Galatians 1:22-24 - A Glory Story

"But I was being unknown to the face to the assemblies of Judea to the [ones] in Christ... But only hearing they were that 'the [one] persecuting us formerly now is good-newsing the faith which formerly he was destroying'... and they were glorifying the God in me."

-The Lord gave Paul not only a call but a story as well - a glory story!  This highly placed Jewish religious leader who was at one time vigorously trying to destroy Jesus and His Church was now actually promoting and building up the same.  Saul the Destroyer - that’s what they used to call him.  Well, perhaps not.  But his was a fascinating story, to be sure, no doubt incredibly encouraging to the hearts of those early Christ-followers who still lived under the ever-present shadow of persecution and death.  In the midst of a rising tide of persecution, one of their would-be tormentors has been turned!  The crucifixion itself was still a fairly recent event, fresh in their minds.  So was the stoning death of Stephen which launched the first great persecution against the Church (Acts 8.1).  They wouldn’t have recognized him had Saul shown up in their village, these Judean believers.  But his story, this word of Saul’s conversion and of his powerful preaching ministry, gave their hearts courage and hope.  Believers were celebrating God’s goodness in and through his life.  It showed off in stark relief the magnificent glory and unfathomable wisdom of God.  His ways are not our ways, so much higher.  He so knows what He is doing, not wasting a single blessed thing, working all together for good and to reinforce the truth that He is indeed breathtakingly good and deserving of all glory and honor and praise.  Such is the effect that Paul’s story had on these early believers.

-Is it not true that the Lord likewise gives a glory story to each and every person who comes to trust in Him?  Perhaps not quite similar to Paul’s in particulars of background and circumstances of conversion and subsequent call, but a God-given story nevertheless, one uniquely designed to show off how breathtakingly good He truly is.  I once was lost, but now am found, amazing grace how sweet the sound - that theme - same-story-different-chapter - is repeated countless times over in the lives of those whom the Lord reaches down and rescues.  And with that motif He crafts a true work of art, a one-of-kind tapestry, weaving together all the details of who we are and what we’ve experienced, wasting not one moment or facet, not one wound or misstep but working all together for good and crafting a story for the ages - one which will indeed echo into eternity and show off God’s goodness like no other.  Not one bump or bruise, not one hurt or misstep, not one tragedy or triumph will be wasted.  Are others celebrating God’s great goodness because of His work in and through my life, because of my glory story?  Perhaps it would make a difference if I actually got that together and started sharing it...?

Galatians 1:18-21 - Jerusalem in brief

"Then after three years I went unto Jerusalem to get to know Cephas and I stayed toward him fifteen days... But other of the apostles I did not see if not Jacob the brother of the Lord... But what I am writing to you, behold, before God I am not lying... Then I went unto the regions of Syria and Cilicia."

-Paul did finally go up to Jerusalem, three years after either his conversion or after he returned to Damascus from Arabia.  What this does mean is that Paul was no longer an infant in the faith.  His message, which he had been preaching for quite some time, was already well-formed.  The account in Acts does make it sound like Paul fled straight from Damascus to Jerusalem, but it is possiible that he went somewhere else in-between.  Nowhere here however does Paul give us any hint of the extreme life-threatening persecution he faced in either city.  He also fails to mention here the ostracism he endured from the disciples upon arriving in Jerusalem, and the role that Barnabas played in resolving that.  In fact there are some discrepancies between this account and the narrative in Acts 9 to make one think that we’re reading about two different situations, two different visits to Jerusalem.  And yet there are enough consistencies to suggest otherwise, specifically that he did go to Jerusalem at some point after leaving Damascus, and while in Jerusalem he met with some apostles, and afterwards he departed for the regions of Syria (Acts says Caesarea - which was in that region) and Cilicia (Acts says Tarsus, which was in that region - cf Acts 9.30).  And, as we read further on in this chapter, Paul made no significant visit to Jerusalem again until much later, as part of a delegation with Barnabas and Titus (this would be the so-called Jerusalem Council about which we read in Acts 15.1-2ff)(Acts 11.29-30 and Acts 12.25 also mentions a brief visit where Barnabas and Paul took a famine relief contribution from Antioch to Jerusalem for the believers in Judea, but Paul does not find it necessary to mention that in his account here).

-It sounds here like Paul in going to Jerusalem was deliberately going in order to get to know Peter (Cephas), but that his contact with Peter (and just one other apostle - James, the brother of Jesus) was rather brief - just a couple of weeks, altho he actually did stay with Peter.  In Acts, however, we have Paul the former persecutor being initially shunned by the believers in Jerusalem until Barnabas intervened and literally brought him to the apostles, where it sounds like Barnabas was the one who conveyed the details of Paul’s miraculous conversion and subsequent ministry in Damascus, after which Paul embarked on a time of preaching in Jerusalem.  Reading Acts 9.26-30 might give one the impression that Paul was in Jerusalem for quite some time on that initial post-conversion visit, but Paul states that it was definitely brief - merely 15 days.  In the end, the discrepancies between the account in Acts and what Paul is saying here are not irreconcilable, and in no way detract from his main point here, which is that his time in Jerusalem and contact with the apostles was in fact so brief as to contribute nothing of substance to the content of his message, one which he had already been preaching for several years.  His message from the very beginning, received directly from the Lord and untainted by any human agent, was salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike by grace alone through faith alone and not by any works.  That’s the Good News, and it is really good to this day...!

