Galatians 1:18 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.

NIV: Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.

NASB: Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him for fifteen days.

CSB: Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas, and I stayed with him fifteen days.

NLT: Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.

KJV: Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

NKJV: Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.

Was Paul really qualified to be called an apostle of Jesus Christ? Wasn't he just a convert to Jesus who had been trained by the other apostles? Is his teaching trustworthy? These are the questions a particular group of false teachers were asking the Galatian Christians about Paul. Called "Judaizers," they taught that Gentiles must still follow the law of Moses to be saved. The Galatian Christians were being influenced by these deceivers.

To defend the truth of the gospel of salvation by grace alone, Paul has been defending himself. He has described how, after God revealed Christ to him and called him to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1–22), he did not receive training from the other apostles. Instead, he went off by himself for three years. This time, apparently, is when he came to understand the gospel of Jesus that he preached in Galatia.

Now he reveals that he did interact with Peter, using the untranslated Aramaic form of his nickname: Cephas. Even at that time, Peter was considered to be the chief of the apostles. Paul spent fifteen days with Peter in Jerusalem before having to run for his life for preaching about Jesus (Act 9:29). His point is that those fifteen days with Peter were not spent in training or commissioning by Peter. Paul had already received that from the Lord.

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.