Galatians 1:24 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And they glorified God because of me.

NIV: And they praised God because of me.

NASB: And they were glorifying God because of me.

CSB: And they glorified God because of me.

NLT: And they praised God because of me.

KJV: And they glorified God in me.

NKJV: And they glorified God in me.

Paul has just described how he had been known by the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea more by reputation than in person. The church in that region heard the stories of his radical transformation. Back when he was a Pharisee in Jerusalem, he had led the effort to destroy the church of God by chasing down and arresting Christians and even advocating for their execution. Every believer who knew of Paul—then called Saul—likely feared him for that reason.

Then suddenly, this persecutor was gone from the scene. As Paul has described, after God revealed to him the Son (Acts 9:1–22), and had commissioned him to preach to the Gentiles, Paul had gone off by himself for three years and then off to Syria and Cilicia to preach the gospel. Eventually, the Judean Christians heard about this Paul, as well. He now told people how to have their sins forgiven by God's grace through faith in Christ.

How did the Christians in and around Jerusalem respond to the reported change? Paul reports that they praised or glorified God because of him. As his letters often express, bringing praise and glory to God is one of the ultimate goals of his life.

Galatians 1:11–24 begins with Paul's statement that he did not receive the gospel which he taught to the Galatians from any man-made religion, nor training from other people. He received it from Christ Himself. God revealed His Son Jesus to Paul, by His grace, even after Paul spent years as a Pharisee trying to destroy the Christian church. After Christ commissioned Paul to preach the good news to the Gentiles, he went off by himself for a few years and came to know the gospel through Christ directly.

Paul begins his letter to the Galatian churches abruptly, compared to his other writings. He has heard they are deserting the gospel which he preached and they believed: the good news that Jesus died to fully pay for all our sins on the cross. The Judaizers taught that these Gentiles must also follow the law of Moses to be saved and openly questioned Paul's authority. Paul makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ, who appeared to him and revealed the truth to him apart from the other apostles.

Galatians 1 begins one of the most-loved books about God's grace in all of Scripture. This and the following chapter detail Paul's biography, as he makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ and therefore his message is trustworthy. Chapters 3 and 4 go into depth about exactly what the gospel of God's grace is and why it is true. In chapters 5 and 6, Paul teaches about how Christians should live in the world as people who have received the grace of God through faith in Christ.

Galatians is sometimes called “a short Romans” for its similar themes of justification and sanctification through faith. A group of Christians known as “Judaizers” were preaching a gospel of legalism, rather than grace. Paul’s main purpose in writing the letter to the Galatians was to reiterate the true nature of the gospel: we are justified (made righteous) and sanctified (made more Christlike) through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. This letter was probably written shortly before the church elders in Jerusalem issued their official refutation of the Judaizers, commonly called the Jerusalem Council.