Life Before Damascus (Apostleship of Paul)
Galatians 1:13-14 · Bob Wolford · May 11, 2025
Galatians (2025-26), No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261939216823

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to be studying Galatians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. As a review, remember that Galatians is divided up into three main sections. We have Paul's defense of his apostleship, Paul defends justification by faith alone, and Paul's call to liberty. And last week, Andrew put it, alliterated it with Ps, .1 personal, .2 polemical, and .3 practical, which sounds nice. All he needs is a poem, three points and a poem. Galatians is the first book written by Paul that the Holy Spirit has included in the Word of God.

And this is really important. When they decided to put the canon together in the New Testament, They didn't do it in chronological order. They did it according to the size of the book. If the book was large, it came first. If the book was small, it came last. And Galatians is right there in the middle somewhere. She was scriptural, right? Sorry, Bob. So actually, Galatians is right there in the middle somewhere.

But it is actually the first book that Paul wrote. And as a result, Paul takes the time in this epistle to establish his apostleship, not only to the Galatians, but to everyone reading God's word, including us. So it's important that he spends two chapters defending his apostleship. Last week, we saw the introduction to Paul's apostleship in Galatians 1, verses 11 and 12. And we can read that.

For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul will spend the next 33 verses, chapters 1 and 2, defending not only his apostleship, but his message of the gospel.

He's gonna do this in six different ways, and for a long time I thought, how am I gonna break this down, these two chapters? I decided I would do it by location. I could do it chronologically, but the last two points aren't quite chronological. So we're gonna do it by location.

Number one, in Tarsus in Jerusalem, before Damascus, that's what we'll be talking about today, Number two, in Damascus and Arabia, that'll be next week. And then in Jerusalem with Peter and James, that's chapters one, verses 18 through 20. And then in Tarsus, away from Judea, that's when he spent time in Syria and Cilicia, chapters one, 21 through 24. And then five, in Jerusalem with the pillars of the church, chapter two, verses one through 10. And then in Antioch with Peter. chapter 2, 11 through 21. And points 5 and 6 probably happened about the exact same time.

That's why I didn't want to put it in chronological order. And the last few verses of chapter 2 deals with what Paul had to say to Peter concerning justification. So we don't really start talking about doctrine until we get to chapter 3, even though Paul straightens Peter out there in the last part of chapter 2. Today we're going to look at Saul's life before Damascus. And here's our passage. I'm going to read parts of this. The passage we're going to be dealing with is in red, but we'll start with verse 11.

For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my country, among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. And I think I will stop right there. We're going to start with the first part of verse 13. For you have heard. Now, who are we talking about as far as you? you have heard. We're talking about the people in Galatia. They heard a lot of things about Saul and his life. Everybody in Galatia had heard of Saul's former life.

The Judaizers would follow him from town to town, making false accusations and denying his apostleship. In Pisidian of Antioch, We read, but when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul and were blaspheming. When he went on to Iconium, we read, but the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren. And then on into Lystra, but the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, they followed him, from town to town and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul, dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. So my former life in Judaism.

Point number one, who was this man Paul, formerly named Saul? We're going to take a look at who this man was, his life. We're not gonna be dealing much with doctrine here. we're going to be dealing with history. Not only history, but also the customs of the Jews. In Philippians 3, 5 is the best example of who this man was.

He was circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, the Pharisee. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. He was born a Jew of Jewish heritage. He was a Orthodox Jew. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He was definitely, even though he didn't live in Judea, he lived in Tarsus, but he and his family were 100% Jew. Born in the city of Tarsus in the Roman province of Cilicia. And I believe he was born around 1 to 4 AD.

And we'll get into that a little bit later. Here's a map. You'll see where the arrow is up there. Tarsus is about 575, 570 miles from Jerusalem. If you go by sea, it's about 355 miles. It's located in southwestern province of Cilicia, and the arrow depicts the city up there.

