The Council at Jerusalem
Galatians 2Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, taking along Titus also. I went up because of a revelation, and I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the ethnic groups, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who snuck in to spy on our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into bondage. We did not give into their subjection, not even for an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might continue with y’all.
As for the respected ones—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God isn’t taken by the faces of humans—the respected ones imparted nothing to me. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the gospel for the circumcised. For he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the ethnic groups. When they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the ethnic groups, and they to the circumcised. They only asked that we would remember the poor, which I was also eager to do.
Paul Confronts Cephas (Peter)
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before some people came from James, he used to eat with the ethnic groups. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcised. And the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the ethnic groups to live as the Jews do?
“We who are Jews by nature and not sinners from the ethnic groups, know that a human is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. We have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. But if while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, does that mean Christ is a deacon of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild the things I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”