FOR YOU HAVE heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24And they praised God because of me.
Original Meaning
PAUL IS PROVIDING his readers with a quick overview of his life, a mini-autobiography. But this life story is more than a family recollection of events in the past. As we have been arguing, the first section of Galatians is Paul’s vindication of his gospel and its origins, validity, and authority. This narrative section is arranged around temporal adverbs: “when” (v. 15), “then” (v. 18), “later” (v. 21), “fourteen years later” (2:1), and “when” (2:11). These are the chronological pegs on which he hangs each of his arguments. He stops at each juncture to demonstrate his point.
In 1:13–24, the argument of Paul for independence from human authorities is developed in two directions: (1) he is independent of human teaching (vv. 13–17), and (2) he is independent of the major churches in Judea (vv. 18–24). The second chapter will develop Paul’s independence from the leading authorities in Jerusalem itself, the so-called “pillar apostles” (2:1–10) and Peter himself (2:11–21). Paul’s argument thus spins tighter and smaller as it gets toward Jerusalem: it moves from human teaching to the churches in Judea to the pillar apostles and finally to Peter, who is probably to be seen at this time as the most distinguished apostle in Jerusalem (though James eventually assumed this position).
The first argument in our section (vv. 13–17) concerns Paul’s independence from human teaching. God’s call came to Paul directly; he says that he “did not consult any man” (v. 16). His pre-Christian history in no way prepared him to be an apostle. Rather, his past was marked by two features: (1) he was a persecutor (cf. Acts 9:1–2; 1 Cor. 15:9), and (2) he was extremely zealous for the law and its national distinctives (1:13–14; cf. Acts 22:3; 26:4; 2 Cor. 11:22; Phil. 3:4–6). Paul’s description of his past focuses on the sacred traditions that were passed on in Judaism (“zealous for the traditions of my fathers”),1 the very element Paul is arguing against in this chapter.
His persecution of the church and his advancements in Judaism came to a screeching halt when God chose to make himself known to Paul in Christ.2 So when God’s call came upon him, he had two options: either to go to Jerusalem to gain an authoritative interpretation of his visionary call3 or to be instructed elsewhere. Paul chose elsewhere, going immediately to Arabia and Damascus (v. 17). Thus, in his pre-and post-conversion experiences he was not prepared for the gospel of grace to go to the Gentiles,4 nor was he simply another Jerusalem-based apostle. Paul often focuses on the Gentile target of his apostleship (Rom. 15:14–21; Eph. 3:1–13; Col. 1:24–2:3), and he knows that it was only by the grace of a sovereign God that he was given such a glorious ministry (Jer. 1:5; 1 Cor. 15:9–11; Eph. 3:7–13).
The second argument is the same in essence but concerns a different set of authorities. Paul now moves from human teaching to the churches of Judea (vv. 18–24). The significance of the Judean churches was brought to attention in our commentary section on verses 10–12 and need not be repeated here. We simply need to repeat that Judea, especially Jerusalem itself, was the mother of earliest Christianity. However central Galilee was during the actual life of Jesus, Judea and Jerusalem almost immediately eclipsed Galilee as the seat of earliest Christianity.
Paul learned something5 from Peter, but he spent only a few days with him—and, he adds, only “after three years” (v. 18). The other apostles were not present and so Paul got nothing from them; he did, he says, make contact with James the brother of Jesus. His non-contact with apostles is so crucial that Paul makes a declaration: “I assure you before God that what I am writing [about my non-contact with apostles] is no lie” (v. 20). We must infer from the seriousness of Paul’s tone here that the Judaizers were arguing that Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem was one designed for his instruction in the rudiments of the gospel. Paul counters: it was three years after my conversion, it was brief, and it was virtually nonapostolic! Hardly sufficient grounds, he argues, to be considered a Jerusalem apostle!
After this brief visit he went back to his home area (Syria and Cilicia), where he was no doubt busy debating Jews about the Messiah (v. 21). He claims, importantly for his argument, that at this time he was still “personally unknown to the churches of Judea” (v. 22). All they knew of Paul was that he had formerly been a persecutor but was now a preacher of the gospel. This generated praise on their part (v. 23–24).
Paul thus argues, in context, that his gospel came from Jesus Christ directly and that it was derived neither from human teaching nor from the Jerusalem-Judean churches. His argument thus for the need to listen to him and not to be corrected by the Judaizers holds up. Before we proceed to see further developments in his argument in chapter 2, we need to reflect on how we can apply this passage to our contemporary society.
