Monday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 3, 2022

Galatians 1, 6-12

Brothers and sisters: I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel (not that there is another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed! Am I now currying favor with human beings or God? Or am I seeking to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

“Galatia” was a Roman province situated in the heartland of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey.  It was so-called because the Romans had resettled there large numbers of people from Gaul.  Over time they mostly adapted to their surroundings and assimilated into the local Greek culture.  St. Paul visited this region and preached in the towns of Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe in the decade of the 40’s.  He may have been the first of the Apostles to have preached there, although that honor may have gone to St. Peter, since Paul mentions him as someone familiar to the Galatians.   He wrote his Letter to them around the year 48, since he references the council in Jerusalem at which it was decided that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised in order to be baptized.  

“I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel.”  Paul expresses dismay that these new Christians were accepting teachings at variance with those they had already received.  These were the teachings of Jewish Christians, probably from Jerusalem, who insisted that if the Gentiles were to be converted, they must follow the Jewish laws regarding circumcision, food, and the Jewish feasts.  These Jewish Christians caused the first major crisis the Church had to face, with their insistence on these matters.  Interestingly, we do not hear of them attempting to impose the Pharisaic rules about purity.  This tells us of the decisive break with the Pharisees and rejection of their teachings by the earliest Christians.  “The one who called you”, may refer to Peter, to Paul himself, or to God, who called them to Christ through the Apostles.  The idea of being “called” by Christ is a little commonplace today, but it was crucial for the Gentile Galatians to understand this.  They were called by God from all eternity to become Christians, to lead holy lives, and to enter heaven.  Since they were called, their becoming believers meant for them that they were fulfilling their destiny, an important value for them.

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!”  They are to hold fast to the original word preached to them.  Paul says “if we or an Angel”: if he should preach a contradictory doctrine than what they had first been told, it is a sign that he has fallen into error.  Paul would rather be known later as a heretic or even an apostate than for them to accept false teaching.  And if he tried to pass on false reaching, he was willing to receive the curse he was then pronouncing.  That should give us pause in these days when alleged Christians seem so willing to give up revealed truth for the false teachings of the world, and even of some within the Church.  “Or an Angel from heaven.”  That is, the devil disguised as an Angel of light.

“Am I now currying favor with human beings or God? Or am I seeking to please people?”  Paul makes the point that he is not interested in going along with the strange, new Jewish doctrines many of them were favoring in order to remain in favor with these people.  His concern is only for their salvation, for he belongs to Jesus: “If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ.”  

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin.”  That is, Paul takes no credit for it, and he declares that no one else can, either.  Unlike the various philosophies then current, the Gospel had a divine and not a human origin.  And that could be only because Jesus Christ, who revealed it, was divine.  “For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Now, this statement raises questions.  Just what did Paul know about Jesus and his teachings at the time when St. Stephen was stoned in his presence?  He knew nothing of Jesus first-hand at that time.  All he “knew” would have come from other Pharisees.  What did he learn after his conversion, and how?  As we will see in tomorrow’s First Reading, Paul went into Arabia and then back to Damascus.  He did not go to Jerusalem right away to consult with the Apostles.  In Acts 9, 1-27, we learn that after his conversion, he went to Damascus where he was baptized and where he began to preach: “And immediately he preached Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God” (Acts 9, 20).  Perhaps God revealed the Gospel to Paul in the instant of his baptism.  He preached in Damascus with such strength and success that the Jewish leaders became alarmed and sought to kill him.

So many people want us to soften our beliefs or to accept new ones in place of the ones we received at the beginning of our lives in Christ.  Let us pray that we may become the instruments of their conversion instead.