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)