Charles Ellicott Commentary Galatians 1:13

"For ye have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews` religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and made havoc of it:" — Galatians 1:13 (ASV)

You have heard.—Rather, you heard. It was indeed notorious; but the Apostle may be referring to the fact that he himself usually (Acts 26:4–20; 1 Corinthians 15:8–10) brought his own career and experiences into his preaching, so that they may have heard it from his own lips.

My conversation . . . in the Jews’ religion.—How I behaved in the days of my Judaism. The phrase “Jews’ religion” (literally, Judaism) is not used with any sense of disparagement.

Wasted it.—The same word is translated “destroyed” in Acts 9:21: “Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name?”

On verses 13-14:

Proof that the doctrine of the Apostle is derived from God and not from man, in that it could not be accounted for by his antecedents and education, all of which told against, rather than for, a Christian belief of any kind.