Galatians 1:10-24

10Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.

11I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Good News I have spread is not a human message.

12I didn’t receive it from any person. I wasn’t taught it, but Jesus Christ revealed it to me.

13You heard about the way I once lived when I followed the Jewish religion. You heard how I violently persecuted God’s church and tried to destroy it.

14You also heard how I was far ahead of other Jews in my age group in following the Jewish religion. I had become that fanatical for the traditions of my ancestors.

15But God, who appointed me before I was born and who called me by his kindness, was pleased

16to show me his Son. He did this so that I would tell people who are not Jewish that his Son is the Good News. When this happened, I didn’t talk it over with any other person.

17I didn’t even go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went to Arabia and then came back to Damascus.

18Then, three years later I went to Jerusalem to become personally acquainted with Cephas. I stayed with him for fifteen days.

19I didn’t see any other apostle. I only saw James, the Lord’s brother.

20(God is my witness that what I’m writing is not a lie.)

21Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

22The churches of Christ in Judea didn’t know me personally.

23The only thing they had heard was this: “The man who persecuted us is now spreading the faith that he once tried to destroy.”

24So they praised God for what had happened to me.