I need to set the stage a bit here. The book of Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul, and seems to me to be one-half of an argument or debate he was having with people from the church in Galatia (somewhere around modern day Turkey, I think). Paul seems to be arguing about his legitimacy first, then moves on to typical "hot topics" of the early church (Salvation by faith alone, legalism vs. freedom, role of the Holy Spirit, etc.). There were groups of people in the early church who felt that to become a Christian, you first had to become a Jew as well, and Paul is very much against this interpretation.
I guess someone in the Galatian church must have crawled under Paul's skin, because if you read from the beginning of chapter 1, Paul comes out with guns blazing... "astonished" that people were leaving the faith he preached and moving on to a "different" gospel. (As a historical note, in the confusion of the early church, there were several different versions of the good news... some were legit, others were not.) Then in our passage for today, Paul gives a brief synopsis of his background before he moves on to other parts of his debate.
These couple of verses are a summary of Paul's life so far - his faith journey. Paul grew up as a Jew (a very devout one) and initially he reacted strongly to this "different" group of Jews who followed and preached about this Jesus guy. Paul even helped the Jews persecute the early Christians. Then all that changed one day when the resurrected Jesus appeared to Paul in a vision and Paul literally "saw the light" (read ACTS chapter 9 if you're interested). After that, he started preaching the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) instead of persecuting the church. Then finally, after a while, Paul goes and connects with the apostles in Jerusalem.
I like this passage because here you can see that even Paul's pilgrimage path was not a straight one. He initially goes charging off in a wrong direction so strongly that Christ himself decides to appear to him. After that, Paul does a major course correction, and then further "tweaks" his pathway after meetings with the apostles.
Our lives are like that as well. We start down one path. Then maybe a priest or fellow christian advises us, and we correct our pathway. I can see this happening in my own life. Years ago, I was much more restrictive and legalistic in my view of God and who God loved. Today I'm much more of a "big tent" mindset - God loves everybody.
How has your faith changed over the years?
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