The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians

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(Acts 15:5–21)

After fourteen years passed, Barnabas, Titus, and I went up again to Jerusalem.

We did this because God had told me we should go. I explained privately to the most important leaders of the believers the content of the good news that I had been proclaiming in the regions of the non-Jews. I did this because I wanted to make sure that they approved of what I had been preaching. I wanted to make sure that I had not been working uselessly.

But those leaders did not even require Titus, who was with me and was an uncircumcised Gentile, to be circumcised.

The people who would have required him to be circumcised were not true believers, but they pretended that they were fellow believers. They watched us closely to see how we obey God without following all the Jewish laws and rituals, since we know that Messiah Jesus has freed us from those things. These false believers would like to make us like slaves to the law.

But not even briefly did we agree with them about circumcision. We resisted them in order that the true good news about Messiah might continue to benefit you.

But those who others said were the leaders did not add anything to what I proclaim. Those leaders are important men, but they do not matter to me, because God does not favor certain persons more than others.

Instead, the leaders understood that God was trusting me to proclaim the good news to the non-Jews, just as Peter was proclaiming the good news to the Jews.

That is, just as God had empowered Peter to go as an apostle to take God’s message to the Jews, he also empowered me to go as an apostle to take his message to the non-Jews.

Those leaders understood that God had kindly given to me this special mission. So James, Peter, and John, the leaders of the believers in Messiah, leaders who many people knew and honored, shook hands with us because we were fellow workers with them. We agreed that God had sent us to the non-Jews, who were not circumcised, and that God had sent them to Jews, who were circumcised.

They only urged us to still remember to help the poor among the fellow believers who live in Jerusalem. That is exactly what I have been eager to do.

Paul Confronts Cephas

But later while I was in the city of Antioch, after Peter came there, I looked into his eyes and told him that what he was doing was wrong.

This is what happened. Peter went to Antioch and started eating regularly with non-Jewish believers there. Later there were certain Jewish believers who came to Antioch who claimed that James, the leader of the believers in Jerusalem, had sent them. And when those men came, Peter stopped eating with the non-Jewish believers and would not associate with them. He was afraid that the Jewish believers from Jerusalem would criticize him for associating with non-Jews.

Also, the other Jewish believers in Antioch joined in Peter’s hypocrisy by separating themselves from the non-Jewish believers. Even Barnabas thought he had to stop associating with the non-Jews!

But when I realized that they were not following the truth of the good news about Messiah, and when all the fellow believers had come together, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are Jewish, but you have been living like a non-Jew who does not follow the law. So how can you possibly persuade the non-Jews to live like Jews?”

We were born as Jews, not as non-Jewish sinners who know nothing about God’s law.

But we now know that it is not because a person obeys the law that God gave to Moses that God makes a person right in his sight. God does that only if that person trusts in Jesus Christ. Even some of us Jews have trusted Messiah Jesus. We did that so God would declare us good in his sight, because we trust Messiah, and not because we try to obey the law that God gave to Moses. God has said that he will not declare anyone good in his sight just because they obey the law.

But when we asked God to make us right in his sight by trusting in Messiah, we stopped trying to obey the law, so the law proved us to be sinners for doing that. But this certainly does not mean that Messiah is in favor of sin. Certainly not!

If I again believed that God would make me right in his sight because I obey his law, I would be like a man who rebuilds a shaky old building that he had once torn down. Everyone would see that I was breaking God’s law.

As I was trying to obey God’s law, I became like a dead man; it was as if the law had killed me. This happened so that I might live to worship God.

It is as though my old way of life ended when Messiah died on the cross. I no longer direct my life. Messiah who lives in my heart now directs how I live. And whatever I do now while I live, I do it trusting in God’s Son. He is the one who loved me and offered himself as the sacrifice to provide God’s forgiveness to me.

I do not set aside God’s kindness, as if keeping the law could make us right with God. Otherwise, Messiah would have died on the cross for nothing.

(Acts 15:5–21)

Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me.

I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.

But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage,

to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you.

But from those who were reputed to be important—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,

but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcised—

for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles—

and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.

They only asked us to remember the poor—which very thing I was also zealous to do.

Paul Confronts Cephas

But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.

For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?

“We, being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners,

yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.

But if while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not!

For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.

For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”