Galatians 1:11-12, Making It Known

11 Γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπ᾿ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον·  12 οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτὸ οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην ἀλλὰ δι᾿ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.  

Translation

For I am making known to you, brothers, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to mankind.  For neither have I received it from mankind nor was I taught it, but I received it through the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Galatians 1:11-12

Introduction

Paul continues the theme of his authority by describing how he became the person who was sent with the message (apostle).  In these two verses, he gives, in general, how he received the “True Gospel”.  He will go into more detail later on in the letter.  It is amazing just how much is in these two sentences of Paul’s letter.

Γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν (For I am making known to you)

This text seems to indicate that the church of Galatia didn’t know the whole story around how Paul became an apostle or at least how he got his message.  Paul makes sure that the church understands that they are about to know how Paul received his overwriting authority.  The verb Γνωρίζω carries a continual action.  In other words, Paul is going to continually make known to the church of Galatia how he received his message.

ἀδελφοί (brothers)

Notice how Paul refers to the members of the church as brothers.  He continues to be very cordial to them while still being very bold and angry with them.  A true quality of a great preacher or pastor.

κατὰ ἄνθρωπον (according to mankind)

The actual greek is “according to man”.  In other words, Paul’s Gospel is not “through the eyes” of man or how “man sees it”.  Think of it this way; over the centuries, our four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John, received book titles of “According to Matthew, According to Mark” and so on.  In other words, each book is the Gospel of how the book’s writer saw it.  You can also refer to this as the author’s different prospective of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Now, with that said, Paul leaves no room for a “different prospective” of what he preached.  In modern idiomatic speech, it’s “his way or the highway”!

οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτὸ  (For neither have I received it from mankind)

The actual greek of παρὰ ἀνθρώπου is “from man”.  Paul is setting up an important truth that he will expand on later in the letter.  We must only know now that Paul’s message didn’t come from men.

οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην (nor was I taught it)

Again, Paul is setting up an important truth here.  The truth is that the message was not something that was taught to Paul by others. That truth will be expanded upon later on in the letter.  I must say here that the truth that Paul reveals is as big of a deal today as it was back then.  It will be a hard thing to deal with, but as all of you know, I deal with the hard!

δι᾿ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (through the revelation of Jesus Christ)

The actual greek is “through the apocalypse of Jesus Christ”.  In modern times, we have put a bad light on the word “apocalypse” because we associated it with the “end of the world”.  In ancient times, it meant “revealing fully” or “unveiling”.  Paul is saying here that the message that he is sent with was given to him by the “fully revealing” of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is fully revealed by who he is, what he did, how he did it, and what that does for us.