Bridging Contexts
WHENEVER AN AUTHOR of the New Testament reflects on his own call or conversion to Christ, it is natural for us, since we are each sinners in need of God’s grace and calling, to see a reflection of our own biographies in that person’s biography. This seems entirely reasonable to me and makes application relatively easy—even far-ranging at times. Biographies are an unusually fine way of educating and illustrating truths. A brief visit to a Christian bookstore will provide any visitor with ample selections of biographies of Christians.
But we must not forget, in our rush to get to applications, what Paul is aiming at here. He is not simply giving us his “life story.” Rather, he is telling his life story with a slant and definite angle: he is emphasizing his early independence from Jerusalem. This same story could be covered from a different angle: how his past in Judaism had prepared him for his Christian ministry. He could then single out such things as his knowledge of the law, his fear of God, and his fierce sense of commitment, not to mention his education that prepared him for his polemics with Jewish and Gentile opponents. Biographies usually have angles, and this brief narrative of Paul’s past has an angle that we must respect. It is not the whole story of his life. (For another angle, see Luke’s portraits in Acts 9; 22; 26.)
In order to apply this biography of Paul we must first discern its essential purpose—and if that purpose is Paul’s independence from Jerusalem and his direct revelation from Jesus Christ, then his biography is not as directly relevant as we might have initially thought. In fact, we should admit that we frequently apply secondary meanings of a text rather than its primary meaning. From this text, for example, our tendency in the Western world is to focus on the essence of a call from God or the nature of conversion. However legitimate such applications may be (and I do think they are valid, as we will see below), it is the interpreter’s first responsibility to find the primary meaning of the text and seek to apply that meaning. In this case, the meaning is the independence of Paul’s gospel from Jerusalem and its significance for (1) the justification of Gentiles and (2) a Christian life lived under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Nonetheless we have here a description of Paul’s conversion and calling that provides categories for perceptions of our conversion and call. What we need to realize is that this is simply one person’s conversion; there is no justification for the notion that everyone’s conversion or calling must take place as Paul’s did. I know of few people that have had similar visions at their conversion or calling. Not everyone who senses that he or she has been called by God to some ministry has the same kind of blinding, sense-shattering experience. And not everyone’s conversion or call is as sudden as Paul’s. Some people are converted, like Peter, over a number of years and through various experiences. Just when was Peter converted? Luke 5? Mark 8? John 21? Acts 2? Some people are called, unlike Paul, as a result of a series of events and educational experiences. Others have had conversions and calls for which they cannot even find a beginning.
Some of my students, for instance, have come to Trinity with no sense of a calling to ministry, while others have had a sense of a specific calling from their earliest years. And yet, after a number of years at Trinity and after seriously searching out God’s call on their lives, most of these students leave seminary with a clear perception of what God wants them to do. What I am saying is this: not everyone’s experience is Paul’s. Consequently, in applying this text we must be careful not to impose this Pauline conversion-call on all people. In fact, I have known few students preparing for ministry who have said that they received their specific calling to ministry at the time of their conversion.6 For most, it has been growth in the grace of God, in his Word, and in discernment of their gifts that led them to a fuller appreciation of God’s direction in their life.
And we should perhaps even say here that Paul does not teach that every Christian must have a call before that Christian begins to serve Christ or in the church. One may or may not have believed that, but such is not the concern here. What Paul is talking about is his own experience of God’s grace—and that experience involved a dramatic conversion and a specific calling. What I would want to maintain is that we can see hues and colors about callings and conversions through the lens of Paul’s narrative. I would not want to maintain that we can learn about all such conversions or callings.
Contemporary Significance
AS MENTIONED IN the previous section (vv. 10–12), this passage’s primary concern is the independence of Paul’s gospel from the Jerusalem authorities. Since we focused on this topic in that section, we will bypass consideration of similar applications here. I suggest that the student of the Bible reread that section of application before moving to secondary applications. What I will do here is reflect on Paul’s “biography,” how he relates his conversion and call to his readers, and how his story can be helpful for us.
