These idiots apparently told the Galatians that Paul didn’t tell them the full story. Yeah, Jesus is Messiah and Savior of the world, but there’s more to it than that. Jews must hold fast to everything it means to be Jewish. Gentiles must convert to Judaism in order to be saved.
The apostle is absolutely furious over what’s happened among these Galatian believers. He describes how he didn’t get his message from any man but directly from Jesus Himself (Gal 1:11-12).
The Apostle Paul then takes just a moment to go over just who he was and what he was doing when Jesus got ahold of him. “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism” (v13). They’ve heard about it because Paul told them. It was a huge part of his message. Over and over Paul told people about Saul.
He openly admitted this throughout the book of Acts (Acts 22:4-5, 19-20; 26:9-11). He wrote about it repeatedly in his letters (1Cor 15:9; Phil 3:5-6; 1Tim 1:12). While the most important part of our testimony is what Jesus has done, we must accurately describe where we were and who we were before He saved us.
For me I'm sure I seemed like a good kid from the outside. But on the inside, I was a mess. Self-centered. Full of me. And it took me a long, long time to eventually radically renew all of me. I refused to relinquish control to Him.
Yet He was patient. Yet He was unrelenting. Eventually, after 20 plus years, I surrendered completely to Him.
Everyone’s story is powerful. Everyone’s story is important. That’s because Jesus is the Hero in every story.
Paul mentions his “former life in Judaism” (v13). This is not so much the true Jewish faith of Moses and Abraham but the system of works righteousness developed by the rabbis over the centuries. The apostle will go on to say that a true understanding of the OT leads unquestionably to Jesus (Gal 3:6-29).
He talks about how he was an extreme zealot “for the traditions of my fathers” (v14). MacArthur says this is the “Halakah". This was a collection of interpretations of the OT law by rabbinical scholars that eventually carried the same weight as (if not more than) the Torah.
Apparently its regulations were horribly and hopelessly complex. It was such a heavy burden that even the most dedicated of Jews could not figure out how to master it or interpret it. That’s what Saul/Paul set as his target of conduct. Sounds fun, huh?
He takes a moment to describe this former Jewish life. “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (v13). Let’s make sure we understand just who Saul was and what he was up to. There are some who try to soft sell his involvement in the movement to shut down Jesus’ disciples.
He was much more than the coat check guy at Stephen’s stoning. He did more than arrest a few Christ followers from local synagogues. No. Saul led the vicious campaign of terror against the Way.
We mentioned above several of his own admissions in speeches, sermons and letters. A quick study of just this verse will give you all you need to understand Paul’s bloody past.
The apostle admits to “persecuting the church of God violently.” The Greek verb he uses here is διωκω/dioko. Its most basic meaning describes running after, pursuing or chasing relentlessly. There is speed. This is a high speed pursuit. It is not a slow steady march. It’s an all out blitz.
Saul put the pedal to the metal in order to put an end to this Jesus heresy in short order. His unwavering, non-stop assault on the Way never gave his targets a chance to breathe. The term also describes a a systematic and organized program of oppression. This wasn’t some willy nilly, disorganized persecution. It was planned. It was precise. It was premeditated.
Paul writes that he led this persecution of the church “violently” (v13). While the campaign against the church was most certainly violent, this might not be the best choice of words here.
Other translations render this as “beyond measure,” “without measure” and “exceedingly.” The Greek adverb here is ‘υβερβολε/huperbole. We get our English word “hyperbole” from it. And that helps us understand the level to which Saul terrorized Christ’s followers.
It literally means to throw (Gr. βολε/bole) beyond (Gr. ‘υβερ-/hyper-). Here it describes something beyond measure, beyond belief, to the extreme, surpassing all others. Saul and his cronies persecuted the church beyond any measure. Nobody terrorized like Saul terrorized.
Saul persecuted the church beyond belief. No one could imagine the pain and suffering he inflicted on Jesus’ disciples. Saul persecuted the church to the extreme. He held absolutely nothing back in torturing and punishing Jewish Christians.
Paul confesses that his goal was the total annihilation of the church. He “tried to destroy it” (v13). He didn’t just want to make Christ’s followers miserable and force them to go into hiding. Saul wanted to wipe the church off the face of the earth forever.
The term here was used to describe how an army would attack a city in order to ravage and devastate it. This was actually the term that Jesus’ disciples in Damascus used to Saul. “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those called upon this name” (Acts 9:21). The apostle may have adopted this term from what was said about him in Damascus.
Saul wasn’t just the Persecutor. He was the Terminator. He was the Destroyer. He was a one-man gang dishing out pain, punishment, death and destruction on God’s church.
The apostle says he “was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people” (v14). The Greek verb here is προκοπτω/prokopto. It means to make progress.
The term literally means to beat forward. It was used to describe how a blacksmith hammered out forged metal. The term also means to chop ahead like someone blazing a trail through a thick forest. The idea here is one of hard, unrelenting work.
There’s just one problem. God hasn't called us to save ourselves through hard work. But Paul says that as Saul he outworked his peers. He was a rising superstar in Judaism. He was a phenom.
If he was a basketball player, he would have made the jump from high school straight to the NBA. Just as he was without peer as a persecutor, there was no one in his league when it came to keeping the rules.
In these two verses, Paul tells us that you can’t “out-sin” or “out-good” him. Imagine him sitting next to you at the bar. When you tell him of all the crap you’ve done in your life, he simply states, “Well, I killed Christians. Can you top that?” For those of us who’ve tried to save ourselves through keeping the rules, he says that you’re a minor leaguer compared to him.
He completely disarms both ends of the spectrum. No matter where we are, we need Jesus. He’s a better a Savior than I am a sinner. He’s more righteous and holy than I could ever be.
Jesus, I need you. Now, more than ever.
©2012
Jay Jennings
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