Galatians 1:17-24

17 Nor did I [even] go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles (special messengers of Christ) before I was, but I went away and retired into Arabia, and afterward I came back again to Damascus.

    

18 Then three years later, I did go up to Jerusalem to become [personally] acquainted with Cephas (Peter), and remained with him for fifteen days.

    

19 But I did not see any of the other apostles (the special messengers of Christ) except James the brother of our Lord.

   

20 Now [note carefully what I am telling you, for it is the truth], I write this as if I were standing before the bar of God; I do not lie.

    

21 Then I went into the districts (countries, regions) of Syria and Cilicia.

    

22 And so far I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Christ in Judea (the country surrounding Jerusalem).

    

23 They were only hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now proclaiming the very faith he once reviled and which he set out to ruin and tried with all his might to destroy.

    

24 And they glorified God [as the Author and Source of what had taken place] in me.

People glorified our Father because Paul was used once by our Father to persecute and now he wasn’t. We shouldn’t be so quick to judge actions, our Father works in wonderful ways even though to the world it seems foolish, 1 Corinthians 3:19! 

What we are shown here is that Paul really never worked under the direct authority of a church, yet he was used powerfully and wonderfully by our Father. We will see this even more clearly later in Galatians. Look at what Paul wrote about the church leaders in Jerusalem.

Moreover, [no new requirements were made] by those who were reputed to be something—though what was their individual position and whether they really were of importance or not makes no difference to me; God is not impressed with the positions that men hold and He is not partial and recognizes no external distinctions—those [I say] who were of repute imposed no new requirements upon me [had nothing to add to my Gospel, and from them I received no new suggestions]. Galatians 2:6

These were the leaders of the Church, the Apostles, and Paul writes that whether they were of importance or not made no difference to him. This is not how a person writes about someone who our Father has placed as an elder over them. The fact that Paul was not directly reporting to these leaders in no way hindered him from being used by our Father. Many of us are not sitting under a pastor or elder of a so called church, don’t ever let that bother you! Our Father is very capable of dealing with us directly. So never let anyone condemn you if you are not. If our Father wants you in a church then you will be in one. If He does not, then you won’t. But either way our Father is in complete and total control of us. I believe that this is why our Father had Paul write all of this here, because many of us are not called to be in conventional churches and that is alright!