Galatians 2:1-10
One quick comment – Paul will frustrate you with his parenthetical expressions (vv. 2, 4, 6, 8; occasionally comments set off by dashes instead of parentheses). These side comments can easily distract you from his main point in the rest of the sentence. So my advice to you is to jump over these parenthetical expressions and read the full sentence by itself; it will be much more clear. Then go back to what he has said in the parenthetical expressions – what he has said there is relevant and worthwhile. [BTW, different translations may or may not set those comments off by themselves. The ESV clearly sets them off.]
I was confused in verse 2, Paul talking about a trip to Jerusalem: I went up because of a revelation… I didn’t recall any revelation for Paul other than his initial encounter with Jesus and his time in the Arabian desert. So I went back to Acts 15. Verse 2 reports that Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem…, followed immediately by the beginning of verse 3, So, being sent on their way by the church… So I imagine that the “revelation” that Paul mentions could have been a corporate Holy Spirit witness to Paul, Barnabas, and the Antioch leaders rather than a personal revelation to Paul.
In an earlier post about the Jerusalem Council, in the context of the much-debated circumcision issue, I had said that I imagined that Barnabas and Paul and the Jerusalem leaders had taken time to discuss this item among themselves. Paul’s parenthetical expression in verse 2 seems to confirm this: (though privately before those who seemed influential). A small item, but worthy of note.
It is troubling to see dissension being sown in this early church: Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in… (v. 4). In Acts 15:1 these “Judaizers” had come to Antioch, openly expressing (maybe demanding) their position: Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Theirs was a very different approach than the one mentioned in verse 4, “secretly brought in”. Troubling…
I guess I could go on and on, but enough is enough!
Slava Bohu!
I too thought about the word “revealed”. God revealed the need to go confer with Jerusalem leaders about circumcision as well as humbly making sure he was preaching the complete true Gospel. Peter, James, and John added nothing to what he was preaching. This time, I think it is a follow up to the Council in Acts because he only meets with the leaders here. They only asked this time for the Gentiles to remember the poor, presumably in Jerusalem because of the famine. We also need to remember the poor.