Galatians 1:17 - Arabian vacation?

"...nor did I go up to Jerusalem toward the apostles before me, but rather I went unto Arabia, and again I returned unto Damascus.’

-Some very interesting, specific life data Paul gives us here in these next few verses.  Keep in mind the context, about how the message he teaches (which in fact he taught these Galatians), did not originate from man, but rather came from the Lord Himself.  So he first tells us that after his eye-opening encounter with Christ at Damascus, he did not consult with any flesh and blood person (previous verse).  He had no contact whatsoever with any of the apostles in Jerusalem, nor anyone else there, for that matter.  As we will see, the church in Jerusalem was somewhat corrupted with so-called Judaizers, those who would have been inclined to insist that these young Gentile believers in Galatia needed to become circumcised and follow the Mosaic law in order to be acceptable to God.  This in fact came to a head in Acts 15.

-But in other words, those who were leading the church at the time of Paul’s conversion contributed not one thing to his understanding of the Gospel.  And while one might assume that this would NOT be something in Paul’s favor, it simply serves to reinforce his point that the content of his message did not come from man at all, not even from the ones you might have expected would have taught him at least something about Christ.  But no, he did not go "up" to Jerusalem at all initially (even tho in the northern hemisphere we would say that it was "down south" to go to Jerusalem from Damascus, folks always talked about ‘going up’ to Jerusalem - the holy city was situated about 2500 feet above sea level on Mount Zion – higher ground than all that surrounded it).  No, he went away to Arabia, for a time.  This trip is not mentioned in the Acts narrative for some reason - only that he was in Damascus for many days following his conversion.  Paul doesn’t tell us anywhere why exactly he went to Arabia, nor do we know for sure how long he was there, or even a precise location.  The boundaries of that region were a bit fuzzy, but generally it was the region east of the Jordan River and on into the Arabian peninsula (what is now Saudi Arabia).  Some say Paul went there to preach, since we do read in Acts that he began to do just that immediately after his conversion (Acts 9.20).  Others believe Paul may have gone there simply for spiritual formation.  We do know that after his conversion he had at least one additional supernatural experience of revelation (2Corinthians 12.4-7).  Paul surely did have a clear distinct sense of having been taught spiritual truth straight from the Lord Himself (cf 1Corinthians 2.12-13).  Regardless of what actually happened in Arabia, we know that he was there for a time after his conversion, then returned to Damascus, where he stayed for many days, until that time when Jews in Damascus determined to kill him (Acts 9.23).  Let’s keep reading...

Galatians 1:16 - The Pleasures of God and Paul's "In-order-that"

"...[when He was well-pleased] to reveal His Son in me, in order that I may be good-newsing Him in the nations, immediately not did I consult flesh and blood..."

-God was well-pleased...  The pleasures of God - you realize that in His right hand there are pleasures forever, right (Psalm 16.11)?  Surely of all the qualities which the Lord possesses to the n-th degree, joy is right there among them.  He is the happiest being in the universe.  Do we much consider these, the things which bring pleasure to the heart of our heavenly Father?  Faith totally pleases Him (Hebrews 11.6), a life of faith, a heart of faith, a step of faith.  It brought Him great pleasure to create the universe, and to create man in His image, to place him in a garden paradise, to give him a job, and to commune with him every day.  In fact, whatever the Lord wants He does, and this brings Him pleasure (Psalm 135.6)(Scripture tells us He was even pleased to kill His Son - Isaiah 53.10 - whoa, heavy - which tells us just how overwhelmingly important is His plan to bring many sons and daughters to glory.  It completely supercedes and negates all other considerations by comparison).  It is our lack of faith, faithlessness, our own lack of desire and devotion and lack of correspondence to what He wants that brings Him grief and provokes Him to anger.

-Nevertheless, God was well-pleased to reveal Christ IN Paul, one who was on a self-appointed mission to destroy Christ.  Revealed not just to him, but IN him, which gave him both a story and a message as well as a life and a countenance to back it up.  But don’t miss this - IN ORDER THAT.  There is always an in-order-that, a reason, a purpose behind the call which follows the call.  God called Paul in order that.  He similarly calls you and I - in order that.  It falls upon each of us thus called to present ourselves and our wants fully to the Lord and to let our minds so flow together with His that we can and do fall perfectly into step with all that He wants (Romans 12.1-2; Ephesians 5.10, 5.17; Colossians 1.9-10).  Paul’s call, his in-order-that, was to carry the good news of Christ to the nations - which would bring even more pleasure to the Lord.  Any idea yet what your in-order-that might be?  It all begins with surrender, a humble choice of who’s gonna be in charge, of whose wants will win in my life.  The old question is posed, of which one of the two dogs who are fighting each other will win?  The one you feed.  Whose wants and pleasures am I feeding in my life?  The wants of God?  Or my wants?

Galatians 1:15 - Ten thousand gifts

"But when [God] was well-pleased - the [One] having set apart me out of my mother’s womb and having called me through His grace...’