Cilicia. Cilicia was actually named after the abundance of what's called Cilicium. And Cilicium is the black goat's hair that they harvested from goats for the making of sacks, uniforms, covers, and tents. Which brings us to Saul's parents. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Saul's parents had a tent making business using the black goat's hair that was prevalent in Cilicia.

They were Roman citizens, as was Paul. Now, although they were Jewish, what does it take to be a Roman citizen? There's four ways you can become a Roman citizen. Either you were born a citizen, which they weren't, they were Jewish. You could spend time in Rome. Let me get some of these screens out of my way. You could spend time in the Roman military. If you spent two years in the Roman military, you could become a Roman citizen. Or number three, it could be given to you as a gift by the emperor for outstanding service. Or number four, you could purchase it if you had enough money.

I believe that Saul's parents probably became Roman citizens because they were tent makers for the Roman military. There was a lot of military in Tarsus. And being tent makers, they supplied tents and uniforms, covers for the military. And so after a while, they probably became Roman citizens just as a gift from the emperor. I can't prove that, but that's a good guess.

They were also Hebrews. and they weren't what we call Hellenistic Jews. Hellenistic Jews were Jews by birth, but had taken up the Greek lifestyle, customs, and language, and they deserted most of the Jewish ways. But Paul's parents were not Hellenistic Jews. They would be what we would call today Orthodox Jews. They were Hebrews of Hebrews. Saul's family, while Roman citizens, still held to the Abrahamic and Mosaic traditions. They followed the Torah, the Jewish traditions, and the education known as the Chinook.

Saul was sent off to Jerusalem at a young age to study under the tutelage of Gamaliel. In Acts 22.3, We read, Paul says, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, which we're talking about Jerusalem, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you are today. Gamaliel was a respected Pharisee, a Jewish law scholar, and a member of the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel is mentioned in Acts chapter 5. After the apostles were arrested and thrown in jail, they were brought up before the Sanhedrin, and Gamaliel warned them about retaliating against the apostles.

He said in Acts 5, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, or else you may even be found fighting against God. So he said, let them alone, because if they are of God, you're gonna be in trouble.

This would be a good time to check out Saul's timeline. I've been putting this thing together over several weeks, and I'm basing everything on Flavius Josephus and Luke the Pisces. As far as Josephus is concerned, we're talking about actual historical dates in history. We've all heard about Josephus as a historian, but let me take a minute And last night I wrote down a few things just so we get to know Josephus a little bit better. He was born around 37 A.D. in Jerusalem. He died 100 A.D. in Rome.

He was a Jewish priest, a scholar, a historian who wrote about the Jewish revolt of 66 to 70 A.D. In 64 A.D. he was commissioned to go to Rome to secure the release of some Jewish prisoners. And while he was in Rome, he became very impressed with the Roman country and the Roman culture, even though he was from Judea as a Jew. He became the military commander of Galilee in 66 AD. This is while the war was just getting started between Rome and Judea. He was taken prisoner of Rome by Vespasian in 67 AD. And while a prisoner, he found favor with him and Rome and ended up staying in Rome and when 70 AD came around he actually fought with Titus to overthrow Jerusalem and destroy the temple. So he spent his remaining years as a Jew but living in both Alexandria and Rome. Two of his books that are of interest to Christians today would be The Antiquities of the Jews and The War of the Jews. I have both of those books in one volume called The Complete Works of Josephus.

And Christians today depend on what he has to say for actual historical dates of what's going on. And so this is what I've made this chart on. A couple of things I want to point out on this chart, because it's way too complicated to look at every single thing here. If you want to study this chart even more, it'll be on the church's website probably later this afternoon or tomorrow. But some things I want to point out is there were historical dates that we know about And that would be the death of Herod, which took place between 4 and 1 BC.

The year of Tiberius, which if you look all the way over on the right-hand side, we find that in the 15th year of Tiberius, found in Luke 3.1, historically that happened in 28 AD.

