Sha’ul’s Letter to the Galatians ~ Part 4

We pause the ongoing story of Sha’ul to examine his Letter to the Galatians.

Note: To examine the graphics in this series, click on them for a pop-up version.

In our last post, we left off in Chapter 1 with Sha’ul describing his travels throughout Asia Minor. In this post, he recounts going down to Yerushalayim.

Gentile Evangelism Accepted

2 ¹ Then after fourteen years I again went up to Yerushalayim, this time with Bar-Nabba; and I took with me Titus. ² I went up in obedience to a revelation, and I explained to them the Good News as I proclaim it among the Gentiles – but privately, to the acknowledged leaders. I did this out of concern that my current or previous work might have been in vain.

Sha’ul explained … the Good News he was preaching to the leaders (at least Ya’akov, Kefa, and Yochanon) for helpful discussion. The phrase might have been in vain, but it reflects concern over brewing disunity in the kehilah.

³ But they didn’t force my Gentile companion Titus to undergo b’rit-milah (circumcision). ⁴ Indeed, the question came up only because some men who pretended to be brothers had been sneaked in – they came in surreptitiously to spy out the freedom we have in the Messiah Yeshua so that they might enslave us. ⁵ Not even for a minute did we give in to them so that the truth of the Good News might be preserved for you.

To make it clear that he had not adjusted his Gospel message during this private conference with the kehilah leadership in Yerushalayim, Sha’ ul used Titus as a test case. Had Sha’ul caved into the view that had recently been preached in the Galatian kehilah’s (that a Gentile needed to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic law to become a Believer;( 2:16; 5:2–3), Titus, a Gentile convert, would have been compelled to be circumcised, but he was not, reflecting the fact that the recognized community leaders in Yerushalayim accepted Sha’ul’s Gospel.

⁶ Moreover, those who were the acknowledged leaders—what they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by outward appearances – these leaders added nothing to me. ⁷ On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the Uncircumcised, just as Kefa had been for the Circumcised; ⁸ since the One working in Kefa to make him an emissary to the Circumcised had worked in me to make me an emissary to the Gentiles.

Sha’ul was not saying in these verses that there are two different Gospel messages. Instead, God appointed him as the emissary to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21; Romans 11:13), and Kefa served as an emissary to the Jews. God was at work in each ministry.

⁹ So, having perceived what grace had been given to me, Ya’akov, Kefa, and Yochanan, the acknowledged pillars of the community, extended to me and Bar-Nabba the right hand of fellowship; so that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the Circumcised. ¹⁰ Their only request was that we should remember the poor – which very thing I have spared no pains to do.

See Acts 11:27–30, 12:25, 24:17; Romans 15:25–27; 1 Corinthians 16:1–4; and 2 Corinthians 8:1–9:15 for evidence not merely that Sha’ul spared no pains to remember the poor of Yerushalayim, but that he regarded it as only just, a matter of principle, for Gentiles to give material support to Jews. Presumably, this aid benefited both the Messianic and the non-Messianic Jewish poor; there is no reason to suppose otherwise.

¹¹ Furthermore, when Kefa came to Antioch, I opposed him publicly because he was clearly in the wrong.

Because of the hypocritical behavior of Kefa in Antioch, Sha’ul opposed him to his face (see v. 14 below).

¹² For prior to the arrival of certain people from [the community headed by] Ya’akov, he had been eating with the Gentile believers, but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself because he was afraid of the faction who favored circumcising Gentile believers. ¹³ And the other Jewish believers became hypocrites along with him so that even Bar-Nabba was led astray by their hypocrisy.

Kefa’s fear-based hypocrisy was even more flagrant because, besides eating with the Gentiles in the kehilah at Syrian Antioch, he had been previously instructed by a vision to fellowship with Cornelius, the Gentile. The words of Ya’akov at the Yerushalayim Council did not reflect that he believed Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be Believers (cp. Acts 15:1–5 with Acts 15:13–21), but Ya’akov did counsel respect by the Gentiles for traditional Jewish practices (Acts 15:20–21). Kefa’s hypocrisy swayed the rest of the Jews in the kehilah at Antioch, including Bar-Nabba.

¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not walking a straight path, keeping in line with the truth of the Good News, I said to Kefa, right in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Goy and not like a Jew, why are you forcing the Goyim to live like Jews? ^[1]

As soon as Sha’ul determined that the truth of the Gospel was hanging in the balance, he confronted Kefa in front of everyone (i.e., in a kehilah meeting). Kefa’s behavior in eating Gentile meals before the group “from Ya’akov’s letter” arrived in Antioch (vv. 11–12) showed he believed it was right to live like a Gentile among Gentiles. Thus, his later decision to compel the Gentiles in the kehilah at Antioch to live like Jews was seen as inconsistent and hypocritical.

In our next post, we will continue to explore Sha’ul’s Letter to the Galatians, starting in chapter 2:15.

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^[1] Galatians 2:1-14.