-God has a plan (cf Jeremiah 29.11, Acts 2.23), one really big glorious eternal plan (Ephesians 3.11), and contained within are innumerable intricate subplots, all being woven together into a massive marvelous tapestry (Isaiah 14.24, 45.7; Ephesians 1.11).  He formed a plan for me in fact, one which He has been implementing from the day I emerged from my mother’s womb (Proverbs 16.9), and even before that when He formed me in the womb (Psalms 139.13-16), and even before that (2Kings 19.25, Psalms 33.11, Isaiah 25.1).  And now, most of us, we see but dimly, our minds not fully illuminated to the intricacies of God’s unfolding plan.  On this side of eternity, in our natural fallen state, we perceive (or presume?) that our choices are ours to make, our lives ours to live as we please in a relatively autonomous independent orbit, again most of us mistakenly assuming the arc of our lives to have little or no wider consequence save on the lives of my immediate family and those closest to me (unless by chance or by virtue of self-effort I appear to have grabbed a broader scope of influence).

-Paul had been given enough insight to know what most of us will not until we are on the other side of eternity, after we pass through to the other side of life, the truth that who and what I am and whatever I have, is a gift.  A free gift, straight from the heart and hand of almighty God.  My life, and the days measured out for me are precisely that, a gift of ten thousand gifts, the ability to enjoy them and all the manifold glories therein, also a gift.  The very ability to come home in our hearts to Him Who formed us, likewise a gift, for no one can come to God unless He calls them (cf John 6.44, 6.65).  On this side of the door, it certainly appears to be otherwise, that we grope for and seek after God on our terms (Acts 17.27), that we in and of ourselves pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and we make the choice to believe and confess and love and obey (Acts 16.31, Romans 10.10, Matthew 24.13, Acts 2.21).  We call on Him, yet in reality He is calling to us, and that not merely for salvation, fire insurance.  No indeed, He has a plan, good works in which we should walk (Ephesians 2.10), prepared for us before we believed or were even born, a path laid out for each one of us, a plan for blessing and breathtaking goodness and unspeakable joy.  This then is the ultimate grace.  We don’t deserve this divine favor, not one of His gifts.  There is not one of our filthy rags which would ever commend us to the God of heaven.  He calls out to us, and gives us the gift of faith, which to be sure we must receive (John 1.12), but His favor is never deserved in the least.  All the more so in Paul’s case, where he was additionally called by grace to bear the glorious Message of God’s grace through Christ to the nations.  Grace upon grace, how can it be...

Galatians 1:14 - All-out All-in

"... and I was progressing in the Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.’

-Paul was an elite-level Jew, a bonafide MVP candidate.  In the metrics of the Jewish religious system of his day, however you measured progress and success, Paul not only measured up, he was head and shoulders above the rest.  In his own words, he was among the best of the best, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees (Philippians 3.4-6).  Zeal was never Paul’s problem.  He was blessed with that in spades - no doubt the Lord knew what He was doing when He formed Paul in his mother’s womb, ey?  Half-way was not his way.  He was all-out all-in.

-The way to progress in Judaism of course was to give yourself over to observing the teachings which had been given over to the Jews by their fathers, specifically the Law and the Prophets (which would have also included the writings as well as an oral torah).  Observe these long enough and they become tradition, a practice or a belief or a custom which gets lived out on a regular basis and then handed down to succeeding generations such that it becomes part of the fabric of a family or of a culture.  It becomes codified, an end unto itself - this is just what we do, we always do this, we always have.  It is left then to the free thinkers, the more ‘rebellious’ types, to pose the question ‘why’ and to break with the tradition.  Paul was not one of these - until... Normally traditions tend to be rather innocent, morally neutral, as in this is how we traditionally celebrate Christmas.  But occasionally they clash with stronger currents, the proverbial immovable object meeting the irresistable force.  Currents of popular opinion, societal ‘progress’, values shifts.  In Paul’s case (and the case of pharisaic Judaism), the Jewish religious traditions, i.e. the way the Jews always did Judaism, turned out to be wrong in the eyes of God.  Theirs was a system of works, of manifold rules and regulations on how the nation and her people were to try and work their way towards (and maintain) right standing with almighty God, and it was fundamentally flawed.  Nevertheless, until he was forcibly and rather dramatically shown otherwise, Paul was all-out and all-in, hot and boiling for that tradition in which he grew up.  His way was no way half-way, even when it was the wrong way.  No doubt, a well-intentioned and splendid example, this.  He may have been going in the wrongly opposite direction, but his was never a half-baked effort.  In the words of Jesus, ‘I wish that you were cold or hot, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold I will spit you out of my mouth.’ (Revelation 3.15)

Galatians 1:13 - Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane

"For you heard my former way of life in the Judaism, that according to excess I was persecuting the assembly of God and I was destroying it...’

-Prior to receiving the revelation of Jesus, Paul was on a mission to destroy Jesus.  Or at least the Church, the ones who were following Jesus and who were spreading supposed lies with regard to Him, filling Jerusalem with His teaching.  Paul was not merely intent on stopping the spread of the Church, he was hell-bent on eradicating it entirely.  This Jesus-thing was a virus, a plague - it needed to be stopped, wiped out, and by-God (or by himself if necessary) he was going to do it.

