Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
For--accounting for the strong language he has just used.
do I now--resuming the "now" of Galatians 1:9. "Am I now persuading men?" [ALFORD], that is, conciliating. Is what I have just now said a sample of men-pleasing, of which I am accused? His adversaries accused him of being an interested flatterer of men, "becoming all things to all men," to make a party for himself, and so observing the law among the Jews (for instance, circumcising Timothy), yet persuading the Gentiles to renounce it (Galatians 5:11) (in order to flatter those, really keeping them in a subordinate state, not admitted to the full privileges which the circumcised alone enjoyed). NEANDER explains the "now" thus: Once, when a Pharisee, I was actuated only by a regard to human authority and to please men (Luke 16:15; John 5:44), but NOW I teach as responsible to God alone (1 Corinthians 4:3).
or God?--Regard is to be had to God alone.
for if I yet pleased men--The oldest manuscripts omit "for." "If I were still pleasing men," etc. (Luke 6:26; John 15:19; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; James 4:4; 1 John 4:5). On "yet," compare Galatians 5:11.
servant of Christ--and so pleasing Him in all things (Titus 2:9; Colossians 3:22).
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
2 Corinthians 4:2
2 Corinthians 5:11
Ephesians 6:6
1 Thessalonians 2:4
Titus 1:1
Hebrews 12:14
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