Galatians 1:10 – “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
Those that are not given to study of the Word and are deaf to the Spirit’s council do not fully comprehend the answers to the two questions posed in this verse (nor the implications of said answers). God is challenging the very foundations which people build their lives upon with these two questions.
First, whom do we persuade? Are our efforts concentrated upon persuading others that the gospel is true, that salvation is available, and that there is no barrier to hem receiving salvation? Or do we spend our efforts in trying to persuade God that we are still faithful despite our actions saying otherwise? For the redeemed, we are invested in one or the other, not both. So many people toil through life in misery because they are trying to persuade God that most of the Bible shouldn’t apply to their life. They wrestle with whether “that passage” was intended for them. It was, they know it was, but they waste energy arguing with God and as a result men are not persuaded of their need for a savior.
Next, the question of desire. Whom do we seek to please? So many go about God’s business trying to appease or please the world. In order to do so, you must change God’s business so not to offend the world. On the other hand, in order to please God, you will disappoint, irritate, and cause a lack of pleasure in man. We know that a man cannot serve two masters, and the effects of trying to do both can be disastrous.
I’ve been reading a book about how so many versions of the English bible came to exist. The person whom the book is focused upon is named Eugene A. Nida. This man was a self-professed born again believer, Baptist minister, and missionary that was called to translate the English bible into other languages that had yet to receive a translation. Then as his life progressed, Nida stopped caring about persuading men and pleasing God. By the end of his life, Nida had caused more false translation of the Bible than possibly anyone other than Satan. It was by Nida’s hand that nearly all bible translators came under the control and manipulation of Catholic Jesuit scholars and used the Vatican texts for their translations. Nearly all bible “translations” and “revisions” now take place under the banner society that he helped found to unite all Baptist, Protestant and Catholic translators so that all religions could have a “universal translation” of the Bible.
Take this one example as a token of the dangers of men pleasing and attempts to persuade God away from His own Word.
Your fellowservant in Christ,
Bro. Jordan Foster.
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