Galatians 2:1-10--Paul Accepted by the Apostles

Paul Accepted by the Apostles
2 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery-- 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

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Paul laid out the case for why he was an apostle in chapter 1, but said that since he received the gospel straight from the Lord, he didn't seek the approval of the other apostles before being sent out.  However, Paul does make it clear here in chapter 2 that after 14 years of minister, he did go back Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus because of a revelation set before him (see Acts 15), to publicly set before the church the gospel that was being preached to the Gentiles, and to make sure that the Gentile believers would be accepted as part of the body of Christ and that the work that Paul had done and was doing was not in vain (we'll see in the next part of chapter 2 why this may have been of some concern to Paul when Peter seemed to become legalistic and started to preach a "gospel plus" message which Paul needed to oppose).

Paul was relieved that Titus, one of the Gentile believers that accompanied Paul on his journeys and helped him pastor some of the churches, was not forced to be circumcised (an outward sign of the Old Covenant) in order to be welcomed by the Jewish members of the Church.  While we will see that in other places Timothy (another of Paul's spiritual sons) was circumcised, Titus intentionally was not to stand up against the lies of the Judaisers who claimed that you must first become Jewish and adhere to the Old Covenant (the Law) before you could become a Christian.  So, Paul intentionally encouraged Titus to not be circumcised so that it would be clear that Paul's ministry was not giving into the false gospel preached by the Judaisers.

Paul then says that some of that time seemed to think of some leaders in the Church as superior to others and to say things like "I am of Peter" or "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos" (see 1 Corinthians 1).  Paul says he doesn't care about any of that, and we've seen that already in the first chapter of Galatians as he says that he's not here to be a crowd-pleaser and this is not a popularity contest for him and if it was, he would not be a servant of Christ or preaching the real gospel.  He only cared about pleasing God and staying true to the message that God had given to him.  Paul then adds, to be abundantly clear, that his meeting with the apostles for the Jerusalem Council added taught him nothing new and didn't change one bit the gospel that he had been preaching to the Gentiles, nor did it enlighten him in any way to show him something truth that he might have missed by not being one of the original Twelve or someone who had been with them "from the beginning" (one of their own criteria that they set on who would replace Judas Iscariot in the book of Acts) because Paul learned everything he needed to know straight from Jesus and through the revelation given to Him by the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the apostles saw that Paul had become the spokesman of the front-runner of taking the gospel to the Gentiles like how Peter had been in taking the gospel to the Jews, but don't forget that Paul also preached the gospel to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, and Peter did the same (we see that Peter was the one who went to the house of Cornelius when the Holy Spirit came upon the first Gentile believers).  Peter and Paul were working together to complete the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  It was not the ministry of Peter and the ministry of Paul, but the ministry of the Holy Spirit who used multiple apostles (but specifically Peter and Paul) to accomplish His great purposes for the establishing and building the Church of Jesus Christ.

Then we see that Peter, James (the brother of Jesus, not the brother of John) and John--the leaders of the early Church in Jerusalem--all saw the grace and ministry that had been given to Paul and Barnabas and welcomed them as friends and brothers in Christ in their shared ministry of The Great Commission, and commissioned them publicly and officially to continue their work of taking the gospel to the Gentiles, and we'll see from this point forward that these Church leaders will come together with Paul to help fight against the false teachers who were teaching a "gospel plus" message (or a "gospel minus" message).  Specifically we will see Peter take a bold stand in his epistles against the Judaisers who had been harassing Paul and put people in their place who accused Paul of being on another team--Peter would say that Paul's letters were equally inspired by the Holy Spirit as the rest of Scripture and that anyone who said they were hard to understand as an excuse for not being obedient to them had a problem with God the Holy Spirit and not with Paul.  (See 2 Peter 3:15-17).

So what was the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council?  We see it in Acts 15 that I referenced earlier, but Paul gives a summary here to say that they agreed that Paul and Barnabas were to go to the Gentiles and that Peter, James, and John were to go to the Jews, and that Paul should not forget about the poor as part of his ministry.  I encourage you to go back and read Acts 15 along with this passage to get some more context and see how it ties in with what Paul is writing about to the Church in Galatia here.