Thank you for joining us in this time where we read together. The word
of God on this occasion will be in the Letter to Galatians, Letter of
Paul to Galatians, to the Churches in Galatia. Chapter one, I repeat,
the biblical quotation Galatians first says the word of God, Paul Apostle,
not of men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and by God,
the Father, who raised him from the dead and all the brethren who are
with me to the churches of Galatia, grace and peace, be to you
from God, the Father and our lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for
our sins to deliver us from the present evil world, according to the will
of our God and Father. To whom is the glory for ever and ever
of the children amen. I am amazed that as soon as you have turned
away from him who called you by the grace of Christ to follow a different
gospel. Not that there is another, but there are some who disturb you
and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ More and even us or an angel
from heaven. I will proclaim to you another gospel other than that which we
have preached to you is anathema, as we have said before also now I
repeat it. If anyone preaches to you a different gospel from that which you
have received, let him be anathema, for now I seek the favor of
men or of God. Or I try to please men, for if I
still please men I would not be a servant of Christ but you. I
make it known, brethren, that the gospel preached by me is not,
according to man, for I neither received it nor learned it from any man,
but by revelation of Jesus Christ, because you have heard about my conduct
in the past, in Judaism which persecuted the Church of God exceedingly and ravaged
it, and in Judaism overcame many of my contemporaries in my nation, being
much more zealous of the traditions of my parents. But when it pleased God
that he separated me from my mother' s womb and called me by his
grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles,
I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor went up to
Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but went to Arabia and returned
again to Damascus after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and
stayed with him for fifteen days, but I saw no other of the apostles,
but James, the lord' s brother. In this which I write
to you, behold, before God I lie not. Then I went to
the regions of Syria and Silicia and was not known in view of the churches
of Judea which were in Christ. They only heard the one who once pursued
us. Now he preaches the faith that once ravaged and glorified God in me.