-To this end, he does not hesitate to admit here and elsewhere that he was a persecutor of God’s people (Act 22.4-5, 26.9-11; 1Cor 15.9), and that excessively so.  Paul definitely did nothing halfway.  He was perhaps a bit late to the game - in fact he missed kickoff (as far as we can tell he was not present when they crucified Jesus), but by the time the church actually got cranked up and began to fill Jerusalem with signs and wonders and teaching about Jesus, Paul - then Saul - was all in for the final solution.  When the Jewish leaders finally began persecuting and even killing Christians (i.e. Stephen was the first), Paul was right there with them (Act 7.58-59, 8.1, 8.3, 9.1-2)(he was likely one of the men who first confronted Stephen and then had him arrested - Act 6.8-13 - as Paul was himself from Cilicia, Act 22.3).  And to that end - the end of the church - he dedicated himself with great abandon.  To persecute literally means to pursue, doggedly so, and this Paul did, pursuing those who followed Jesus to put them in prison, pursuing them all the way to foreign cities.  Damascus was more than twice the distance of Nazareth from Jerusalem, so, more than a few days journey, yet Paul did not hesitate to pursue as far as there.

-Everybody pursues something.  Even those who purport to be pursuing nothing at all are pursuing just that.  And to that end, some pursue mediocrity.  Others pursue success, however they have defined it (or how others have defined it for them) - wealth and riches, fame, career advancement, knowledge and academic achievement, beauty, romance, pleasure, fitness, leisure and recreation, the fountain of youth - you name it, the list is endless... Even those who pursue nothing, are they not in fact pursuing comfort and ease, or freedom?  Some pursuits are mere dalliances, diversions at best, others are more consuming, more obsessive.  But in the end, everybody pursues something, and we do so because we are ultimately looking for the satisfaction which we believe will accompany the catch.  The question is, when I catch it, will it really satisfy?  Will it really fill that knawing, nagging hole in my heart?  It's like the sheriff on Dukes of Hazzard, always in "hot pursuit" of those Duke boys.  Had he ever managed to catch them, would it have brought him true satisfaction for more than a Hollywood minute?  Does not experience inform us that life and these pursuits are much like cotton candy?  Had Paul been able to succeed in completely wiping out the early church, would he have actually found a lasting contentment and inner peace?  Would he have been able to rest?  How about the rest of us - have we yet found what we’re looking for?

Galatians 1:11-12 - On Matters of Life and Death...

"For I am making known to you, brothers, the good news having been good news-ed by me, that is not according to man.  For neither from man did I myself receive it nor was I taught, but rather through a revelation of Jesus Christ."

-The reason why Paul is so certain, so adamant about the priority and the need to preserve the purity of the Good News he delivered to the Galatians?  It was (and still is!) heaven-sent, out of this world, a true God-send.  Jesus Christ had appeared to him, face-to-face, and not only did that change everything, it raised the stakes to the highest possible level.  This speaks both to the content of the Message (it is TRUE) as well as to its origin (it is AUTHORITATIVE).

-No, this Message did in no way originate with man, Paul says.  He didn’t come up with it on his own, no man or woman taught it to him, no person on earth thought it up or even conceived of it.  He didn’t get it from his mom or his dad, not from some local rabbi, not from his fancy Jewish seminary professor (Gamaliel - cf Acts 5.34, 22.3), not even from any of the apostles or any other followers of Jesus.  No no, that which Paul preached, this Message came straight from Jesus Christ, thru a direct personal revelation at that.  Jesus - in other words, almighty God - uncovered truth directly for Paul.  Audacious claim, this.  And quite serious, especially for a Jew.  "By whose authority do you say/do these things?" was a very natural question for them (Luke 20.2).  Thus says the Lord.  Any and all such words are binding (on both the hearers AND the speaker), final, one hundred percent guaranteed not to fail, or they are (or were) a death sentence for the one who utters them (Deuteronomy 13.5, Jeremiah 14.14-15).  Yet to true prophets, those who convey the very words of God, we all would do well to pay full attention.  Because not one letter or dot of what God says will ever NOT come to pass (Luke 16.17, Matthew 5.18).  These are indeed matters of life and death.

-Having verified the source, the place of origin of this Message, we then know that Paul’s words are completely true and trustworthy, the specifics of the content are both incontrovertible and unalterable.  A curse awaits the one who does dare to alter them, and destruction the one who ignores them.  We neglect it to our great personal peril (Hebrews 2.1-3, 2Peter 1.20-21).  Yet the sublime goodness of this Good Message is that the One Who sent it is the One Who Himself destroyed destruction and delivered us from the perilous curse by becoming a curse for us - more on this in chapter three (Galatians 3.13).

Galatians 1:10 - Audience of One

"For now, am I trusting man, or God?  Or am I seeking to be pleasing man?  If still I was pleasing man, I was not ever Christ’s bondslave.’