This would put Christ's ministry, actually, In Luke 3, chapter 1, we're talking about A.D. 28 being when John the Baptist's ministry took place. And that would put Christ's ministry around 27 A.D., when Christ was around 30 years old. Luke 3.23 says he started his public ministry not when he was 30, but around the year. he was 30. So it could have been 28, could have been 32, but he was around 30 years old when he started his public ministry. And this is the same time that we have John the Baptist's ministry. So if you look at the historical date with Tiberius, you're going to find out exactly when Christ's ministry was.

And that would put Christ's birth closer to five B.C. and his crucifixion around 30 A.D. And that is not what the popular date is. The popular date is 33 A.D. But according to what I have studied and what a lot, not just me, but a lot of other theologians, his crucifixion was probably closer to 30 A.D. And then if you look right in the middle of that second line, you'll see Herod Agrippa, he dies in 44 AD. And this was the same time that Peter was thrown in jail. So here's the historical date, placing the time of Peter being in jail. And when you consider Herod's death at 44 AD, All these other dates pretty much fall into place. They might be a few years off here and there. You guys study this. If you find out that I have screwed it all up, you let me know, and I'll tell you tough. Actually, if I have screwed something up, you let me know. There's a couple of other points that really have nothing to do with today that I want to point out.

When Saul confronts Peter in Antioch, 14 years after Saul's conversion, this must have happened during the time Saul and Barnabas took contributions for the famine in Jerusalem from Antioch. And so if you look at Galatians chapter 2, the first 10 verses, I think Constable, the outline you gave me, Constable, he has this written down as the Council of Jerusalem. But I checked with Miles. because I wanted some expert advice. And he said, I agree. This took place when we were taking the contributions during the famine up to Jerusalem. So I just wanted to point that out.

Also, there was talk last week about when did Paul go to the third heaven? And I mentioned, well, could it have been? when he was in Damascus, and of course Bob said, three years? And I thought, yeah, he's right, three years. Or someone else suggested that it was when he was in Lystra, and he was laying there dying.

But if you take a look at 2 Corinthians, I don't have it written down here, But when 2 Corinthians was written, which was during the third missionary journey, and you go back 14 years, this actually puts Paul going into the third heaven right in the middle of that time he spent in Tarsus. So check that out. So let's move on. Going back to Philippians 3, verse 5, as to the law of Pharisee. There were three major branches of Judaism at the time of Christ. There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Essenes had a strict adherence to the Jewish law.

They emphasized ritual purity. They held to a monastic lifestyle. They flourished from 2 B.C. until the end of the first century. They professed belief in immortality, but they denied a bodily resurrection after death. They lived much like hippie communes did today in the 1960s. They were never mentioned in the Bible. You don't find them anywhere in the Bible.

And they're best known for the Dead Sea Scrolls. which were found in the caves of Qumran in 1947. The Sadducees were the Jewish priestly sect that controlled both the temple sacrifices and the Sanhedrin, and they were the wealthy aristocrats of Judaism. They began shortly after the Bacchidaean Revolt in 2 B.C. when Israel regained use of the the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean Wars, but then they fade away with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. We don't see them any longer after 70 A.D. because they were in charge of the Temple sacrifices, and you no longer have the sacrifices anymore. A lot of them were killed, too. Yes. Yeah, during the war of the Jews. 70 A.D. Right.

Maccabean letters are not part of our canon. They're part of the Roman Catholic canon. They're not part of ours, but I wouldn't ignore reading those, because you'd get a lot of good history from there. They held to the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, but they denied the oral law, which we'll talk about in a moment.

