1:11-24 First Defense

I invite you to read 1:11-24. Paul says that his apostleship is from God and independent of Jerusalem. He recounts events of his life to prove the divine source of his message. Note the use of the word "gospel" seven times in verses 6-12. Even  here, the real issue is the gospel. Martin Luther notes that it is easy to depart from the teaching of justification by faith. He says that he knows in what slippery places even those who seem to have a good footing in the matter of faith. In verse 13, Paul stresses that he was zealous. In his time, Martin Hengel says in The Zealots, it referred to religious and ethnic purity. He says the same in Philippians 3:6. We can see this zeal in Numbers 25:6-18, Sirach 45:23-24, I Maccabees 2:54, and 4 Maccabees 18:12. The point, in verse 15, is that God was writing the story of Paul. Like the prophets, such as we find in Jeremiah 1:5 and Isaiah 49:1-6, he was set apart in the womb. Pannenberg, in his Systematic Theology, Vol 2, 354-5, says that this appearance of the risen Lord to Paul receives confirmation by the disciples of Jesus. His experience was similar to their own. Now, far from pleasing people, Paul went to Arabia, in verse 17, quite likely an opportunity to preach to the Gentiles. Or at least, so John Chrysostom and F. F. Bruce think. Now, Paul often shows his fidelity to the church in Jerusalem. His general point, of course, is that his calling as an apostle and his gospel are of divine origin, which is clearly a different account than that of his opponents.