We can begin by observing how Paul has rewritten his own biography. The preeminent sign of conversion, according to sociologists (and anyone who reads Scripture attentively), is biographical reconstruction. The first thing a convert does is tell his or her own biography in a new way.7 A basic reorientation is like this: what mattered most before no longer matters; what did not matter before is now central. As Paul himself later says, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7). Paul’s perspective on his life is now entirely shaped around his encounter with Christ. In fact, he reconstructed his perception of himself. He knew that he was different. Thus, there was a self-transformation as well. This is what happens to all converts to Jesus Christ.8
The convert to Jesus Christ now perceives himself or herself entirely within the categories of a relationship to Jesus Christ. It is not unusual for students of mine, a small group of whom I meet with regularly on Thursdays, to refer to their “B.C. days,” meaning their “Before Christ days.” It might be profitable for readers of Galatians to write out a brief account of their own biographies in which they seek to orient their account around their conversion to Christ. Perhaps they could have three sections: (1) “Previous Way of Life,” (2) “Conversion,” and (3) “Present Calling.” This is how Paul reconstructed his life, and it is a typical paradigm since conversion is the decisive change in every Christian’s life. (However, in speaking of a “decisive change,” I need to add that I do not think all conversions are alike, as I discussed above. Nonetheless, the Bible teaches that all Christians are converts, whether that conversion was sudden or progressive.)
But you can explore your past from more than one angle. You can also write your biography from the angle of how your past, whatever it was, prepared you for your present ministry and life; from the angle of your own spiritual development; from the angle of your encounters with the Holy Spirit; or from the angle of decisive changes that have made significant impacts upon your life. In each of these angles, you need to focus the story in such a way that your encounter with Christ is preeminent. This discipline, however time-consuming it may become, forces each of us to decentralize our own ego and centralize Christ. It teaches us to see our lives as God sees them, as lives that have been transformed by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It teaches us to shape our lives according to biblical categories.
One sure result of this discipline will be a quicker facility in giving our testimony. When I was a child, I had a pastor who frequently asked people in our Wednesday evening service to give a “testimony” of something that happened during the week. He also expected (but so far as I know did not demand) all new converts to give their “reconstructed biography” in such a setting. I can remember the joy this generated in the entire church as people declared their allegiance to Jesus Christ and explained their conversion. Perhaps a focus on learning to tell our own story can lead the churches once again into such services.9
In addition, notice how Paul’s conversion is a complete reordering of his life. Observe how arduously Paul persecuted the church: “how intensely I persecuted the church of God” (v. 13). Observe how zealously Paul pursued a pious reputation in Judaism: “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (v. 14). And observe how complete his conversion was: “so that I might preach him [Christ] among the Gentiles” (v. 16). Paul moved from a strenuous commitment to Judaism to an even more strenuous commitment to Christ and the apostolic calling he gave Paul. Paul’s commitments were complete.
Such was the state of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion. He was a bigot and a fanatic, whole-hearted in his devotion to Judaism and in his persecution of Christ and the church. Now a man in that mental and emotional state is in no mood to change his mind, or even to have it changed for him by men. No conditioned reflex or other psychological device could convert a man in that state. Only God could reach him—and God did!10
This man’s conversion can become a standard by which we can evaluate our own commitments. Are we as committed to Christ, his claim on our lives, and his calling in our lives as we were to our pre-Christian vocation and pursuits?
While it is clear that Paul is not the one we are to follow (we follow Christ), it is also clear that Paul was an obedient apostle whose life was a shining example of piety. In fact, Paul frequently challenged his churches to follow him as he followed Christ (Gal. 4:12; 1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 4:8–9). We can learn from Paul’s commitment how we ought to be committed. The one mark that stands out in his life is that his commitment was complete.
It is a sad commentary on the Christian church today that so many of those who claim to be Christians have a commitment to Christ, to his gospel, and to his lifestyle that is far less than complete. We have Christians whose commitment is not much deeper than the perception they had of Christ and the Christian life when they made some kind of decision as children. We have Christian leaders who teach that obedience is not an inevitable result of true faith and who therefore lead their followers into thinking that commitment does not have to be complete. We have other Christians who think that eternal security is some sort of doctrine that protects them even if they live a life of sin. What, we are compelled to ask, do the martyrs of the faith (from James to Bonhoeffer, from Stephen to modern missionaries in Latin America) think of our “demand-less gospel”? And how can we look these martyrs in the eye and contend that our lives must not be laid on the line for God? And so, contrary to this entire (even if not dominant) orientation in the Western church, we have the example of Paul. He provides for us a stiff challenge: let us give our lives wholly to Christ and his calling in our lives. As in the days of Paul, the churches will praise God as a result of such a life (v. 24).
Yet a further implication of our passage is that Paul’s calling in life was specific. It is not infrequent to hear of people who claim that God has called them to some specific task. Paul had the same clear sense of God’s direction in his life: “so that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (v. 16). We have been taught that if we aim at nothing we will hit nothing. The same applies in Christian living: if we drift aimlessly in the Christian life, we will simply drift like a bottle in the ocean. We will accomplish nothing although we may bob around in many areas.
