Saturday 25 January 2025

Psalm 67

Background
Today marks the conversion of Paul. He persecuted Jesus' followers but then had a dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. There is an account of it in Acts 9. He became an apostle, spreading the teachings of Jesus and the Bible passage today comes from his letter to the Galatians.

Galatia was a region in what is now central Turkey, and this letter was written around the middle of the first century after Jesus' death. Its aim was to address the controversy caused by the ‘missionaries’ who had visited the new Christian communities in Galatia after Paul, and tried to persuade them that to be authentic Christians they first had to adopt Jewish practices and customs. Paul is writing to assure the Galatian Christians that this is wrong.

To authenticate his interpretation of what it means to be a genuine convert, he tells them about his own call.

Paul focuses on four things in his conversion story. The first is that his understanding of the gospel is a revelation – God broke through his old assumptions and changed his mind and heart: "I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (v. 12). This is God’s initiative, God’s Spirit blowing where it will, God’s creativity at work.

Secondly, Paul refers in verse 16 to the way in which God "was pleased to reveal his Son to me". He focuses on God calling him, not his personal experience in receiving that call. He uses language from the call of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5) and Isaiah (Isaiah 49:1, 5-6) in order to link his own prophetic call to those of the great prophets of Judaism. He's saying his was not a conversion from an old religion to a new one – it is a call from God to be a light to the Gentiles (non-Jews).

Thirdly, Paul has a very clear understanding of what he is called to do and be. The original Greek in verse 16 can be interpreted in two ways. The New Revised Standard version of the Bible says that God "was pleased to reveal his Son to me", but adds in a footnote that this could also be read as "pleased to reveal his son in me". It shows the way God chooses to work – in and through human beings. This is why Paul can say in Galatians 2:20 "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me". This is key to why he believes the Galatian Christians need not conform to Jewish practices in order to be seen as ‘real’ Christians. If God lives in them, as God lives in Paul, there is no need for external cultural props.

Fourthly, Paul writes in verse 21 that he went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia after this revelation. We have no account of what Paul was doing there. Certainly there is no record or tradition of a preaching tour in this area. The theologian NT Wright suggests that Paul, who identified with the religious zeal of Elijah, was heading into the wilderness, as Elijah did, to seek God and to make sense of this new call.

To Ponder:

• What do you think makes you a ‘real’ Christian?
• In what way might others see something of God in you?
• Where do you go to seek God and make sense of your life?

Prayer
Holy God, break through the assumptions and conventions of my life with your unruly Spirit. Let me have the conviction that your love might be seen in and through me, in my ordinary days and my familiar relationships. Amen.

Bibles Notes author: The Revd Val Reid
Val Reid is a newly retired presbyter who lives in Salisbury. She is exploring what ministry looks like in this new season of her life and relishes time for choral singing, wild swimming and walks in the New Forest.