A Man-Pleaser or God-Pleaser

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men,
​I should not be the servant of Christ. Gal 1:10
Unyielding Faith

​The adversaries of the apostle insinuated that he was a trimmer, observing the law among the Jews and yet persuading the Gentiles to renounce it; becoming all things to all men that he might form a party of his own. Such an insinuation was based on an utter misconception of the gospel. So far from flattering, Paul preached a gospel that humbled men, demanding repentance and reform. It often came in collision with popular tastes and opinions; and though the apostle was a man of broad views and sympathies, he was ever the faithful and uncompromising servant of Christ. Public opinion may be hugely mistaken, and there is danger of over-estimating its importance. It is the lofty function of the preacher to create a healthy public opinion and Christianize it, and he can do this only by a scrupulous and constant representation of the mind of Christ, his divine Master. The wise Phocion was so sensible how dangerous it was to be touched with what the multitude approved that upon a general acclamation made when he was making an oration he turned to an intelligent friend and asked in a surprised manner, “What slip have I made?” George Macdonald once said, “When one has learned to seek the honor that cometh from God only, he will take the withholding of the honor that cometh by man very lightly indeed.”  (Preachers Homiletical)

Consequences of Compromise

We should not mold and fit our best part to their worst, our reason to their lust; nor make our fancy the elaborate to work out such essays as may please and destroy them. We should not foment the anger of the revenger to consume him, nor help the covetous to bury himself alive, nor the ambitious to break his neck, nor the schismatic to rend the seamless coat of Christ, nor the seditious to swim to hell in a river of blood: but we should bind the revenger’s hands, break the miser’s idols, bring down the ambitious to the dust, make up those rents which faction hath made, and confine the seditious to his own sphere and place. When the world pleases us, we are as willing to please the world, and we make it our stage, and act our parts; we call ourselves “friends,” and are but parasites; we call ourselves “prophets,” and are but wizards and jugglers; we call ourselves “apostles,” and are seducers; we call ourselves “brethren,” though it be in evil, and, like Hippocrates’ twins, we live and die together. We flatter, and are flattered; we are blind, and leaders of the blind, and fall together with them into the ditch. (A. Faringdon)

Notable Quotes

"What the apostle means is making sure that God is with him. This can only be done by taking God’s way as ours, and not by hoping to get Him to, take ours as His. This much Paul says in vindication of his severity, whose office was that of a persuader of men. “Nay,” he says, “the question is not of gaining over men, but of standing right with God, and that even at the expense of an absolute breach with men. At such a time as this, when deceitful men are striving to undo all my work for Christ, so far from being called to conciliate them, were I to do so I should not be a servant of Christ.”
(Professor Robertson Smith)

"The soul that cannot entirely trust God, whether man be pleased or displeased, can never long be true to Him for while you are eyeing men you are losing God and stabbing religion at the very heart."
​ (T. Manton)

If we seek to please men we cannot be the servants of God.—He that would be a faithful minister of the gospel must deny the pride of his heart, be emptied of ambition, and set himself wholly to seek the glory of God in his calling. (Perkins).

"The false teachers who dogged Paul’s footsteps suggested that he had only one side of the gospel, and that there was therefore abundant room for their statement of it. But this the Apostle indignantly repudiated, Gal_1:8. No, he said; there is no gospel other than that which you have heard from my lips. These are solemn questions that each of us should ask: “What has been the effect of the gospel upon my life? Have I been redeemed out of the world that passes away, into that unseen and eternal kingdom of which my Lord is Center and Chief? Do I live according to the will of my God and Father?” Gal_1:4.
​(F.B. Meyer)

Pleasing Men or Serving Christ

​A railway-gate keeper who, one cold night required every passenger to show his ticket before passing through to the train, and was rewarded with considerable grumbling and protesting, was told, “You are a very unpopular man to-night.” “I only care to be popular with one man,” was the reply, “and that is the superintendent.” He might have pleased the passengers, disobeyed orders, and lost his position. He was too wise for that; his business was to please one man—the man who hired him, gave him his orders, and rewarded him for faithfulness, and who would discharge him for disobedience. The servant of Christ has many opportunities to make himself unpopular. There are multitudes who would be glad to have him relax the strictness of his rules. If he is their servant they demand that he should consult their wishes. But if he serves them, he cannot serve the Lord. “No man can serve two masters.” He who tries to be popular with the world, will lose his popularity with the Lord. He will make friends, but he will lose the one Friend who is above all others. He will win plaudits, but he will not hear the gracious word, “Well done!” A faithful servant:—Not the least interesting of the monuments I saw amid the venerable ruins of Rome was one which held within its broken urn some half-burned bones. They were the ashes of one, who, as appeared from the inscription on the tablet, had belonged to Caesar’s household, and to the memory of whose virtues as a faithful, honest, and devoted servant, the emperor himself had ordered that marble to be raised. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)