Galatians 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Recounting events roughly fourteen years apart in the AD 30s and 40s
Location
Jerusalem, then the mixed Jewish and Greek city of Antioch in Syria
Audience
Galatian believers hearing that the leading apostles had already settled this question
Situation
Paul describes a private meeting in Jerusalem where the leaders accepted his mission to non-Jews without requiring circumcision, then a public clash in Antioch where he confronted Peter for withdrawing from shared meals with non-Jewish believers.
Key Background
Eating together was the practical test of whether two groups counted as one community, and Jewish food and purity customs made shared tables genuinely difficult, so Peter's withdrawal was not a small breach of manners. Circumcision was the physical mark of belonging to the Jewish people, and in the Greek world it was also socially awkward, which raised the cost of the demand being made on Galatian men. Paul's phrase about being made right with God through trust rather than through observing the law is stated here for the first time in his surviving letters, and the rest of the letter unpacks it.
Then, fourteen years later, I went up to again with and I brought along too.
I went because to me that I should. And I laid out for them the that I've been announcing among — though I did this privately with the — to make sure I wasn't running, or hadn't already run, for nothing.
But not even Titus, who was with me — a — was forced to be
This issue came up because some had been smuggled in — people who snuck in to spy on the we have in the so they could drag us back into
We didn't give in to them for even a moment, so that the of the would be preserved for you.
As for those who were — whatever they used to be makes no difference to me; — those recognized leaders added nothing to my message.
Instead, they saw that I had been entrusted with the good news for the just as had been entrusted with it for the circumcised.
Because the same God who Peter as an to the circumcised also me as an to the non-Jewish people.
And when Peter, and John — the ones recognized as — saw the given to me, they with Barnabas and me as a sign of We would go to the non-Jewish people, and they would go to the circumcised.
They only asked that we remember the — which was already something I was eager to do.
But when Peter came to I to because he was clearly in the wrong.
Before certain people came from James, Peter used to with non-Jewish believers. But when they arrived, he started pulling back and separating himself, because he was afraid of the
The rest of the Jewish believers joined in his too, so that even Barnabas got up in their act.
But when I saw that they weren't with the truth of the good news, I said to Peter in of "If you, a Jewish person, have been living like a non-Jewish person and not like a Jewish person, how can you now force non-Jewish people to live like Jews?"
"We are by not from the
Yet we know that no one is with by doing what the demands, but only through in the One Jesus. So we too have put our in the One Jesus, so that we could be with through in the One — and not by doing what the demands — because no human being will ever be with by doing what the demands.
But if, while trying to be made right with God through the One, we ourselves turn out to be too — does that make the One an of not!
Because if I the very system I tore down, I prove that I was wrong to tear it down in the first place.
Because through the I to the — so that I could live for God.
I have been on the with the I am alive, but it's no longer me — it's the in me. The life I now live in this body, I live by the of who loved me and up for me.
I'm not going to God's Because if being with comes through the law, then the for