Galatians 1:18-24 (NIV)
Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles–only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.
After Paul’s stay in Arabia, he had gone back to Damascus where he preached the gospel that he had received from Jesus so passionately and effectively that the Jews laid a plot to kill him. His followers helped him to escape by lowering him over the city wall at night in a basket (Acts 9:22-25),
From there he went to Jerusalem to join the disciples there, but all he found were closed doors. Everyone in the Church was afraid of him (for very good reason, considering his historic persecution of the Church), and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He finally hooked up with Barnabas, who introduced him to Peter (Acts 9:26-27).
Paul makes it clear that he spent fifteen days with Peter. The clear implication in this context is that if Paul had somehow gotten the gospel wrong, Peter had ample opportunity to correct him. But Peter offered no correction, proving that Paul’s gospel of salvation by grace through faith and NOT by following the Jewish law was the same as that given to the apostles by Jesus.
The reason that Paul then went to Syria and Cilicia was that he was preaching the gospel so passionately and effectively in Jerusalem among the Greek-speaking Jews that they tried to kill him. So, the disciples sent him north to remove him from danger (Acts 9:28-30).
Paul’s point in all this is to show the transformative power of the true gospel, as illustrated by his own personal transformation. The gospel of the Judaizers had no transformative power. Instead, it was, in essence, a kind of self-help program, with lots of rules and requirements to keep a person on the strait and narrow. But the true gospel, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus had powerfully transformed Paul from a persecutor of the Church to one of its greatest proponents. And it has that same power to transform today.
Father, how easy it is to slip into a not-so-subtle legalism, essentially falling into the error of the Judaizers, of turning the faith into a self-help program instead of allowing ourselves to be completely transformed by Your grace and love working in and through us. Lord, help us to keep the true gospel in the center of our hearts, so that it is not only what we believe, but what we bring others to as well, passionately and effectively, just like Paul. Amen.