On my birthday last September, I felt like God gave me a new strategy for His Word, so I committed to spending one year in each of the New Testament epistles. I started with Galatians, ’cause that’s what I was reading at the time. The plan is to journal through it first – no commentaries or Greek dictionaries, just me and the Spirit – and then break into a pile of commentaries after that. If anyone has recommendations for commentaries on Galatians I am all ears. There are about 400, and I’m not sure where to start.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share some of what I’m learning as I go. A lot of this will probably be simple stuff that you guys already know, so feel free to expand or correct or whatever I need in the comments.

A year in Galatians. Here we go.

But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)

Am I the only one who always glazed over these verses? Paul starts to tell us how he got saved, and learned all his stuff, and when and for how long he visited Peter and the other apostles. I never dug into it much, because on the surface it doesn’t seem like it has much to offer.

But I have to dig in when I journal, so here goes: 

“It” and “it came,” in verse 12, are italicized in my Bible, which means they’re not strictly in the original text, but were added by translators to help modern readers understand the nuance of the original language. Which is cool, but I have noticed that sometimes it’s fun to read those passages without the italicized words.

“For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

That tastes a little different. It says the same thing, but – at least for me – it highlights different pieces. It highlights the teaching, the method, rather than the “it,” the gospel, which makes me look at the method, for once, instead of the message.

The gospel that Paul had been preaching for decades, that would later become most of the New Testament, including the magnum opus that is the book of Romans, was not something that a rabbi or an apostle taught him. He says as much.

But I guess I always just thought that Paul got knocked off his donkey, went away for a while to study the scriptures all over again, and came back knowing all about Jesus in the Old Testament, etc.

Mais non

The commas aren’t in the original text either, so let’s omit the second one especially:

“… nor was I taught but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

He doesn’t really say that he wasn’t “taught” at all. He says he wasn’t taught, “but through the revelation of Jesus Christ,” or, “except by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Paul didn’t learn the gospel, and I think he’s probably referring to the gospel as preached by the entirety of the Old Testament, by studying his scrolls. He didn’t learn about Jesus by trying to understand the scriptures, he understood the scriptures when he learned about Jesus. His eyes were opened to the truth of who Jesus is when he met Jesus, and that revelation taught him the gospel. He studied the Old Testament with the knowledge of Christ, and he saw the gospel throughout the law and the prophets.

Which makes me wonder about how we represent our faith sometimes, and how we do church. Is it backwards? Are we trying to help people learn the scriptures so they’ll believe and meet and understand Jesus? Because Paul knew the scriptures inside and out before he met Jesus, and he was on a mission to kill every Christian he could find.

We know we can’t really, finally and totally, prove God. And we know that it often takes the presence of the Holy Spirit to understand scripture.

So should we be trying to teach non-Christians what the Bible says so that they’ll love Jesus, or should we try to introduce them to the love of God as demonstrated in Jesus and then help them understand their Bibles so they can learn and grow and stand strong?

Thoughts?