Galatians 2.1-5 KWL - 1 Afterwards, after 14 years,
- I went to Jerusalem again with Joseph Barnabas,
- taking along Titus as well.
- 2 I went, according to a revelation.
- I presented to them the gospel which I preach to the gentiles
- —in private, and to those apostles of note—
- lest somehow I might run, or was running, in vain.
- 3 But neither Titus, nor the Greeks with me,
- were forced to be circumcised
- 4 because of the infiltrating fake “fellow Christians”
- who snuck in amongst us to spy on our freedom we have in Christ Jesus,
- so they would enslave us.
- 5 We don’t yield to their position for even an hour,
- so that the gospel’s truth might continue among you all.
I gave kind of a timeline of Paul’s life in
Barnabas had been sent by the apostles to check out a church in Antioch, Syria, where Syrian Greeks—
I figure the year Paul moved to Antioch was anywhere between 38 and 41. See, at some point while they ministered in Antioch, the prophet Agabus said there’d be a famine,
Okay. So after their missionary trip, Luke told of the events which triggered the Council of Jerusalem:
Acts 15.1-2 KJV - 1 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. 2 When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.
The apostles did try to sort it out themselves, but the visitors from Judea weren’t at all willing to accept Barnabas and Paul’s view, nor authority. So the church leadership decided they’d better hear it from the Jerusalem church. We Christians recognize this as the first of the ancient church councils, where major theological issues were hashed out between all the leading Christians in the world… and of course after
In today’s passage, Paul only loosely refers to this. This text mainly refers to four things:
- He, Barnabas, Titus, and some other “Greeks” (really Greek-speaking Syrians) went to Jerusalem.
- He went “according to a revelation,” meaning the Holy Spirit told him to go. (He probably didn’t wanna!)
- He privately confirmed the gospel he was preaching with the top apostles, lest he was getting it wrong. (And he’s not.
Ga 1.8 ) - Those apostles never required Titus and the Greeks to be circumcised.
So basically Paul’s in the right. He made sure of it.