Galatians 1:11 - Printer Friendly

ESV: For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.

NIV: I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.

NASB: For I would have you know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of human invention.

CSB: For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin.

NLT: Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning.

KJV: But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

NKJV: But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

Paul is writing to the Christians in Galatia to stop them from following the false teaching of a group known as the Judaizers. This group came in after the Galatians believed in the true gospel message of free grace through faith in Christ and after Paul left. They were teaching that these new Gentile Christians must follow the law of Moses to truly be saved.

One of their arguments was that Paul was not a "real" apostle. He was not one of the 12 originally chosen by Jesus during His time on earth. Given that, they seem to ask, how could his teaching be trusted?

Paul understood that people had to be able to trust his authority as a genuine apostle, one actually sent out by Christ Himself, if they were to believe the truth that he taught them. So he begins a defense of his authority as an apostle in this verse.

The first argument he makes is that what he preached to them is not something dreamed up by some human being. It's not "man's gospel." In other words, Paul is not just passing along some religious teaching he picked up from other people. In the following verses, he will make the case that what he teaches was given to him directly from Christ.

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.