-Paul just called down a curse of destruction from Heaven on the ones who are distorting the Good News, on those who are spreading false teaching about how to be saved.  Obviously to do this is not a very conciliatory thing to say.  He’s not playing nice, to put it mildly.  It’s not politically correct.  It’s not very tolerant, in fact not at all.  Imagine how a modern audience might react to such a statement - they would boo Paul out of the building for being so deplorable, so mean and critical, so hateful and bigoted and intolerant.  Which is exactly why Paul at this point points out precisely where his loyalties lie.  An audience of One.  He’s not playing to the crowd.  He’s not trying to curry favor with the man (or woman) next to him.  He’s striving to please the One Who owns him, Who bought him with blood, Who died for him and Who reigns on high, King of the universe.  Paul seriously cares very little if anything for how his words may be off-putting to anyone else.

-Because the truth is, Paul is a slave, a doulos.  Generally speaking, this person was owned by another, but not against their will.  They wanted this.  They freely chose this of their own accord.  They deliberately volunteered to bind themselves to this one who is now their owner/master.  Their life now is no longer theirs.  Their time is not their own.  They live for the master.  They do what he wants, what he commands, and they have no greater aspiriation than to make their master happy, to hear him (or her) say, well done.  They get up in the morning and get down on their knees and ask, what is thy bidding, my master?  The one who has thus freely surrendered control of their life to Jesus Christ has a higher allegiance, a higher motivation, a higher obligation to do all things to please this Master in heaven (2Corinthians 5.9; Ephesians 5.10; Colossians 1.10; 1Thessalonians 2.4, 4.1; 2Timothy 2.4; 1John 3.22) - and this idea appears over and over again in Paul’s writings.  So it matters not what others might think about what Paul does, or what he says.  He wants what his Master wants.  And thus Paul has strong words for anyone who may be deviating from devotion to Christ, much more so for those who are disrespecting and distorting the Master’s Message about His Son and are leading others astray.  Only a few things are necessary - really only one... (Luke 10.39-42).  #AO1 - Audience of One.

Galatians 1:8-9 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

"But rather even if we or an angel out of heaven may be evangelizing [to you] beside what we evangelized to you, let them be accursed.  As we have foretold and now again I am saying, if any is evangelizing you beside what you received, let them be accursed."

-Being quite certain of the Good Message ("evangel", eu-angel in the Greek - eu meaning good, and angel being the divine messenger) which he and Barnabas delivered to the Galatians in the first place, Paul is adamant that they should not ever listen to any other teaching about how to be saved, not no time, not no how, not ever.  Doesn’t matter who it is - not if it was Paul himself coming back and teaching something different, not even if some (being in the guise of an) angel from heaven were to come and attempt to instruct them differently about how to be saved - they should give absolutely no attention whatsoever to any message contrary to that with which Paul originally evangelized these believers.  (Um, this may have been helpful advice to heed for a number of founders of notable judeo-christian spinoffs who claimed to have seen an angel, don’t you think...?)

-Paul takes this adamance even further by insisting that any person - himself included - who would dare to disseminate a distortion of that Good Message - THE Good Message - which they had initially received from Paul and Barnabas, should be cursed, set apart to complete and utter destruction.  That person or being, there should be nothing left of them, not a trace, save perhaps an awareness of their accursedness.  And that’s how it should be - both the teacher and their teaching need to be forever eliminated and prevented from being able to lead anyone astray from the pure and simple message of devotion to Christ, by grace alone, through faith alone.  And Paul says it TWICE here, which means he really means it, cannot put it strongly enough.  A bonafide case of the good, the bad, and the ugly, this.  The Good Message, being distorted by bad messengers, who deserve nothing less than an ugly outcome (destruction).  Many ways to err, to miss the mark in this life, but - the truth upon which one’s eternal destiny hangs in the balance?  This is the ONE area above all others where no one can afford to err in the least.

Galatians 1:7 - A Gospel Metastrophe

"...which is not another, if not some are the [ones] troubling you, and wanting to turn about the Gospel of Christ."

-Trouble.  Difficulty, problems - or the act of causing the same.  Those who do so are refered to as troublemakers, and to be sure, nobody likes a troublemaker.  Not Paul, at any rate.  But some of these had shown up in Galatia, in the assembly of believers which he had helped to found, and were teaching a ‘different gospel’.

-Paul clarifies that in fact there is only one Gospel.  Just one Good Message.  The one and only.  Any teaching which conflicts with it is actually no good message at all.  There are no other gospels, not really.  There is only one.  One truth, one way - Jesus.  Grace.  Faith in Him.  Just that one Good Message.

-But these troublemakers, they were wanting to change it, distort it - a metastrophe.  Not quite as bad as a catastrophe, but we are talking about a big bad change (cf Acts 2.20 - same word).  The same thing happened in Antioch in Acts 15.1, troublemakers showed up in that predominantly-gentile assembly, distorting the message of grace (Acts 15.9-11), and the apostles and elders in Jerusalem said the very same thing that Paul is saying here - they did NOT want to trouble those from among the Gentiles who were responding to the Good News (Acts 15.19).  Salvation is not by works, it by grace alone through faith in Christ alone.  Anything else, anything which somehow reverts to a system of working to try and earn God’s favor is Metastrophic.  And Paul lets us know in no uncertain terms in the next two verses just how he feels about that...

