Reflections on Galatians 2

Galatians 02 (Contemporary English Version)


1. Fourteen years later I went to Jerusalem with Barnabas. I also took along Titus.
2. But I went there because God had told me to go, and I explained the good news that I had been preaching to the Gentiles. Then I met privately with the ones who seemed to be the most important leaders. I wanted to make sure that my work in the past and my future work would not be for nothing.
3. Titus went to Jerusalem with me. He was a Greek, but still he wasn't forced to be circumcised.
4. We went there because of those who pretended to be followers and had sneaked in among us as spies. They had come to take away the freedom that Christ Jesus had given us, and they were trying to make us their slaves.
5. But we wanted you to have the true message. That's why we didn't give in to them, not even for a second.
6. Some of them were supposed to be important leaders, but I didn't care who they were. God doesn't have any favorites! None of these so-called special leaders added anything to my message.
7. They realized that God had sent me with the good news for Gentiles, and that he had sent Peter with the same message for Jews.
8. God, who had sent Peter on a mission to the Jews, was now using me to preach to the Gentiles.
9. James, Peter, and John realized that God had given me the message about his undeserved kindness. And these men are supposed to be the backbone of the church. They even gave Barnabas and me a friendly handshake. This was to show that we would work with Gentiles and that they would work with Jews.
10. They only asked us to remember the poor, and that was something I had always been eager to do.
11. When Peter came to Antioch, I told him face to face that he was wrong.
12. He used to eat with Gentile followers of the Lord, until James sent some Jewish followers. Peter was afraid of the Jews and soon stopped eating with Gentiles.
13. He and the other Jews hid their true feelings so well that even Barnabas was fooled.
14. But when I saw that they were not really obeying the truth that is in the good news, I corrected Peter in front of everyone and said: Peter, you are a Jew, but you live like a Gentile. So how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews?
15. We are Jews by birth and are not sinners like Gentiles.
16. But we know that God accepts only those who have faith in Jesus Christ. No one can please God by simply obeying the Law. So we put our faith in Christ Jesus, and God accepted us because of our faith.
17. When we Jews started looking for a way to please God, we discovered that we are sinners too. Does this mean that Christ is the one who makes us sinners? No, it doesn't!
18. But if I tear down something and then build it again, I prove that I was wrong at first.
19. It was the Law itself that killed me and freed me from its power, so that I could live for God. I have been nailed to the cross with Christ.
20. I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.
21. I don't turn my back on God's undeserved kindness. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law, it was useless for Christ to die.
    
    

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    In this chapter Paul knocked the underpinnings out from under the false teachers (Judaizers) among the Galatian churches. First, he established that the apostalic leaders in Jerusalem accepted and affirmed him, his ministry, and his gospel message that salvation is by faith in Christ Jesus apart from the law. Second, he showed the fallacy of the Judaizer's teaching that circumcision and the law must be added to faith in Christ Jesus for salvation.
    
    Concerning the first point, Paul told of a trip he made to Jerusalem to see "those recognized as important." (2:6) This would be the apostolic leaders of the Jerusalem church to whom the Judaizers pointed for validation of their own teaching. Paul took with him on this visit both Barnabas and Titus. Titus was the person of interest on this visit for he was an uncircumcised Gentile believer who was being compelled by "false brothers" to be circumcised. Paul took him before "those recognized as important," to see what they would do about him, but they did not compel him to be circumcised, taking away any authority upon which the Judaizers in Galatia might try to base their teaching. Having eroded the authority on which the Judaizers based their teaching, Paul turned to the error behind the teaching.
    
    This issue was more than just a matter of interpretation or of preference. This being the case, Paul had challenged Peter when he attempted to appease Jewish Christians from Jerusalem by discontinuing fellowship with Gentile believers. What Paul challenged, and Peter did not consider, was that to allow any thinking that circumcision should be added to faith in Christ for salvation "then Christ died for nothing." Salvation is by Christ alone, not Christ plus something else. This is foundational to the gospel and to allow the teaching of the Judaizers to stand out of a desire not to offend would be to allow the gospel to be eroded and to become ineffective. And of greatest consequence, it would leave all those in their sins who trusted in the law rather than Christ alone for their salvation. There could be no compromise on this point. For Paul, the validity of his ministry was also at stake over this issue. If the teaching of the Judaizers was to take over in the Galatian churches, thus making the gospel ineffective, Paul's ministry among them would have been in vain. (2:2)