Galatians 1:13-14 - Homiletics

A retrospect of his career as a Jew.

This would be the best proof that he had not received his gospel from man.

I. HIS ENMITY TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION . "I was beyond measure persecuting the Church of God, and destroying it." His past career was notorious. "He persecuted unto death" ( Acts 22:4 ), "beyond measure"—by no feeble or spasmodic effort, limited to one spot, but by a persistent scheme of violence wrought with a fierce energy that knew no weariness. He could not then have been learning the gospel of the very saints he was hunting to death; there could he no possible association between the persecutor and his victims that would allow of his learning the gospel. On the contrary, at this time he cherished the strongest prejudices and the fiercest hatred against Christianity.

II. HIS INTENSE ZEAL FOR THE JEWISH RELIGION . He could appeal to the Galatians themselves as having once heard "of his conversation in time past in Judaism," and how he "was making progress in Judaism above many of his contemporaries in his own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers."

1 . His zeal was manifest in his earnest study of Judaism. He studied it under Gamaliel, with the best advantages of instruction, and he excelled many of the young Pharisees of his own age in the ardour and in the results of his studies. He could not have made progress without study.

2 . It was still more manifest in his extraordinary devotion to the traditions of his fathers. This was the natural token of an enthusiastic Pharisaism. "He was a Pharisee, and the son of a Pharisee" ( Acts 23:6 ).

III. A BELIEVER OUGHT NOT TO BE ASHAMED TO CONFESS HIS SINS . The apostle makes an almost remorseful confession of his crimes against the Church of God. Once and again the dark recollection of ',his mad violence against the saints comes up in the midst of his grateful remembrances of God's forgiving mercy. But all that wild persecution only too clearly proved how little he was indebted to apostle or saint for the gospel he gave to the Galatians.