Friday, February 14, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Galatians 1
Key Verse
Galatians 1:13 — “For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:”
Devotional Thought
Paul opens his letter to the Galatians with a thunderclap of credentials: his apostleship came “not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” He is writing to the churches of Galatia—real congregations in real towns, likely Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe—where he had once been stoned and left for dead. Now, not many years later, false teachers had slipped in behind him, insisting that Gentile believers must add circumcision and law-keeping to the finished work of Christ. Paul is astonished: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.” The word he uses for “removed” is a military term for desertion—a soldier abandoning his post.
What makes this passage so striking is Paul’s willingness to pronounce a curse—even on himself or an angel from heaven—if any should preach a different gospel. This is not personal pique. The gospel is not a set of ideas we may adjust; it is the announcement that Christ “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.” To add anything to that—whether first-century circumcision or twenty-first-century moralism, extra experiences, or church traditions—is to subtract from the cross. Paul then defends his independence from Jerusalem, recounting his former life as a persecutor who “wasted” the church, his zeal beyond his equals in the traditions of the fathers, and the startling grace of God who “separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.” He did not receive this from Peter or James; he received it by revelation, and even his three years in Arabia and Damascus stood apart from the other apostles.
It is February 14, a day our culture has set aside for love—cards, chocolates, and tokens of affection. But here is a deeper love: God set His affection on a persecutor before he was born, and Christ gave Himself for our sins. The truest romance in this letter is not Paul’s defense of his authority but the grace that arrested him on the Damascus road and would not let him go. In a season that measures love by what we give and receive, Galatians 1 measures it by what God gave once for all.
Paul’s question still searches us: “Do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men?” Every generation faces the same temptation—to soften the offense of the cross to keep the peace, to add something to grace so we feel we have contributed. But the gospel that saves is the gospel we received, not one we negotiate. The Galatians heard it and began to drift in a matter of months. We can drift too, quietly, by adding our own qualifications to God’s acceptance. Paul’s answer is not to try harder but to return to the One who called us by His grace and to let that grace be enough.
Reflection
- Where in your life have you been tempted to add something to the finished work of Christ—a rule, a ritual, a feeling—in order to feel acceptable to God?
- Paul was changed from persecutor to preacher by grace alone. What would it look like this week to rest in that same grace rather than in pleasing people?
Prayer
Father, we thank You that the gospel we have received is not of men but of Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world. Forgive us for the ways we drift, adding our own works to Your finished sacrifice and seeking to please people rather than You. Like Paul, remind us that You set Your love upon us before we were born and called us by Your grace. Let the cross be enough for us today, and let our lives glorify You, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.