Galatians 1:6 - Deserting the Dessert...?

"I am marveling that thus quickly you are removing from the [One] having called you in grace of [Christ] unto a different gospel...’

-Such a strange language, English.  How two so similar words can have such dissimilar meanings.  One noun is the presence of something wonderful and special (dessert), spelled almost the same yet pronounced differently than the other noun (desert), which pretty much means the absence of anything, whereas the corresponding verb (to desert) is pronounced the same as the first noun.  No matter - woe to the one who does the deserting.  Generally speaking, if the cause is not unjust, deserting is a disgrace, punishable sometimes even by death.  Indeed, in many armies and in times of war, deserters will be shot!  What of those who desert almighty God?

-These Galatians actually were deserting God, quickly beginning to fall under and follow a different teaching than what they learned from Paul, a different way of how to relate and connect to the Lord, a way contrary to the way of grace.  But truly it is the way of grace which is different, the road less traveled, and (sadly) few are those who find (and remain on) it.  No, the huddled masses estranged from their Creator and steeped in the various religions of the world all do have one thing in common - grace is not a thing.  They all are working their way (back) to God, into His good graces, or trying, vainly trying to earn His un-earnable favor and somehow expiate or eliminate their own misdeeds through ‘good’ deeds (which even at their best are merely filthy rags - Isaiah 64.4).  But grace flies in the face of these.  It is favor, acceptance, love, forgiveness, mercy which is UN-deserved.  God gives His favor freely to those who believe the Gospel, the Good Message about God’s grace-gift of His Son.  It is the dessert of life, the frosting, the whipped cream and cherry on top - the best part, often saved for last, after we've tried everything else, exhausted all other ways to God.  No need to wait, however - why not dig into the dessert of God's amazing grace sooner rather than later?

-And let there be no mistake, no human transaction, this.  This was not some horizontal exchange of ideas, some earthly effort on Paul’s part to convince these folks of the veracity of his beliefs.  No, theirs (and ours) is a heavenly call.  And no land lines either - this is the original wireless.  We’re talking about a spiritual phone call straight from the throne room of heaven, direct from almighty God Himself.  We’re holding His telegram (of the Gospel in Scripture) in our hands (or someone - like Paul - is reading/explaining it to us), and God rings us up, dials up our soul, and says, ‘I love you, and sent My Son to die for you.  Come home to Me with your whole heart.  Only believe, and you will be saved.’  So simple, so easy - almost too easy for some.  It feels like there must be something more to it, some work which I need to do.  This then is the native impulse of fallen man, wired from the womb to work unrighteousness as well as to try and work that off to earn favorable standing with God.  And yet for Paul, it is still amazing that one who appeared to genuinely respond to this divine call of grace, free favor, would ever abandon that, much less do so quickly and for a worse offer at that...!  Deserter - may we find the grace to not ever earn that title...

Galatians 1:5 - It's All About Him

"...to Whom [be] the glory unto the ages of the ages, amen."

-This Father of ours, the One true God, Maker of heaven and earth - Scripture tells us over and over that all things are (and should be) for His glory, this glorious, breathtakingly good God of the universe.  History is His story, the story of His glory.  It’s all about Him.  All He has done - in creating the universe, creating man (and woman) in His own image, designing them and assigning them to enjoy and show off His breathtaking goodness at all times in all places, allowing that creation, that image of glory to be marred by sin, implementing a plan to restore that creation in a new heavens and earth and to redeem out a family of rescued adopted children (mutts all), a multicolored multitude of worshippers who freely devote themselves to enjoying and celebrating and spreading the knowledge of His glory to every nation under heaven and on into eternity - all this will result in a maximal display of how awesome and glorious He truly is.

-He is so incomparably better, and He has certainly vested some of this goodness in all He has made.  It is all very good, or was, before being marred by sin and brokenness and corruption and decay.  Thankfully, much of it still retains some vestige of that goodness which even unbelievers get to enjoy to a certain extent.  Humanity still carries within that seed of longing for glory, men and women everywhere trying to find and enjoy and possess goodness in just about any form, trying to get back to the Garden.  Step back and take a look - one can see this native impulse manifest itself constantly.  The plan of God, revealed throughout the pages of Scripture and played out through the annals of history - is now playing in a theater of someone’s life near you.  Many theaters, in fact.  So many lives, so many days, indeed, each and every one steeped with abundant opportunities for enjoying and celebrating and reflecting the manifold goodness of God, each soul wonderfully designed to do so in its own unique fashion, unto to the ages of ages.  Forever and ever.  Unending goodness.  Unending glory.  For all to see, acknowledge, enjoy, celebrate.  This was our destiny - in the beginning, and now is again, for those who have been thus re-destined.  Paradise lost-and-found.  Glory re-gained.  Our glorious God is so good, just so unbelievably indescribably good and great and incomparably better than any and every other thing in the universe, it would indeed take an eternity to be able to even just begin to fathom and appreciate just how glorious He truly is.  Which is precisely the point.  Amen.

Galatians 1:3-4 - Our Father...

