my witness I tell you.” It is a form of oath. It is a strong statement. For Paul this is a serious matter. When we read through this and say, “Well this is just relating some of the history but it is a serious issue because the content of what is going to be revealed by Paul is at stake and if you can undermine the credibility of Paul and his getting revelation directly from God you have weakened the foundations. That’s like I say, the devil works. Well you see when you read commentaries among the non-disputed letters of Paul. What do you mean the non-disputed letters? Well, not everybody is agreed that Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles for example. Wait a minute. Now we have a whole different issue with the Pastoral Epistles. Where does inspiration go because the person writing these epistles claims to be Paul? We start off with something that is not true. So down to today it is interesting how the devil continues to work the same kinds of issues but here for Paul it is of utmost importance. “I assure you before God that I am not lying.” So this account of going to Jerusalem, three years have gone by. “I went down there to become acquainted with Peter.”

Now come back to Acts chapter 9 and you see what we were reading. Barnabas introduces him, the disciples but you might read that but in light of what Paul says it wasn’t everyone. To Peter, to James; perhaps the others are holding back for a time to see what takes place. James has the responsibility to meet with Paul. Peter become acquainted with Him, wouldn’t be unusual but he meets with them, shares with them how he became converted. He is speaking out boldly and he is arguing with the Hellenistic Jews so you see Paul has a ministry down here but they want to put him to death. So they bring him to Caesarea.

Why don’t you put up the third map? You can see down here where Caesarea is. So he is going to have to leave Jerusalem, go up to Caesarea and he is going to go to Tarsus and that will be up where his home is. So you read “They take him down to Caesarea, sent him away to Tarsus.” So here you see Tarsus is up here. Remember we said we would split the map north and south here. Down south of this part is where Judea and Jerusalem was and Damascus and so on. Tarsus is Paul’s home. He is Saul of Tarsus because that is his home. Over here is Antioch where he was ministering, where he got saved, where his initial ministry, where he went out into Arabia over here for a time. Then he’s gone down but there is persecution so now he goes back up to Tarsus, returns home, sort of a safe area. Get out of the Jewish region. We are over here in Silicia. That is the region so we talk about Syria and Silicia. He goes to Tarsus.

You are in Acts, come over to Acts 22 and then we will go to 2 Corinthians to see the flow. Acts 22 he gives his testimony and he fills in some material. Again he is giving a testimony here about his presentation of the Gospel so it’s not to give a personal history only as it pertains to the Gospel. In Acts 22 verse 17 he is here sharing how he got saved, what happened. It happened after his confrontation on the Damascus road so you see how it is summarized. He just goes to right when he returned to Jerusalem. Well we found out there were three years before he returned to Jerusalem but here it is just summarizing what happened with Ananias. Now the fact that I went to Arabia and it was three years after I was converted, I came to Jerusalem. We will move the story along here, the account. Verse 17: “It happened when I returned to Jerusalem I was praying in the temple. I fell into a trance. I saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste, and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me.’ And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in You and I was there at the stoning of Stephen.’”

Verse 21: “And He said to me, ‘Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” And that just sends the Jews into hysterics because it’s one thing if you’d say I am here to tell you Jews are the special people and it is only you that God wants to deal with and no you say, “go to the Gentiles and we are out of here because there is only one chosen people and there is only one salvation for the Gentiles. The Jews had been keeping the law, converting to Judaism. That’s how a Gentile can get saved. So they are ready to kill him and Paul gives you summary of what has happened to him in all of this.

Come over to 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and you can get accounts as some of you have that will lay out for you step by step, the Apostle Paul’s as much as can be put together from Acts, from Corinthians, from Galatians, the order of things. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11 where Paul has explained something of what he suffered as a minister and we are told in verse 32: “In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king” and Aretas was king of the Nabateans; this region remember over here, Arabia. Aretas if we had a map that went down far enough that one, you could just see down here Nabatea when we get down to where Damascus is and this is the region of Nabatea and Aretas was king of the Nabateans and the governor under him and you will see Damascus right on the border there so he exercised authority over this region and reported to the governor and the governor was guarding the city so Paul had to escape from there. He was in Jerusalem and he escaped from there. That is sort of a pattern, he escaped. He escaped until he ends up back in Tarsus and then in Acts 11 (and we won’t go there) Barnabas comes up to see what has been happening in Antioch and then he will send for Paul over in Tarsus and Paul will come over to Antioch and that will become the center of Gentile ministry.

But all Paul is talking about as you come back to Galatians chapter 1 is trying to make the point I didn’t get my Gospel from the leaders in Jerusalem and by the time he goes to Jerusalem for spending any time it will be sure that everybody is preaching the same Gospel that he is. Not that Peter and the others haven’t but Paul will bring a clarity to everything, clarity that Peter had when he presented the Gospel in Acts 10 to the house of a Gentile, Cornelius but the debate over the Gospel and the content of the Gospel will get resolved and we’ll move into chapter 2 of Galatians on that but look how he moves along in verse 21, Galatians 1: “Then I went into the regions of Syria and Galatia.” So you see how he summarizes that because this is Cilicia here. This is Syria up here and we refer to this Antioch as Antioch of Syria to distinguish it from other Antiochs. So this is the region. So after he had to come down here and escape up to Tarsus, his homeland and then he will have ministry up here. “I went into the region of Syria and Cilicia. I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea.” So when he went down and met with Peter and James he didn’t develop the personal relationships with other believers. There was ministry that happened to try to reach Jews but believers down there by and large didn’t know Paul personally. That is what he means: “I wasn’t known by sight.” And you have in the margin of your Bible that word translated ‘by sight,’ by face. In other words you know he hadn’t had that personal contact. He had it with Peter. He had it with James but other believers in the churches down in the region of Judea and Judea is down here. That is the region as you are aware. Jerusalem is the city but this area is the region of Judea. So churches that had been established down here from the day of Pentecost and the ongoing ministry because remember they didn’t reach out to Gentiles until chapter 10 and even there it is not moving out into Gentile parts of the world but it is bringing the Gospel to Gentiles in Jewish parts of the world.

