Galatians 1:18

"Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days." (NIV)

Paul didn't return to discuss the gospel until he had had sufficient time to analyze the scriptures and develop his own theology under God's influence. After he had determined for himself that the message of Christ was true, then he went to the disciples to present his knowledge of the gospel to them and match it up against their message. When he was sure that the gospel he had received was exactly the message God had intended, he immediately began preaching alongside the other apostles (Acts 9:19b-20). Paul realized that fellowship is necessary in order to keep one another in line with the message being preached (shown later in Galatians 2), and he wanted to be positive that the apostles' message was the same God-given news he had received. He spent fifteen days with the apostles, learning their interpretations of the gospel and hearing their eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life.

The proportion of time Paul spent meditating on the scriptures, on his own and with his brothers in Christ, is a good model of what our time with the Lord should be like. Paul spent three years alone with God, then spent fifteen days with the apostles. Similarly, while we spend Sunday (and in my case, Monday and Wednesday) hearing someone else preach, we should spend the rest of our time in the Word on our own. We, like the Bereans, should be so familiar with the scriptures that we can immediately dispute anything that is contrary to the Bible. That way if something comes up in church that does not agree with scriptures, we can dismiss it as faulty human interpretation and not something from God. And in the same way, if a new interpretation comes up that stands the test of the gospel, we can praise God for His consistency and His amazing vastness that allows us to continually learn more about Him without growing bored.