It is fundamentally important for Christians to discern their gifts and to use those gifts. It is just as vital for the same Christians not to allow themselves to become entangled in every good pursuit in life. Some Christians may get involved in such good things as political issues, social problems, and cultural developments, but these activities are not for everyone. Other Christians may become influential through sports, the various media, or public education. Still others may develop their Christian life along other avenues, such as Christian schools, local parish ministries, or missionary efforts. Whatever areas we are called to, it is important for each of us to discern what God has called us to do and to do that without trying to do everything else. What I am getting at is that when we sense the call of God on our lives, we need to stick to that calling and not let distractions prevent us from fulfilling God’s will for us.
How do we discern God’s will in our lives? Perhaps many readers of this book will be aware that there has recently been considerable discussion of how Christians can know God’s will.11 It is not my intent to debate these ideas and come to a final conclusion. I am of the view that God’s will encompasses a broad range of options for a Christian, but I think that for some people God’s will may involve a specific vocation. I recently met a man who thought God’s will for his life was working with teen-age drug addicts through an ocean entertainment sailing business. That seemed quite specific to me—in fact, I was quite surprised that he could know so much about God’s will! Others do not find God’s will for them so specifically. We dare not impose any one model on all Christians. For some, God’s will is not so specifically defined: living obediently as a spouse, serving in various capacities in the local church, and striving for justice in the local community through various opportunities. For others it may simply be being a Christian in a large corporation while enveloping such a vocation with an obedient, God-fearing life at home and church. For still others it may be something specific, like teaching health to Haitian refugees.
But how do we discern such a calling?12 I believe there are three dimensions to discerning God’s will. (1) We need an inner conviction that such a pursuit is what God wants for us. We see this in Paul, who says that God revealed his Son “in me” (v. 16). (2) We need the wisdom of our church leaders and elders. It is being a maverick, not a responsible Christian, to think we can simply announce that we have been given a special ministry without passing this by our Christian leaders and mentors. Not infrequently such leaders will be encouraging; other times they may offer some challenges, warnings, and advice that will enable a person to pursue such a calling in a more responsible way. (3) We need the feedback and evaluation of experts who observe us in the ministries to which we think we have been called. At least once a year I have to ask a student to come into my office while I share my concerns over his or her perception of a future direction in ministry. This has been one of the hardest tasks in my ministry; but it is, I believe, nonetheless an important one. It is irresponsible for Christian leaders to permit others to pursue ministries for which they are not prepared or gifted. It is not unusual for faculty members at our seminary to have to share with some young person that he or she has not been granted the gifts of preaching and teaching. It is also my experience that such students are more than appreciative that someone was willing to spend time with them in prayer over their future plans. To learn now that we have not been called to something saves us a future of grief. (I also know that at times our perceptions of a student’s future ministry may be inaccurate and, in spite of our advice, such students go on to fruitful ministries!)
Finally, Paul’s description of his own life is honest and even potentially damaging. Paul knew that the Judaizers would get to read this letter and that they would scrutinize every detail about his description of his relationship to Jerusalem. If Paul distorted the facts, they would pounce on them and pronounce him a liar; and that distortion would forever jeopardize the integrity of Paul’s gospel. Paul knew he had to be honest. And that is why he brings up the matter of having been in Jerusalem and having consulted with Peter and James. We can imagine that at that very point in his letter the Judaizers would have jumped up and said, “That is the information we need. Paul was in Jerusalem and at that point he got his gospel from the leaders.” It would have been best for Paul if he had never even been to Jerusalem and if he had never met any of the apostles. But Paul will tell the story truthfully, even if he has to work hard to get the Galatians to realize that, though he did visit Jerusalem, he did not get his gospel from the leaders there.
How often are we tempted, when narrating any description of some facts or some story, to shape the facts in such a way that we border on not telling the whole truth? Paul eschewed dishonesty and told the truth about his relationship to Jerusalem. We can learn a lot from him in this regard about how we tell our own biographies and about how we narrate stories. We need to be as honest as we can.
This “angular biography” of Paul, then, can set the agenda for us as we contemplate our own conversions and our own callings to various vocations and ministries in our world. There are, of course, other applications of this passage. But it is our sincere concern to highlight the importance that Paul’s conversion made in his own estimation of his life as he sought to serve God.