They denied the existence of angels, spirits, The supernatural realm, they also denied the immortality and bodily resurrection after death. And that is why they were sad, you see. Now let's look at the Pharisees. They were the prominent Jewish sect during Christ's earthly ministry and the early church. They also emerged out of the Maccabean revolt around 150 B.C., and they can be seen today as the Hasidic or the Rabbinic Jews. Unlike the Sadducees, they believed in a resurrection of the body and a future reward or punishment in the afterlife. This difference was clearly evident when Paul went before the Sanhedrin at his arrest in Jerusalem.

We'll read in Acts 23, but perceiving that one group of Sadducees and the other Pharisees, these were all part of the council, all began crying out to the council, brethren, I am a son of Pharisees. I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead.

Now, the minute he said resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, they started arguing with each other. The Sanhedrin ignored Paul, and the Pharisees and Sadducees turned against each other. We read, and he said this, there occurred a dissension Between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided, for the Sadducees say that there's no resurrection, nor an angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. And there occurred a great uproar, and some of the scribes of the Pharisaic party stood up and began to argue heedlily. And while they were doing that, Paul just steps back and has a Diet Coke. He says, you guys go ahead and fight. The dissension was so great.

Yes? So Bob, can you comment on the Sephardic Jews? I don't really know that much about the difference between them and the other Jewish sects. There's all kinds of Jewish sects today, but I haven't really studied the difference between all of them. Mike keeps bringing up the Hasidic Jews that live around his neighborhood, but I'm mainly talking about the Orthodox Jews There are a lot of Jews today that are atheists. There are a lot of Jews that care less about the Bible. But the sects I would be talking about would be those that are orthodox.

But as far as all those differences, I don't know, Bob. Oh, hey, Bob. Hey, this is Andrew. I think that the Faroetic Jews just refer to the region they're from. I think they're from, I believe they're from Spain, so they're like Basque. So they're not a sect as far as doctrine. I think they're a sect as far as regional, where they are from.

I think, yeah. I watched a movie and they were in that, so that's how I got that information. I haven't seen movies quoted here yet. Miles, was that the... Andrew. Oh, that was Andrew. Sorry. So, Andrew, was that Ben Hur? Exodus. No, I'm sorry. It was much worse than that. It was a Tom Hanks movie. okay all right so the dissension was so great the commander ordered paul to be taken away we read that in acts 23 10 and as a great dissension was developing the commander was afraid paul would be torn to pieces by them and ordered the troops to go down and take them away from them by force and bring them Bring him into the berries.

So the Pharisees, as opposed to Sadducees, believed in the tradition of the fathers, the oral law was just as authoritative as the written law, the Torah. So what exactly is the oral law? So, you know, we're not talking doctrine here today. We're talking about Jewish history during Saul's time. It all started, the oral law, all started when Israel was exiled to Syria and Babylon in 722 and 597 BC because of their disobedience to the Mosaic law, particularly their disregard for the Sabbath rest for the land.

When they were restored to the land in 538 BC, they vowed never to let this happen again. To accomplish this, they started making other laws so as not to break the mosaic law. They were called fences, or the oral law. And here's a chart I put together to depict that. We have the first fence. Well, before the first fence, we have the Torah, which is the first five chapters of the Bible, the written word of God, And after they came back from their exile, they said, in order not to break these laws again, we're going to make some other laws and put a fence around this.

And it was called the oral tradition. Later on, the oral tradition was put into writing in 200 AD, and this is called the Mishnah. So you have the oral law and the Mishnah, the same exact same thing, except the Mishnah was put into writing. And then later after writing, the Mishnah became the Amorim law, which was known as the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. So whenever you hear those terms, Oral law, traditions, Mishnah, Talmud, we're all talking about the same thing.

These are all laws that you add to keep from breaking the written law. A lot of Jews today will say that the oral law went all the way back to Moses, but that's just not true. The oral law started after they came back from the exile. So a good example of an oral law or offense would be when my kids were little, we had a rule. You're not allowed to eat a cookie unless we give you permission. Now we couldn't just set that plate of cookies out on the table and walk away.

