Paul preached the Faith. What does that mean?
Does it mean that Paul preached faith? Did he say, “To you, oh Galatians, I declare faith”? No. Pastors are not called to preach faith in the general sense. We preach faith in God, faith in the Bible, and faith in Christ—sure. But we do not preach the isolated instance of praying for things by faith.
We do not preach “faith alone” (a human doctrine invented by Martin Luther)--no. If we preached "faith alone" we would be contradicting the Scriptural truth of salvation ‘not by faith alone’ (James 2:24). And we do not preach that Christians should simply "claim" what they want by faith or "declare it" done. That's the "blab it and grab it" theology of many of today's popular televangelists. That's not the Faith which Paul preached.
The Faith Paul announced when he gave his personal testimony of salvation to the Galatians is Faith with a capital F, the set of doctrines we call the Christian Faith or sound doctrine. Paul preached that Faith, the Faith, after his conversion. Prior to his conversion, he lived to destroy it!
They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the Faith he once tried to destroy’ (Galatians 1:23).
Before he was converted, Paul tried to destroy believers. He loved to see them in jail and aspired to see them killed. He was successful in getting many Christians killed, but Paul could not destroy the Faith because you cannot kill Truth. As Jesus told Paul just prior to Paul's conversion, ‘It is hard for you to kick against the goads’ (Acts 26:14).
The goads Jesus spoke of are the Truths Paul had such difficulty contradicting. The goads are the undeniable realities that no person can negate unless they forfeit reason and abandon coherence. Paul was shaken into reason and coherence when Jesus confronted him--personally stopping Paul in his tracks on the Damascus Road. From that moment onward Paul stopped persecuting Christians, and began to teach what he previously tried to destroy—the Christian Faith!
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