True Christianity 5
Gal 1:11-12 NKJV
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The message that Paul taught was not second hand. He had not received it from the other Apostles who had lived with Jesus for three and a half years …
Paul had a personal encounter with the risen Saviour on his way to imprison believers (Acts 9). When Ananias the prophet hesitated to deal with Saul, the Lord said to him:
Act 9:15-16 NKJV
15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
The Lord told Ananias that He was going to show Saul, later changed to Paul, things to come.
In other words, the Lord was going to be speaking to Paul in the future. Some people believe that the Paul only encountered the Lord once, at his salvation … however, studying the scriptures will reveal that there were many such meetings between the “sent” Paul and His Lord.
Act 9:18-22 NKJV
18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.
19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.
20 Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.
21 Then all who heard were amazed, and said, “Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests?”
22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.
Scales fell from his natural eyes, so that he could see the light again … but scales also fell from his spiritual eyes and he lived in the Light of Christ from that moment on.
Paul immediately went out and began to preach that Jesus is the Christ … the Anointed Messiah.
His message was … Christ, that He is the Son of God.
The message Paul taught was a message that the Apostles from Jerusalem struggled with in the beginning as well.
Even the Apostle Peter says in his second epistle that Paul’s writings are “difficult to understand”;
2Pe 3:15-16 NKJV
15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation–as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
The message cut away everything that required human participation and effort – the message is Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.
1Co 1:23-24 NKJV
23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
True Christianity 6
Gal 1:13-24 NKJV
13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
14 And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace,
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.
20 (Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.)
21 Afterward I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
22 And I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ.
23 But they were hearing only, “He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy.”
24 And they glorified God in me.
Paul gives his readers a brief history of his life … how as a Jewish Zealot, persecuted the Church, which he believed to be a harmful sect which needed to be eradicated. Yet Jesus arrested him in his madness, because God had a plan for his life … one which would reveal the Gospel of Christ in such a way that the entire world would be impacted and changed by it.
God called me through His grace … there was nothing that I had done to earn God’s approval … I was a murdering disciple of the Pharisees, out to purge Israel of this sect … yet God in His boundless mercy called me by His grace … to become one “sent” with a new revelation of God’s plan for mankind … which is found only in Christ Jesus, His death and resurrection.