Galatians 1:11-24 Aaron Eime, Christ Church Jerusalem, 2021

Having laid forth a strong denunciation of the false gospel that currently persuades the Galatian communities, Paul gives some autobiographical material not found in any other epistle or writing. At the core of Paul's narration is that the Gospel preached by Paul is not Paul's Gospel nor his invention. The Greek verbs are in passive indicating the Gospel message preached is not generated by Paul, leading support to his claim that it is no man-made thing but rather a divinely authored, supernaturally conveyed mystery. Paul claims divine revelation – the Greek word here is apocalypse – from the Messiah himself. Note also that Paul addresses the communities in Galatia as brethren ἀδελφοί which is a major theological and social leap for Paul the Jewish teacher. Judaism at the time would only denote the bond of “brother” to someone who was actually Jewish. Paul has now recognized that, through the work of the Messiah, Jews and Gentiles share bonds of faith so deep that this cultural boundary had been removed. Gentiles were now brothers as much as Jewish people were. For clarity, this does not mean that Jewish people now cease to exist any more than Gentiles cease to exist, simply that the boundary issue has been removed.

Paul now reflects on his personal history, his “testimony,” to put it into the modern vernacular. Paul describes himself as a faithful religious Jewish man who had initially set out, contrary to Rabbi Gamaliel’s teachings, to destroy the new Jesus Movement within Judaism. The reference to his early life in Judaism is not there to denigrate Judaism or the Torah, rather it serves to further prove that Paul’s preaching of the Gospel cannot stem from the teachings of men because his personal actions at the human level were against the Gospel in the first place. Something supernatural has occurred to make Paul change his position on the subject. Paul admits to a certain zealousness for the “traditions of the fathers”. This is juxtaposed against the other reference to zeal in Acts 21:20 where the term “zealous for the Law (Torah)” is noted as something positive. Paul admits to misappropriated zeal, not for the teachings of the Torah but for the teachings of ancestral traditions. Traditions in and of themselves are not inherently evil. The very Bible, the canon of Scripture contained therein, owes its formation to tradition. Jesus follows and makes use of various traditions in the New Testament, such as brachot (blessings), wine at Passover, and creedal statements such as the Sh’ma. Creedal statements preserved and defended the faith of the Church from Manichaeism and Arianism. They have had their use in history. Traditions though should never outweigh, supersede or replace the instructions that God has presented to us through his Word.

As with the Gospel preached by Paul, he also declares that he did not come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah through the work of men. It was not at the pleasure of men but at the pleasure of God. Paul presents himself as having been divinely chosen while still in the womb of his mother. In this Paul shares a similar calling as the prophet Jeremiah, who was also called to be a prophet to the nations (or Gentiles) whist in utero (Jeremiah 1v:5). It is God’s initiative to make the call upon your life, even from the womb, but it remains within your free will to answer the call. Jewish exegesis often blends pre-destination with free will. Upon receiving this call to preach to the Gentiles, Paul says his immediate response was not to confer with men. This unique response should not be used to create the doctrine that it is wrong to hear the gospel through the words of others. Jesus has instructed us to go into the world and teach, not wait for Jesus to do everything. Paul says he did not go to Jerusalem to seek the Apostles approval; instead he went to Arabia for an undisclosed period of time and then returned to Damascus. This is in stark contrast to the Acts

1 Galatians 1:11-24 Aaron Eime, Christ Church Jerusalem, 2021

9 description of Paul’s Damascus Road encounter where Paul leaves Damascus via a basket in secret and goes to Jerusalem; Arabia is not mentioned at all. It appears that Acts 9 does not record any time lapse between Damascus and Jerusalem, most likely due to the absence of Luke as an eyewitness to these events.

What exactly encompasses the area known as Arabia is disputed. The King of Arabia at the time was a Nabatean monarch called Aretas IV who ruled from Petra. He was the father-in-law of King Herod Antipas, who divorced King Aretas’s sister to remarry. (The beheading of John the Baptist is part of this sad story.) This incurred Aretas’s wrath and, in the ensuing war, King Aretas conquered Damascus. Regardless of how this actually affects Paul, the tradition is that Mt. Sinai is in Arabia, and Paul implies that he has learnt the Gospel directly from the Messiah Himself. His apostleship is then further enhanced through the theological link between the Torah presented to Israel at Sinai and Paul’s being presented the Gospel in similar fashion. Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem is then recorded as Galatians 1:18-19 and Acts 9:26-30, three years having gone by according to Paul. This might seem like an unusually long time for Paul to have remained in Damascus. Acts implies Paul tried to associate with the community in Jerusalem but received resistance. Galatians ignores the shunning and simply says that Paul managed to meet with only Peter and James. The result is the same in both narratives, Paul cannot remain in Jerusalem and moves back to his home area around Tarsus in Asia Minor, known as Syria and Cilicia. Paul gives no hint as to what he then did in his native region, but we can assume that he became familiar with the Messiah in the Scriptures, he shared his faith, debated others in the synagogues and essentially conducted himself as the Paul we know. Of course, Scripture is silent on this … so it’s just a tradition!

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