"Grace to you and peace from God [the] Father of us and [the] Lord Jesus Christ...the [One] having given Himself on behalf of the sins of us, so that He should take us out of the evil age having been put in, according to the want of God and our Father..."

-Traditional greeting, this, a wish for peace/shalom, which had in Paul’s circles been augmented and eclipsed by a wish for grace, God’s undeserved favor, apart from which we cannot enjoy the tiniest ounce of shalom, much less even take another breath which would allow us to enjoy some of that shalom.  Divinely sourced, both of these, flowing freely from the throne of Heaven and the Cross of Calvary.  Both the Father and the Son (as well as the Spirit), forever and always existing and working together as One, blessing the nations and the people of God with daily bread and rain and overall well-being and all good things to enjoy, and most of all with Himself, breathtaking goodness, the happiest most joyful and enjoyable Being in the universe!

-To this end, Paul points out, we see the cornerstone of grace and peace laid at the foot of the Cross.  God the Son gave Himself for us, for our sins.  He sacrificed Himself in our place.  What greater manifestation of grace can there be?  That one supreme sacrifice procured peace for all eternity, peace with God and deliverance from all that robs us of that overall well-being in this life.  This life, this evil age, the age of brokenness and suffering and sin, where everything breaks down - Jesus came and gave His life to take us out, to rescue those He purchased with His blood and deliver them out of the evil now into eternal good.  Paradise, really.  Consummate breathtaking goodness, far better and more lasting than any beach or lake or mountain or other earthly place of bliss or peace or happiness.  In fact, this was God’s desire from the beginning, Paul says, the eternal design of our true God and Father in Heaven.

-Interesting side note here: God as Father is not a thing in the Old Testament - apart from one obscure mention in Deuteronomy 32.6 - until God declares to David that He will be a Father to David’s son who will come after him - Solomon - 2Samuel 7.14.  David does call Him a Father to the fatherless in Psalm 68.5, but the context is specific to the plight of orphans.  Psalm 89.26 - David will call Him Father - but doesn’t.  Psalm 103.13 - a simile, God having compassion on those who fear Him as a father would on his children - but not called Father directly.  Isaiah 9.6 says Messiah will be called Eternal Father, and from there we begin to see some of the prophets refer to God as Father (Isaiah 63.16, 64.8; Jeremiah 3.4, 3.19; Malachi 1.6, 2.10).  So, no more than a dozen mentions, and only in two of those - the two references at the end of Isaiah - is God directly addressed as Father.  Not until Jesus - God the Son - teaches us (and actually models for us) to address God as Father does it actually begin to happen.  So when Paul here refers to our God and Father, it is in fact a very non-traditional un-Jewish thing to do.  Muslims do not relate to Allah as father either - perhaps that traces back to some of their abrahamic roots.  But at this point, the King of the universe, almighty thrice-holy God is not just A father, He is OUR Father.  He made us, designed us, redeemed us, adopted us and brought us into His forever family as His very own sons and daughters - PLUS put His very own Spirit in our hearts to verify and testify and reinforce right down to the very core of our being that God is OUR Father.  He is our heavenly daddy - IF we are in Christ and He in us.  This writer can still remember the change which came over me, when I began to instinctively call Him ‘Father’ after placing my trust in Christ.  Prior to that, there had been no connection whatsoever, no conversation to speak of, but suddenly out of nowhere He was now MY Father.  THIS is one sign of a rescued heart - they HAVE a personal connection with the God of the universe, they know Him personally.  You can hear it when they pray - they are talking with Him, they know Him, and He is Abba Father (Romans 8.15, Galatians 4.6).

-And again, all this is precisely what God wanted.  He wanted to be our Father, your Father, for you and I and the entire world to relate to Him as Abba Daddy, He so wanted to send His only begotten Son to rescue you, and He wanted it from the very foundation of the world.  He is truly beyond amazing.  Next verse...

Galatians 1:1-2 - The First Church-planter?

"Paul an apostle, not from man or through man but rather through Jesus Christ and God [the] Father, the [One] having raised Him out of [the] dead...and all the brothers with me, to the assemblies in Galatia..."

-So Paul is writing this letter, of that there is no dispute among Bible-believing Christ followers.  We know much of Paul from both his many letters which comprise the bulk of the New Testament, as well as from the significant amount of biographical information contained in the chronology of the early church which was compiled by one of Paul’s proteges, in fact (Luke), known as the Acts of the Apostles, or simply Acts.

-Paul identifies himself as an apostle, a sent one.  Many are sent, but a few - twelve by most reckonings - were chosen out by Jesus Christ Himself.  This band actually did begin as twelve (Luke 6.13), lost one who was subsequently replaced (Acts 1.25-26) - these were the ones who, after the risen Lord Jesus ascended back to heaven, provided the much-needed leadershp for the fledgling church in Jerusalem during much of the first half of Acts (Acts 2.42, 5.12, 8.1, 9.27).  After that things appear to get just a bit fuzzy for apostles.  Two others are called apostles in Acts 14.4 (Paul and Barnabas - Acts 14.14), altho they are not necessarily grouped with the twelve, who are still functioning albeit alongside a group of elders in Acts 15 (Acts 15.2, 15.22, 16.4).  As important as they clearly were to the birth and expansion of the church, after that Jerusalem council, we literally never hear from the twelve again.  Except for their letters.  These are what now comprise our New Testament.  It was the authority invested in these apostles by the Lord Jesus Himself, these ones who were literal witnesses of His resurrection and specifically chosen out by Him, which - along with the clear inspiration of the Holy Spirit - allowed their writings to attain to the level of Scripture.  That is the authority which Paul claims for himself here and which he will substantiate later in this first chapter.

