(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
Paul’s story continues
- Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, having taken Titus with me also.
- And I went up because of a revelation and related to them the gospel that I preach among the gentiles (but did so privately to the esteemed men) lest in some way I run or ran in vain.
- But not even Titus who was with me – though being a Greek – was compelled to be circumcised,
- but because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who infiltrated us to spy on our liberty which we have in Jesus the Anointed, hoping that they will enslave us.
- To whom we didn’t yield in obedience even for an hour so the truth of the gospel might remain for you.
- And from the men esteemed to be something (what sort of men they were before makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality1“God shows no partiality” is more literally “God doesn’t accept the face of man”. To “accept the face” is a Hebrew idiom meaning to show partiality or favoritism to someone.) for the esteemed men added nothing to my message.
- But on the contrary, having seen that I have been entrusted to spread the gospel to the uncircumcised (just as Peter is to the circumcised,
- for the One who worked in Peter’s apostleship to the circumcised also worked in me toward the gentiles)
- and having known the grace which was given to me, James and Cephas2“Cephas” is Aramaic for “a rock”, and is another name for the disciple/apostle Peter. and John – the men esteemed to be pillars – gave Barnabas and me the right hand of partnership so we might go to the gentiles, but they to the circumcised.
- They only asked that we remember the poor; and I was eager to do that same thing.
Paul Confronts Peter
- But when Cephas3“Cephas” is Aramaic for “a rock”, and is another name for the disciple/apostle Peter. came to Antioch, I firmly opposed him to his face because he was *condemning himself.
- For he was eating with the gentiles before some men came from James. But when they came, he was withdrawing and was separating himself, fearing the circumcised men.
- And the rest of the Jews also acted hypocritically with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
- But when I saw that they aren’t walking uprightly with regard to the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas4“Cephas” is Aramaic for “a rock”, and is another name for the disciple/apostle Peter. in front of all of them, “If you (being a Jew) live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?”
- We’re Jews by birth and aren’t sinners from among the gentiles.
- But *knowing that a man isn’t made righteous by works of the law but through faith in Jesus the Anointed, we also believed in Jesus the Anointed so we might be made righteous by faith in the Anointed and not by works of the law, because no flesh will be made righteous by works of the law.
- But if seeking to be made righteous in the Anointed and we ourselves were found sinners, then is the Anointed a servant of sin? May it never be!
- For if I build again those things which I tore down, I establish myself as a deliberate sinner.
- For through the law, I died to the law so I might live to God.
- I have been crucified with the Anointed; and I no longer live, but the Anointed lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God; the One who ^loved me and gave Himself for my sake.
- I don’t set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law then the Anointed died for nothing.
Next: Galatians chapter 3
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