Welcome to our website where we explore the Bible! Pleasure to meet you here!
May your journey into the world of the Holy Scriptures be engaging and inspiring!
You can change reading language: uk ru
Parallel
New Living Translation
New King James Version
The Apostles Accept Paul
Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too.
Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too.
Defending the Gospel
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me.
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me.
I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing.
Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage),
But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.
to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.)
Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews.
But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter
For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.
(for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles),
Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.
They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.
Paul Confronts Peter
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.
When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.
As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
“You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles.
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”d
But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not!
“But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!
Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.
For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law — I stopped trying to meet all its requirements — so that I might live for God.
For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.