So we put it in a jar with a lid on it. That's for our first fence. to keep them from breaking that rule. And that didn't always work, so we put it up in a high cabinet and closed the door on the cabinet. So we made a new rule. You're not allowed to open that door. And after a while, somebody would say, well, what's in that cabinet? And our kid would say, I don't know, we're not allowed to open the door. I'd say, why not? I don't know why, we're just not allowed to do it.

That's a good example of what oral laws and the traditions of the Jews of that day ended up with. How old were they when they broke that law? It started around probably four in their teenage years. What was the third law? I'll talk about that. The same thing goes on today. In the church I grew up in, the college I went to, we had the same type of oral laws.

A good example is, it's a sin to get drunk. So we're gonna put a fence around that. It becomes a sin to have alcohol at all. Another good example would be, and this was true in our church and in the college I went to, we weren't allowed to dance. because the Bible condemns illicit sex.

So if you dance, you're liable to end up with hanky-panky. So this upset me so much that I changed the rule. I changed that rule. I started telling everybody it's a sin to have sex standing up because it might lead to dancing. This kind of illustrates what oral laws were all about. But we need to move on. So instead of 613 written laws, they ended up with thousands of different laws and traditions.

Jesus was continually accused of breaking these traditions while following the written law of Moses. A good example is found in Mark 7, concerning the washing of hands before eating. We read the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition, moral laws of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands? And Jesus said, you are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. And then later on, We read, thus invalidating the Word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down, you do many things such as that. So all through the Gospels we read about Christ breaking the law. But he wasn't breaking the Mosaic law. He was breaking their oral law.

Saul, as a Pharisee, did everything possible to gain the approval of God by means of his works and his traditions. Now we're getting back to Saul. In Acts 26, we read, which for the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem, since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion." And again in Philippians 3, 5, and 6, to get to the last part of that verse, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, and now as to Zeal, a persecutor of the church. So what was Paul's mission before Damascus? His goal was to destroy the church.

Galatians 1.13, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.

Our first encounter with Saul in scripture was at the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him, and we're talking about Stephen here. They began stoning him, and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Later on, right in the next chapter, Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women.

He would put them in prison. Paul relates his action at his arrest in Jerusalem. He said, I persecuted this way, and at that time, the believers were called the way. Later on in Antioch, they were called Christians. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, as also the high priest and all the council of the elders can testify. Then in Caesarea, before Herod Agrippa II, Paul said, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem.

Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death, I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme, and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.

Saul became well known on this mission, as we read in our text, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen. Saul was building his career on the persecution and imprisonment and the death of the church, even pursuing them to foreign cities. Before he was saved, we would classify him as one of the most evil men in history. before his salvation. He was climbing the corporate ladder of Judaism on the bodies of the Christians he had murdered. He thought he was pleasing God.

In Galatians 1.14b, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. This takes us back to the oral law. Traditions can be bad if they're not grounded in the word of God. Jewish traditions have been perverted by the oral law to the extent that they no longer even resemble God's will. What can we learn about Saul's apostleship in verse 13 and 14? We're getting down to the end. I've done it pretty quickly because I keep looking at the clock.

In spite of his heritage, his education, his stature among his contemporaries, or his zeal for ancestral traditions, nothing in his life qualified him to be an apostle for Christ. And that's what we get back to. Paul, an apostle, not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. And verse 11, for I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ, which brings us to Damascus.

And we're going to be studying that next week. Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And this was to be continued. I went over a few minutes. Any comments?

No, that was great. It gave us a good history, even though we know that. It's so neat to have that all in one place like you said. Thank you. We're all aware of the oral traditions. We're all aware of who Pharisees and Sadducees were, but it's good to review just exactly what was involved in all of this. Jim, you want to close us in prayer? Sure. Father, we thank you so much for your word. It's easy to understand for a child. It's still complicated for those of us who have studied it for decades. Thank you for revealing your word to us this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen.