‘Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they only heard say, ‘He who once persecuted us now preaches the faith of which he once made havoc'. And they glorified God in me.'
He stresses that at no stage had he stayed in Judea and that in fact he had never met the Judean Christians face to face. Judea was usually seen as separate from Jerusalem (e.g. Mark 1:5) which, since the time of David, had looked on itself as a semi-independent city. Judea was probably where many of the Apostles were ministering. As he appears to have been sent to Tarsus for his own protection it would appear that delay in Judea would have been dangerous. He was seen by Jews as a turncoat.
‘The regions of Syria and Cilicia.' On his way back to Tarsus, in Cilicia (Acts 9:30), he had passed through the region of Syria, the mention of which may suggest some converse with, and ministry to, the churches in that area at that stage. Alternately ‘Syria and Cilicia', which are regularly mentioned together in that order, may simply have been mentioned jointly as by custom describing the whole area (Acts 15:23; Acts 15:41). Thus it could simply refer to his going back to his home district in ‘Syria and Cilicia'. From a point of view of a full ministry that in Cilicia (Tarsus), in which he spent a considerable period of time, presumably preceded his later ministry in Syria, although in Acts no such ministry is actually mentioned prior to the call by Barnabas (Acts 11:25). But that is not the point here.
‘The churches of Judea which were in Christ.' ‘In Christ' is a favourite expression of Paul. (It is also found in 1 Peter 3:16; 1 Peter 5:14). It signifies that Christians have been made one with their living Lord. They have been united with Christ and are in Him. They are united with Him in His death, and in His risen life (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:4-11).
‘They only heard it said that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith of which he once made havoc.' Here was further confirmation that there was no suggestion of dispute about ‘the faith' preached by Paul and ‘the faith' of the Judean churches. He now preached the faith he had once attacked, and the speakers had clearly been satisfied with the way he taught it.