Galatians 1:6-10

Most of Paul's letters open with thanks to God for the Christianity of the readers. Nothing of that kind is possible here! Quickly not soon after their conversion; that were no wonder; but with indecent haste and levity, such as one laments in George Eliot's abandonment of faith they are turning away from God who called them towards a different gospel which is no gospel at all. (Some doubt whether this paraphrase is grammatically warranted, but reach a similar senseunto a different gospel which is nothing else than that some would trouble you, etc.) What he had said (on his second and third visits, probably; Acts 16, 18) he now repeats; neither Paul nor an angel should be listened to if his words subvert the old teaching. It had carried its credentials with it. They must adhere to it not because it was Paul's, but because it was God's and they knew it as such. If his enemies say that he is a persuasive fellow and pleases men, he protests that God and Christ are the lodestars governing his behaviour. (In a different sense he tells us elsewhere how Christ-like it is to please others; Romans 15:2 f., 1 Corinthians 10:33.) Persuade God is hardly what he means; he allows the word to stand because of the charge against him that he persuades men.