When a particular claim is made, especially an unpopular one, protocol often begins with questioning credibility. By what account should we take seriously what is being shared? 

As a former killer of Christians, and someone who wasn’t among Jesus’ 12 disciples, the Apostle Paul often faced this line of questioning, and yet he was just as fast to silence the naysayers. In his letter to Galatians, he argues for his apostleship at great length. 

In Galatians 1:15 and 16, he writes that “when God was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.” Why this is important is that it wasn’t blood and flesh that revealed Christ to Paul. It was Jesus himself. 

He goes on to say that only after three years did he go to Peter. Had he gone before that time, Paul might have been considered a disciple of Peter’s. But instead, since his calling to preach to the Gentiles came directly from Jesus and since his message matched up with the apostles, he was on equal footing, and therefore, he has authority that we ought to take seriously at God’s Word.