Study of Galatians Part 4 - Galatians 1:15-2:10

Last week, we heard Paul explaining that he had become a believer and was called to preach purely by the “grace” of God, through “a revelation of Jesus Christ” Himself. Previously, he had been “extremely zealous for the traditions of his Jewish fathers” and had therefore been persecuting Christian churches because they were not doing everything the Law and precepts commanded. Then God “was pleased to reveal His Son” to Paul, so that he might preach Him (Christ) as Savior, among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:12-16).

Christ’s own revelation was key for Paul. He “did not immediately consult with anyone (Galatians 1:16). He did not even go to Jerusalem to talk with the apostles. Rather, he “went away into Arabia” for a time (we know nothing more about this) and then back to Damascus. There, we are told in Acts 9:20-22, he was “proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues, as the Son of God” and “proving that Jesus was the Christ.” He increased in strength and spent “many days” doing this preaching until “Jewish people plotted to kill Him” and he had to escape (Acts 9:23-24).

It was not until three years after his conversion to faith that Paul went to Jerusalem and met with Cephas (Peter) for 15 days. He met none of the other apostles but James, the brother of the Lord. He told this in his letter very emphatically, saying, “In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!” Then Paul went to regions of Syria and Cilicia.

He was still unknown in person by the churches in Judea, though people had heard of him and that “the one who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they “glorified God” because of what Paul was now doing (Galatians 1:18-24).

Paul does not mention it in his letter, but at some point he was back in Jerusalem and then had to flee again because some Greek-speaking Jews wanted to kill him. He was then sent off to his hometown of Tarsus, where some think he spent about eight years. (See Acts 9:29-30.)

We know very little about this part of Paul’s life. He was surely sharing his new faith in Christ, but he may have spent a lot of time studying the Old Testament and the many prophecies about Jesus and having his faith strengthened by the Lord. In other letters, he often mentioned revelations from Christ Himself, many of which may have come during that period of time, since he had not had the chance to learn directly from Jesus during His public ministry. Some think that Paul also learned his tent-making skills during this time, which he used to help support himself at times during his later ministry.

We do know from the Book of Acts that at some point a Christian worker, Barnabas, went to Tarsus to look for Saul (Paul) and brought him to Antioch, in Syria, where they carried on a strong ministry, blessed by the Lord, and where “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:25-26). Prophets also predicted a “great famine” coming. The disciples gathered funds, and Barnabas and Saul delivered these gifts to people in Judea (Acts 11:27-30).

It might be that what Paul described in Galatians 2:1-10 happened during this visit to Jerusalem. In verse one, we hear that Paul and Barnabas were there, along with Titus, a Greek person who had become a Christian also. Paul mentioned a “revelation” and that likely was the one described in Acts 11 about the “famine” and the need to bring help to the poor, struggling people in Judea. This was also a chance for Paul finally to meet in a “private way” with some of the “influential” leaders who were “pillars” of the church in Jerusalem. He wanted to assure them that he was not off track or “running in vain” in his “proclamation of the Gospel among the Gentiles” (Galatians 2:2).

In Galatians 2:6-9, we hear that those leaders, James (the brother of Jesus) and Cephas (Peter) and John the Apostle “had nothing to add” to what Saul was preaching. “On the contrary,” they were excited about “the grace” of God given to him to preach “to the uncircumcised, to Gentiles,” while they were called to focus upon Jews (the circumcised). They all had an “apostolic ministry” - but with a primary focus on different groups of people.

They only asked Saul to be sure to “remember the poor,” as well, which he was already doing in his ministry. Many times we see Saul (soon to be called Paul, most of the time) bringing up in his letters the importance of helping the needy in this way (Galatians 2:10). And, of course, both Paul and the other apostles shared the Good News of Jesus with everyone they could, Jew or Gentile, as they had opportunity.

In all that he wrote, then, at the beginning of this letter to the Galatians, Paul was emphasizing that he was not preaching a “man’s” Gospel, but what he had learned from Christ and His Word. He had actually had little contact with the most famous apostles, and when he did talk with them, they agreed with what he was saying and preaching. He was preaching the truth, unlike the false teachers who had come later and so upset the Galatians with their additional Jewish rules and regulations that they claimed that Christian believers also had to follow.

As we will see, one of those “regulations” of the false teachers was the need for every male believer to be “circumcised.” So, Paul also included one important detail of his visit with the leaders in Jerusalem, back in Galatians 2:3-5. Titus, who was Greek, a Gentile, a non-Jew, but now a believing Christian, was with them. Greeks and Romans and many other Gentile men were never circumcised. Titus was not, and none of the leaders brought this up and tried to “force” Titus to be circumcised. It was not necessary in the new “freedom” of the Gospel in Christ. The apostles and Paul all knew that, as they had learned the Good News of Christ, from Him and through the Holy Spirit (Galatians 2:3).

Sadly, even then there were some “false brothers” around who wanted to put Christians into “slavery” to additional rules and regulations, as necessary for salvation. They must have been troubling Titus and others, for Paul said that "to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the Gospel might be preserved for you” - that salvation is a gift, given purely by God’s grace apart from our works or efforts and is received simply by the gift of faith that God works in us (Galatians 2:4-5).

The pressure is still great to make salvation dependent upon faith plus various other works we must do. Paul gave one more example that we will look at next week in Galatians 2:11-14, where even Cephas (Peter) backed down and acted in a hypocritical way on this issue. The rest of this Letter to the Galatians is about this very issue.

May the Lord open our eyes to be clear about why this teaching is so important and why Lutherans have said that this is the key teaching about Christ on which we and the church stand or fall.