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.
For - accounting for his strong language.
Do I now, х arti (G737)] - resuming the "now" of Galatians 1:9. 'Am I now making friends of men or God?' So х peithoo (G3982)] persuade means, Acts 12:20 (Ellicott). Is what I have just now said a sample of men-pleasing? His adversaries accused him of being an interested flatterer of men, "becoming all things to all men," to make a party for himself; so observing the law among the Jews (for instance, circumcising Timothy), yet persuading the Gentiles to renounce it (Galatians 5:11) (really keeping them in a subordinate state, not admitted to full privileges, which the circumcised alone enjoyed). Neander explains "now:" 'Once, when a Pharisee, I was actuated only by a regard to human authority (to please men, Luke 16:15; John 5:44); but NOW I teach as responsible to God alone' (1 Corinthians 4:3). The "now" answers, I think, to the following "yet" still х eti (G2089)]. Am I now still pleasing men, as I am said to have been heretofore?
For if I yet pleased men. 'Aleph (') A B Delta G f g, Vulgate omit "for." If I were still pleasing [ereskon] men', etc. (Luke 6:26; John 15:19; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; James 4:4; 1 John 4:5.) On "yet," cf. Galatians 5:11.
Servant of Christ - and so pleasing Him in all things (Titus 2:9; Colossians 3:22).