Galatians 1:10

The order of words in the Greek text forbids the stress laid in our versions on the alternative men or God; the meaning of which is besides a little obscure in this connection. The true rendering of ἤ is rather than (= μᾶλλον ἤ), as in Matthew 18:8; Luke 15:7; Luke 17:2; 1 Corinthians 14:19 : Am I now persuading men rather than God? This language indicates clearly what kind of calumnies had been circulated. His detractors accused him of sacrificing the truth of God for the sake of persuading men. It was, we know, his boast that he became all things to all men, but whereas his real motive was that he might win all to Christ, they insinuated that he was more bent on winning favour with men than on securing the approval of God. During his recent visit he had made two concessions to Jewish feeling; he had circumcised Timothy, and had recommended for adoption regulations tending to promote harmonious intercourse between Jewish and Gentile converts. It was easy to misrepresent these concessions as an abandonment of his former principles: and they furnished his enemies accordingly with a handle for decrying him as a time-server without fixed principles, now bent on winning Jewish favour, as he had been before on gaining the Gentiles (see Introd., p. 145, and cf. Galatians 1:11). Ἄρτι. The Greek text throws the emphasis on this word, and its subtle irony is brought out by the ἔτι which follows. “Am I doing this now? Do you charge me now (he says in effect to these partisans of Judaism) with regarding men more than God? There was a time, before I knew Christ, when I did study to please men: if that were still my desire, I should not have been a servant of Christ.”