The longer I live, the more amazed I am at what people believe and where they obtain their information. In today’s world, we Google everything. Now, we have artificial intelligence to reveal information to us. While this may be beneficial for finding a recipe or learning how to repair a lawn mower, it is not always possible when it comes to things of God. Where do you obtain your gospel? Is the internet your source, hearsay, an authority figure, or do you go to the word of God?
Paul knew the Old Testament writings. He was a Jew who would have been taught from his childhood about the miracles of God and the history of his people. Now, as an adult and leader of the Jewish religion, He meets Jesus and learns about Him, from Him. In Acts 9:4-5, we find Paul meeting with Jesus himself. He had no idea how wrong he had been until he met the one he was against. A bright light blinded Paul, “he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” First-hand experience is always the best to teach us, and that is what Paul had when he came to Jesus.
Paul uses his testimony over and over to witness to people. In Acts 22, Paul is speaking to Jews, and he uses his heritage as a Jew to get their attention. Then he proceeds to share his testimony. In Acts 26, he shares it with King Agrippa as he stands before him and defends himself. In Galatians 1:11-24, he is sharing his testimony to defend his apostleship to them. In verses 11 and 12, he certifies to them “that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He tells of his salvation experience, and how afterwards he went to the desert to spend time with Jesus, then to Peter and to James, one of the other apostles. He concludes that section of the chapter with “before God I lie not.”
Galatians 1:15-20 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.”
Paul went about teaching the gospel of Jesus everywhere he went. He had talked to the source of the gospel one-on-one. This encounter gave him the credentials to spread the word, and that he did. He used his own encounter to validate his salvation experience. While we have not had the same type of encounter with Jesus, what he has done in our hearts is just as valid to a lost world. We have the written word to use and to learn so that we can also spread the gospel. We need to ensure that we know the Word of God personally. It is not enough to repeat what a preacher says or the phrase that grandma made. Our gospel must be what the Bible says; otherwise, it is not valid. I meet people all the time, some even Christians, who give wrong information about how to become a Christian or what the Bible says. We have no excuse when we have access to the word of God, both in print and online. We will be held accountable for knowing and obeying the word of God. So, where do you obtain your “gospel?” If it is not the truth according to the word of God, it is not the gospel that saves men and women from an eternal hell.
