Daily Devotion for November 14, 2025
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
This pretty updated setting of the Kyrie Eleison comes to us from Vineyard Worship.
Prayer for the Day Ahead
Who can tell what a day might bring? Therefore, gracious God, cause me to live every day as if it were to be my last, for I cannot know that it is not. Help me to live this day as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
Prayer for Those in Fear of Death
My mighty and merciful God, hear my prayer, for I am filled with the fear of death. I am scared, God. And I know that you understand, because Jesus Christ sweated blood the night before he was killed. But Jesus was filled with perfect faith and believed that he would rise from the dead, and so he was able to face his death.
And this is what I am asking for: That my faith grow and grow until my fear is relieved. For surely, my body will die. But just as surely, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that like him I will be given life after my body goes to sleep; and that a new, more glorious body awaits me; and that I will dwell in your house forever. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray for your perfect comfort,
Meditation
You’ll never be able to plow a field by turning it over in your mind
Dedication
As I travel through the rest of my day, may the God of hope fill me with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit I may abound in hope.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Improvement Can Be Painful
If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?
Galatians 1:17-24 (DP Bible)
xactly where do you think I got my teaching? I did not go to Jerusalem after my conversion, to be taught by those who were apostles before me. I did not consult with flesh and blood at all: I went to Arabia, and then back to Damascus. It was three years before I went to Jerusalem to meet Peter and I stayed with him for two weeks only. I did not even see any of the other apostles, except to meet James, the Lord’s brother.
After that, I traveled to Syria and Cilicia, where my face was completely unknown. But they had heard one thing about me: “The Persecutor now preaches the faith he once persecuted.” And they gave glory to God for my transformation.
Hear me: As I stand before God, what I write is true.
DP Parallel Bible (3-Column) - Galatians 1
Notes on the Scripture
Does Galatians Contradict Acts? (Galatians #10)
This account of Paul’s actions after his conversion pointedly intends to show that he did not receive instruction about Christ from the apostles (or others) who had known Jesus during his human life. He did not, he says, go to Jerusalem from Damascus, but to Arabia, and did not go to Jerusalem until years later.
In Acts 9:25, Luke tells us about Paul’s escape from Damascus. In the next sentence (beginning with Acts 9:26) he tells us that Paul went to Jerusalem:
And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. . . .
These accounts seem quite different. Paul states plainly that he went from Damascus to Arabia for three years; Acts, written by Luke, seems to indicate he went directly to Jerusalem. I see three possibilities why these are different:
#1 Paul is lying (or Luke is mistaken). Bible-bashers simply assume this is the case; and if you see a work about “contradictions in the Bible” that mentions this possibility and no other, you will know your are reading a propaganda tract and not a scholarly inquiry.
#2 Paul went to Jerusalem directly from Damascus, but was not taught by the original apostles. He does say that he “did not go to Jerusalem to the apostles before me”, which allows for the possibility that he went to Jerusalem but not “to the apostles before me.” A case can be made here, but it is not particularly satisfying. It makes Paul look disingenuous to have omitted the fact of the trip.
#3 There is no discrepancy. Luke does not state when Paul went to Jerusalem. Those eager to find a contradiction simply assume that it was immediately after his conversion — the time frame that suits them. The next event recounted by the “Paul narrative” in Acts, however, is Paul in Antioch with Barnabas and Silas, well over a decade later. Luke drops the Paul story and actually goes backwards in time, to pick up the story of Peter. Thus, his account of Paul’s trip — which begins “when Saul went to Jerusalem” — could have occurred at any time between Paul’s conversion and his first missionary journey.
It is during the Peter/Jerusalem narrative that we find the key to the more coherent timeline: Barnabas. Barnabas was a major member of the Jerusalem church (Acts 4:36-37), but could not possibly have known Paul at the time of his conversion. If Barnabas knew who Paul was, it would have been by Saul’s reputation — as a feared agent of the Sanhedrin’s theological police. They were enemies. Yet, in Luke’s account of Paul’s Jerusalem trip, Barnabas is his friend and sponsor! If Paul had gone directly from Damascus to Jerusalem, why would Barnabas be treating him as a friend? How could Paul even know him?
We find a good explanation only during the Peter/Jerusalem narrative. The next mention of Barnabas is in Acts 11. The church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch and, from there, he travelled to Tarsus to find Paul. In our Scripture today, Paul tells us that he went to Syria and Cilicia before his trip to Jerusalem with Barnabas. The timing is perfectly consistent: Tarsus is in Cilicia, and it would seem that Barnabas went to Tarsus, in Cilicia, to find and meet Paul during the time when Paul also states he was in Cilicia. This event almost certainly occurred before the trip described in Acts 9.
If we take a peek ahead to Galatians 2, the first verse tells us, “Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.” (Gal. 2:1, NASB) The rest of Chapter 2 describes a scene reasonably close to what Luke recounted in Acts. It makes a lot more sense to understand Luke’s vignette as a description of this later trip, since the two accounts agree on the very important fact of Barnabas, as well as several other details.
Even to a non-believing but objective scholar, the third possibility would have to seem the most likely, because the two accounts are consistent when viewed in this way. Conclusion: Luke told a condensed version of Paul’s movements after his conversion; Paul now tells the full story, entirely consistent with Luke’s.
