Daily Devotional for Monday 19th February
By Whose Authority?
These verses recall Paul’s conversion (Acts 9) because he wants to frame the experience to show its meaning as part of God’s mission in the world. Since the central issue in Galatians is the true gospel, Paul must make the case that the gospel he proclaimed to them is the genuine version and that the opponents’ version is fraudulent. So, Paul wants them to know that he received the gospel directly from Christ and that his commission to preach it came from God.
The purpose of Paul’s conversion was never meant to be a closed and private experience but was meant to stir him and to commission and send him out to the wider world (v.16). Importantly, his authority does not come from the mother church in Jerusalem, from where some of the false teaching about the need to add to the true gospel was emanating - his commission and his message were in fact divine in origin.
When Paul wrote this letter (in the late AD 40s), there was no written gospel: only the oral tradition about Jesus, supervised by the apostles as the original eyewitnesses. Thus, if Paul wants to succeed in persuading the Galatian believers to make a drastic change in the false direction they were heading it is crucial to establish the authority and authenticity of his message.
Time to reflect…
Have there been times when you have been called to make a faithful proclamation and passionate defence of the one true gospel about Jesus Christ as written in the four divinely inspired Gospels in the Bible? How did you respond?
Pause to pray…
Paul wrote to the Roman Christians (10 v 8): ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.’
Lord, we thank you for your Word and the gospel it contains. May Paul’s words be true of us. Amen
