{"id":127,"date":"2007-08-06T19:40:12","date_gmt":"2007-08-07T01:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/08\/06\/galatians-118-the-glorious-word\/"},"modified":"2007-08-06T19:40:12","modified_gmt":"2007-08-07T01:40:12","slug":"galatians-118-the-glorious-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/galatians-118-the-glorious-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Galatians 1:18 &#8211; The Glorious Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/Banner-MOG-60.gif\" alt=\"Ministry of Grace Church\" height=\"58\" width=\"472\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: maroon\">Galatians 1:18<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong><span style=\"color: navy\">Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0.25in\"><strong><u><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Truth to Learn<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Paul preached the gospel message for three years before he sought the fellowship of the other Apostles. He didn\u2019t need their teaching because he had been taught by the Word.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\"><strong><u><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Behind the Words<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The word translated \u201c<em><span style=\"color: navy\">see<\/span><\/em>\u201d is not the normal Greek word that means \u201cto view something.\u201d It is the word <em><span style=\"color: maroon\">histor\u0113sai<\/span><\/em> which does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament. It means \u201cto ascertain by personal inquiry and examination\u201d or \u201cto narrate, as a historian was accustomed to do.\u201d It is the word from which we get our English word \u201chistory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt; page-break-after: avoid\"><strong><u><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Meaning Explained<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As we learned in the previous verse, immediately after his conversion Paul began preaching the gospel message both in <st1:city w:st=\"on\">Damascus<\/st1:city> and in Arabia. He argued so forcefully against the Jews that they eventually plotted to kill him. Now we learn that after three years (from the time he first went to Damascus) he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\">Paul did not simply go up to see what Peter looked like, he went to see Peter with the intention of getting to know him. But, he didn\u2019t receive the gospel message from Peter. In fact, he was preaching the gospel for three years before he even met with Peter (and James, as we will see in the next verse.) The gospel Paul preached is the message that he received from Christ himself. In the opening verses of John\u2019s gospel he says that Jesus Christ is \u201c<em><span style=\"color: navy\">the Word<\/span><\/em>.\u201d Paul didn\u2019t have a New Testament as we do, in fact he <strong>wrote<\/strong> nearly half of the New Testament. He received the message, the word, from the Word. Here\u2019s how John said it in his gospel account:<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 6pt 0.25in 0.0001pt\"><span style=\"color: navy\">In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.<\/span> (<strong><span style=\"color: maroon\">John 1:1<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 6pt 0.25in 0.0001pt\"><span style=\"color: navy\">And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.<\/span> (<strong><span style=\"color: maroon\">John 1:14<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\">In the same way, we receive the message from the Word of God which Paul and others have written for us, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the living Word of God. He is the message that God loves us so much that He gave Jesus to die for our sins. He is the message, He is the gift, and He is the proof, all rolled up in one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\">Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus and was blinded by his glory. As soon as he received his sight again, however, Paul quit his self-absorbed persecution of Christians and began preaching that he had seen the light, the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\"><strong><u><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Application <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">We need to be in the Word regularly to learn about Christ and the good news of his death, burial, and resurrection. If we are not getting our message directly from the Word, then we are getting it from flesh and blood and no matter how good a preacher is, he is still a fallible human being. That is not to say that we shouldn\u2019t listen to good preaching, we should listen intently, but we should also verify that what we are learning from men is the same as what God says in the Holy Bible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 6pt\"><strong>In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/signature.gif\" alt=\"signature\" height=\"35\" width=\"63\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"right\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: NuptialScript\">Copyright \u00a9 2007<span>  <\/span>Will<span>  <\/span>Krause.  All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'\">  <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone (618) 614-3070 and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/Will_e-mail.gif\" alt=\"e-mail address\" height=\"40\" width=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Galatians 1:18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days. Truth to Learn Paul preached the gospel message for three years before he sought the fellowship of the other Apostles. He didn\u2019t need their teaching because he had been taught by the Word. Behind the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galatians-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-23","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}