-But apostles are sent out ones, literally, and that is exactly what Paul (and Barnabas) were, sent out by almighty God Himself.  Acts 13.2, check it out.  God Himself called them to go, and go they did - to Galatia.  Passing thru Cyprus, they came to Perga and Pisidian Antioch and Iconium and Lycaonia and Lystra and Derbe (Acts 13.4-14.27).  Itinerant preaching, church-planting at its first and finest.  This was the famous first missionary journey, but that word, "missionary", does not actually appear anywhere in Scripture.  This was in fact Paul’s first apostolic journey, where he and Barnabas did and performed all the works of an apostle - they witnessed what they knew and had seen about Jesus (Acts 13.30-31), with God bringing the increase and working, performing signs and wonders through them (Acts 13.48-49, 14.1, 14.3, 14.8-10, 14.21, 14.23, cf 2Corinthians 12.11).  They were the first recorded church-planters, with clear gifts of evangelism, teaching, encouragement, and miracles.

-But we see here that Paul is writing back to those assemblies he and Barnabas were privileged to plant on that first apostolic journey.  And there is some bit of disagreement on when he actually wrote this letter.  Was it from Antioch after he and Barnabas returned from their first journey to Galatia (Acts 14.27-15.1), and did that visit from Peter to Antioch (mentioned here in Galatians 2.11) occur in Acts 15.1 (or possibly earlier, while arnabas and Paul-then-Saul were ministering there - cf Acts 11.22-26 12.24-13.1)?  Or did Paul write a bit later, perhaps after the famous Jerusalem council of Acts 15.2ff (possibly mentioned here in Galatians 2.1-10? Or did Paul & Co’s time in Jerusalem and Peter’s subsequent visit take place during one of those earlier periods?)?  But so, perhaps Paul wrote this letter in Acts 15.35 before his second visit to Galatia?  Or did he write sometime after his 2nd visit, after he had glimpsed how they were faring?  Regardless, this letter is regarded as one of the first letters Paul wrote, if not the first, so it should come as no surprise that we see him go to a greater length in reasserting the authority he has to instruct them in the Way, the authority which was given to him not from man, not from his sending church in Antioch, but rather straight from God Himself.  We would all do well to pay attention.  Let’s listen up...

Ephesians 6:23-24 - A Divine Leave-taking

"Peace to the brothers and love with faith from God [the] Father and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.  The grace [be] with all the [ones] loving our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility."

Peace.  Love.  With faith.  Grace.  To end this letter, we have another pauline, greatly expanded-yet-traditional Middle Eastern leave-taking.  Ours is a bye or a see ya.  Hasta la vista, baby.  Theirs was (and still is!) a wish for peace, that all-encompassing shalom, overall well-being.  And yet in Christ, when the infinite almighty God of the universe comes in, full of grace and love, when one is brought into His forever family, there is an awareness of so much more, so much more to life than mere temporal well-being, which admittedly can actually be rather self-serving.  Think about it - it sounds good on the surface.  But shalom, peace to you essentially is saying, may all that concerns you be coming up daisies and relatively trouble-free.  Lots of what you want, and not much that you don’t.  And that really is quite a nice thing to wish upon your fellow man.  But it’s quite possible to have all that and a bag of chips and still miss out on the eternal.  Peace is desireable, don’t get me wrong.  God’s peace indeed surpasses all comprehension.  It is practically indescribable.  But these others - grace.  Love.  Faith.  Paul has come to recognize that these are just as desireable, if not moreso.  What good is peace if you are not enjoying God’s undeserved favor?  If you are not experiencing His giving, sacrificial love both in an incorruptible relationship with Him and with a family of believers?  What good is a sense of peace if you have no faith, if you are in fact separated from the life of God, if you are enslaved to sin and estranged from Him?  Peace is good, but there is something better.

-Important to note the source of all these.  Paul usually does remind his readers that whatever peace or grace or love we may enjoy, it is divinely sourced.  It comes from God.

-Interesting to note that Paul’s leave-taking here is 3rd person, as opposed to 2nd.  Usually, he is wishing grace and peace to ‘you’, ‘you all’ if it is a letter to an assembly such as in this case.  But here it is peace to the brethren, grace to those who love our Lord Jesus.  Neither has he has left any personal greetings here at the end.  There are no personal greetings from other believers.  It perhaps revisits the question as to who all is getting this letter, and if perhaps this could be a circular letter intended for a number of congregations?

-No matter, in the end, Paul leaves us with that which is most important.  Love.  The greatest of these is love.  Love never fails.  The deep, deep everlasting love of God, poured out, returned to Him in an eternal, indestructible relationship which overflows to my fellow man.  It doesn’t get any better.  We were made for this.