So Paul said in this region down here he hadn’t traveled and had face to face contact but they were hearing “that he who once persecuted us is not preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” Paul had said earlier, “I was trying to destroy believers. I was trying to destroy the church.” He was a servant of the devil. That is what the devil tries to do, destroy the work of God but the one who persecuted the believers, the one who tried to destroy the faith, the truth concerning faith in Christ, the truth of the Gospel is now preaching that, preaching Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Son of God. He died to pay the penalty for sin. He is alive. They were glorifying God because of me. They heard about the transformation of Paul even though they hadn’t gotten to know him personally or hear his testimony personally but they had heard about his testimony, the transformation.

And then we are going to skip a lot of time. Chapter 2 opens up: “After an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem.” Can we fill in a little more here? We can talk about what might be going on but we are going to have an interval somewhere between 11 and 14 years. Paul just jumps over it. Again he is not trying to give you his life’s history. What is important is that you understand his role in bringing the Gospel and it is a unique role and he received revelation directly from God to carry it out.

Let me just give you some concluding points here in what is just more history but important. The first thing that struck me is to note the unique way God does His work. If I was going to do this here is what I would have done – save Paul who was Saul, so well known, growing in Judaism, rising above his contemporaries. I would have put him in Jerusalem where you know, what an impact that would make! What does God do? He doesn’t send him to Jerusalem where Paul already has some built in stature. He is known among the Jews. He is known for his opposition to the Gospel. Where would it make the greatest impact? What is God going to do with him? Send him to the Gentiles. Who is this Jewish guy traveling around? He doesn’t have any stature there. I would have saved someone of stature among the Gentiles. God doesn’t do it that way, does He? I am going to save a man who has stature among the Jews, unbelieving Jews. Save him dramatically, then send him to parts of the world where he is a nobody and he can present the Gospel to the Gentiles. God doesn’t always work our ways and his ways are always right. We are always coming up with a plan. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan and God doesn’t direct us but we need to be careful because God doesn’t always work our ways. It is the Gospel which is powerful. We come up with ways that people of renown, people of influence if they got saved their influence then would be a running start. We find him shaking off the dust of his feet because the Jews don’t want to hear it from Paul but by God’s grace the Gentiles do.

And second – we have the assurance that Paul’s message is a revelation from God and that makes it of utmost importance to us. The letter to the Galatians is of crucial importance because this is God’s Word. So that assurance bears fruit down to today. We have the full confidence this letter as well as all of Paul’s other letters are a word from God through Paul but it is God’s Word, not Paul’s in the ultimate sense.

Third – a good reminder. Our life and faith should be an ongoing testimony to the transforming power of the Gospel. You know, what do they say? They kept hearing, the one who persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he tried to destroy. Now our conversion might not be so dramatic. It might not have a reputation but you know our conversion is just as dramatic. You know what God does? He changes us and makes us new within and our life and the life of the faith that we live ought to be a testimony. We belong to the living God. We are now His slaves, living for Him. We think if we do good, if we just sort of mesh in with the world and don’t stand out. It was well known. Paul was a saved man. He is a different man. He is a new man. Again the transformation may not be as dramatic but it ought to be clear. Our goal is not to look like the world. I know we are not out to make a point of how different we are but we are different and our life is about Jesus Christ and we ought not to be ashamed of that or try to cover that.

Last, “they were glorifying God because of me.” And that is what we want our lives to do. Other believers to be encouraged. You know how often we look around and we do that you know, planning your prayer life and things come up and we say, “thank You Lord for so and so, their faithfulness to You, the encouragement they are to our body of believers. Thank You Lord for the way You are using them.” What are we doing? We are glorifying God because of these other believers. That is what we ought to be doing. You know our prayers life, I am reminded, “Thank You Lord for so and so, the way you are using them. Thank You for their clear testimony; thank You Lord for the way that our body is stronger because of them and thank You Lord for their testimony. It is an encouragement to me. Thank You Lord for the way they are living through trial and difficulty.” And that just reminds me Lord that you are the God working in my life while we are glorifying God. We want our lives to work that way in one another’s lives and certainly it is happening with Paul

Well we will open chapter 2 after an interval of 14 years. All that has been going on but Paul has to jump over that because this is a letter about the Gospel and being faithful to the Gospel.
Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your faithful servant Paul and we are reminded we are thankful for him 2,000 years later and we are reminded we can’t grasp how You use us when we are faithful to You. It seems like we are not doing much, we labor and toil perhaps without the great recognition but when Paul was in prison You were using him. When he was being persecuted You were using him and his faithfulness was an encouragement to other believers, was a testimony of Your transforming power. Lord we want that to be true of our lives as well. So we pray that You will use us. We will be faithful in however you choose to use us and so that someday in Your presence when You unfold how You have used us in greater ways than perhaps we understood, You receive the glory. Bless us in service for You in the week before us we pray in Christ’s name amen.