10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.
11 For I make known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming as good news is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being far more zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when God, who had set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased
16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might proclaim Him as good news among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.
19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.
20 (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying!)
21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
22 And I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which are in Christ;
23 but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith which he once tried to destroy.”
24 And they were glorifying God because of me.
Scriptures Referenced:
Acts 9
2 Corinthians 11
Quotes:
“The Gospel is not man’s good news about God; it is God’s good news for man.” (Dr. Philip Graham Ryken)
“Such was the state of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion. He was a bigot and a fanatic, whole-hearted in his devotion to Judaism and in his persecution of Christ and the church. Now a man in that mental and emotional state is in no mood to change his mind, or even to have it changed for him by men. No conditioned reflex or other psychological device could convert a man in that state. Only God could reach him—and God did!” (John Stott)
“We believe that in this period of withdrawal, as he meditated on the Old Testament Scriptures, on the facts of the life and death of Jesus that he already knew and on his experience of conversion, the gospel of the grace of God was revealed to him in its fullness. It has even been suggested that those three years in Arabia were a deliberate compensation for the three years of instruction which Jesus gave the other apostles, but which Paul missed. Now he had Jesus to himself, as it were, for three years of solitude in the wilderness.” (John R. W. Stott)
“That statement, along with many others, contradicts the claims of liberal interpreters that Paul was a sincere and highly capable leader but that many of his teachings reflect only his personal ideas and preferences. If that were so, he would either have been terribly self-deluded or else a shameless liar. He was either an authoritative and completely reliable spokesman for God or he was a sham.” (Dr. John MacArthur)