Galatians 1:10
10 For [gar] do I [peitho] now [arti] persuade [peitho] men, [anthropos] or [e] God [theos]? or [e] do I seek [zeteo] to please
[aresko] men [anthropos]? for [gar] if [ei] I [aresko] yet [eti] pleased [aresko] men, [anthropos] I should [an] not [ou] be [emen] the servant [doulos] of Christ. [Christos] KJV-Interlinear
10 For am I now seeking the favor
of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to
please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. NASB
A question and a contrast are proposed.
Do you as a person, seek to please others, or do
you seek to please God?
But be careful with how you answer this question,
because if you reply, God, and do not follow Gods will, then you become a liar
and a fraud.
The question also gives us the choice between the
only two choices that we have. We are
seeking the approval of humanity, or we are seeking the approval of God. There is no third choice.
Approval from or for yourself is the same as
choosing humanity. Any rejection of Gods
will, is a choice for man. Any
non-compliance with Gods will, is a choice for man.
There is only one choice for seeking the approval
of God, and that is by complying with Gods will. You cannot have it both ways.
If you seek the approval of God, then you cannot
seek the approval of man.
If you seek the approval of man, then you cannot
seek the approval of God.
For by seeking the approval of man is to act out in
accordance with those things that people expect from you, lest you be
ostracized or rejected socially. You
have to go along with the popular beliefs or ideas or opinions. You have to put on a public face and hide your
private face, lest people reject you.
And who wants to be rejected?
If you are the hermit type, the anti-social type,
and if you just want to have things your way, then that too is an anti-God
posture.
In either case, rejecting people or trying to gain
the approbation of people, is an anti-God pattern of life.
Trying to put on a front, trying to impress people,
trying to act spiritual, when you have no spiritual content within you, makes
you phony and a spiritual fraud.
There is only one way to please God, and that is by
obeying Gods mandates, thus fulfilling the things that He expects of you, and
not by pursuing your own definition of the spiritual life.
God spells out his expectations clearly in the
scriptures. We have studied them in great detail over and over.
And simply put, they are not what you do in life,
but what you think. And what you think,
spiritually speaking, is influenced by what you know, which is affected by what
you learn and how you learn. Namely
through a daily study of the Word of God.
