Paul tells in detail what must have been well known in the churches he had established; he sees that it must be retold to the Galatians, to try to convince them that he had preached the truth to them. 1: 11-12 refers to the direct revelation he received from God, when he was confronted by the risen Christ; he is referring to his conversion experience which is described three times in Acts (Acts 9, 22, 26). There are also two other direct references in Paul's letters, in I Corinthians 9: I and 15:5-8, as well as three indirect references in 2 Corinthians 4:6 and 5:17, and Philippians 3: 12, to the shattering experience which not only convinced him that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, but the Saviour who was able to put Paul right with God. 1 :13-14 reminds the Galatians what they already knew, that Paul had been a fanatical follower of the Jewish Law and traditions and had persecuted and tried to destroy the Church of God (Acts 8:1-3, 9:1-2), because he saw the followers of Jesus as a very dangerous threat to that Law and those traditions. At that period in his life he was totally opposed to the Gospel; no one could have guessed that he was to be transformed into the apostle whom God would send to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (1 :15-16). The transformation which took place in Paul" was entirely the work of God. The wording of 1: 15 is very similar to Jeremiah 1:4-5. God's direct intervention in Paul's life, as in Jeremiah's, caused an irreversible change of direction for Paul which was not the result of his own efforts. It was God alone who had changed Paul, for his purposes, and the realization of this was to change Paul's attitude to the Jewish Law which he had tried to follow so scrupulously in his earlier life, but which had not the power to put a man right with God.

The autobiographical details which Paul gives in 1:16-19 do not appear at first sight to be in close agreement with Luke's account of Paul's life after his conversion, Acts 9:22-28, but we must take Paul's own account of what he did as firsthand evidence. When attempting to harmonize what Paul says with what Luke says, we have to remember that Luke had to rely on information from others for that period. If we look closely at Acts 9 :22-28, we notice that Luke does not give definite indications of when events took place and does not seem to have this information. 9:23 says 'After many days had gone by, the Jews met together and made plans to kill Saul. ... ‘We just do not know what Luke meant by 'many days'; it could have referred to months or even longer.

In Acts 9:26, Luke does not indicate when it was that Paul went to Jerusalem. In Galatians 1: 17-18, Paul says that he did not go to Jerusalem immediately after his conversion but left Damascus to go into the area to the east before eventually returning to the city. The name Arabia was given to the whole area which stretched from southern Arabia right up to the area east of Damascus. Paul does not say why he went away from Damascus for a time, but we know that there were men there who wanted to kill him (2 Corinthians 11:33 and Acts 9:25). He did not go to Jerusalem to meet Peter until three years after his conversion (1: 18). He says that he went to Peter to obtain information but gives no indication that he needed to be taught by Peter about the Christian faith, or that he wanted any kind of authorization from the Jerusalem apostles to preach the Gospel. He also met James the brother of the Lord (1: 19) but not any others of the apostles. He breaks into his narrative to emphasize that he is telling the truth to the Galatians, and his interjection indicates his unhappiness that the Galatians can doubt what he had previously told them.

I: 21-24 refers to the early years of his apostolic ministry (perhaps from A.D. 39 onwards), referred to more indirectly in Acts 9:30 (Paul returned to his home city of Tarsus in the Roman province of Cilicia) and Acts 11:25-26 (Barnabas found Paul in Tarsus and took him to Antioch in Syria to preach there). Acts 11:20-21 indicates that the new faith was already being preached by others to the Gentiles. Paul's changed life became known to the Christians in Judaea although Paul says that at that time they did not know him personally. They said, 'The man who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith that he once tried to destroy!'

We now need to ask why Paul is going into all these details about the early years of his apostolic ministry and the answer becomes clear from what he says in chapter 2. He is asserting that his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles came directly from God and was not just a human commissioning from the other apostles in Jerusalem, with whom he met on equal terms. This is important for Paul's argument with the Galatians, because it seems that the Judaizers had said that Paul was not a real apostle, perhaps because he had not been one of the original twelve disciples. Earlier, we referred to the meaning of the Greek word 'apostolo', one sent with a message. Amongst some members of the early Church the use of the title 'apostle' may have been limited to those who had both followed Jesus before his death and had met the risen Christ (Acts 1:21-22), but Paul uses the title not only of himself but obviously includes Apollos amongst those who had an apostolic ministry (1 Corinthians 4) and also Barnabas (1 Corinthians 9: 5-6). Acts 13:43 and 14:3 also refer to Barnabas as an apostle. Paul had not been a disciple of Jesus and we have no evidence that Apollos and Barnabas had either.

In 1: 15-24, then, Paul is affirming his genuine apostolic authority and ministry, initiated entirely by God, and in no way in conflict with the ministry of those who had been called to serve God as apostles in Jerusalem. Paul's apostolic ministry, approved by God, had begun amongst the Gentiles before he was known personally to the Judaean Christians. He became known to the Christians of Damascus, Antioch and the cities of Cilicia before he was known to the Christians of Jerusalem, but the Gospel that Paul preached was the same Gospel being preached by the Jerusalem apostles.