Gálatas 1

Gálatas 1

MacDonald - When one has learned to seek the honour that cometh from God only, he will take the withholding of the honour that cometh by man very lightly indeed. Max Anders - To please people is to desert Christ. You must choose: serve people’s fickle pleasures or serve the faithful Christ. (HNTC - Galatians) Puritan Thomas Watson - Do not preach so much to please as to profit. Choose rather to discover men’s sins than to show your own eloquence. That is the best looking-glass, not which is most gilded but which shows the truest face. To please God is to walk with Him To walk with God is to please Him If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ - Prior to his conversion Paul was continually trying to please men, specifically his fellow Jews, as he zealously sought to persecute Christians! Here we have a "descriptive definition" of a bond-servant of Christ. What is it? It is a man or woman who is not trying to be a man-pleaser! It is that simple! Beloved, we have one Master and it is He Alone we should daily seek to please, for as as Jesus warned "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (Mt 6:24+) O God, deliver us from this all too frequent fleshly temptation! Amen. Spurgeon goes on to explain that "Those whom we try to please, are our masters. If a man tries to please the populace, or to please the refined few, these are his masters, and he will be their flare; but if he tries to please his God, then is he a free man indeed." “I don’t know the secret of success, but I do know the secret of failure— try to please everybody!” --Anonymous Charles Swindoll was set free from trying to be a man-pleaser by this passage (may it have the same effect on all of us beloved!) writing that "There was a time in my ministry, many years ago, when a single verse of Scripture jolted me back to a place of confidence, delivering me from the trap of telling a group of influential people what they wanted to hear. I realize now it was a turning point in my leadership pilgrimage from “slave to others” to “servant of Christ.” It reads, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). A leader who wants to be respected can afford flattery no more than he can deception....It may take awhile. And you will have to train yourself to care less and less about what a few may say. It will help if you’ll remind yourself that when they criticize you, they simply want you to be as miserable as they are. Since they cannot give themselves permission, who do you think you are to get away with it? If you keep that maverick thought in mind, it’ll help you soar like an eagle instead of standing around with all the turkeys....find yourself on your deathbed surrounded by regrets. God, in grace, has purchased you from bondage. Christ has literally set you free. The Spirit of the Lord has provided long awaited liberty—and the indwelling power to go with it. Achievement waits like a new morning, just over that hill where the sun comes up. (Start Where You Are : Catch a Fresh Vision for Your Life) To please (700)(aresko from airo = thru idea of raising up, elevating or exciting emotion) originally meant to make peace, to reconcile someone, to be well disposed to someone. It later came to mean to be satisfied with, to take pleasure in and then to take a pleasant attitude toward someone. In short it means to cause someone to be pleased with someone or something or to be pleasing to or acceptable to. Aresko can mean to strive to please to accommodate one’s self to the opinions desires and interests of others and that is the sense here in Galatians 1:10. De Haan - Paul asks them, Do you think I am trying to please men or God? I could avoid all this persecution if I, like you, would bring a popular message of works and merit and righteousness, but I would prove myself to be a false teacher. Paul had received his message direct from Heaven, and knew he was right. It was a new message, not fully set forth until now. (Studies in Galatians) Martin Luther - With the same vehemence Paul continues: “You Galatians ought to be able to tell from my preaching and from the many afflictions which I have endured, whether I serve men or God. Everybody can see that my preaching has stirred up persecution against me everywhere, and has earned for me the cruel hatred of my own people, in fact the hatred of all men. This should convince you that by my preaching I do not seek the favor and praise of men, but the glory of God.” (Galatians 1 Commentary) Men or God? - The answer of course is God is the One Paul was striving to please. How can fallen man be pleasing to a Holy God? This is something that can only be done as one relies on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, for "those who are in the flesh (NOT BORN AGAIN) cannot please God." (Ro 8:8+) "However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." (Ro 8:9+). THOUGHT - Are you relying on your strength to please God or have you come to the point where you recognize the futility of the flesh to do ANYTHING pleasing to God and begun to rely wholly on the Holy Spirit? Paul had learned this secret through easy times and hard times. Have you learned Paul's secret? Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.12 ) I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do (present tense = continually) all things (Paul's responsibility as well as each believer's responsibility) through Christ Who strengthens (God's provision - endunamoo in present tense = CONTINUALLY infuses with dunamis, dynamic power, supernatural power, His power via His Spirit in) me. (Php 4:11, 12+, Php 4:13+) Wiersbe gives us a great illustration - When Verdi produced his first opera in Florence, the composer stood by himself in the shadows and kept his eye on the face of one man in the audience-the great Rossini. It mattered not to Verdi whether the people in the hall were cheering him or jeering him; all he wanted was a smile of approval from the master musician. So it was with Paul. He knew what it was to suffer for the Gospel, but the approval or disapproval of men did not move him. “Therefore also we have as our ambition... to be pleasing to Him” (2 Co 5:9). Paul wanted the approval of Christ. The servant of God is constantly tempted to compromise in order to attract and please men (ED: DON'T DENY THIS TEMPTATION DEAR READER - WE ARE ALL PRONE TO IT'S SNARE!). When D. L. Moody was preaching in England, a worker came to him on the platform and told him that a very important nobleman had come into the hall. “May the meeting be a blessing to him!” was Moody’s reply, and he preached just as before, without trying to impress anybody. Paul was not a politician; he was an ambassador. His task was not to “play politics” but to proclaim a message. These Judaizers, on the other hand, were cowardly compromisers who mixed Law and grace, hoping to please both Jews and Gentiles, but never asking whether or not they were pleasing God. (Bible Exposition Commentary) Barker & Kohlenberger say "The choice of the word “servant” (lit., “slave”) is interesting because this letter is about freedom. It is an early indication of the paradoxical teaching that real freedom is to be found in bondage—bondage to Christ. Leon