Galatians 1:6-24; Galatians 2:1-14

Galatians 1:6-24

6 I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ, and are accepting another gospel.

7 Actually, there is no "other gospel," but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ.

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell!

9 We have said it before, and now I say it again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel that is different from the one you accepted, may he be condemned to hell!

10 Does this sound as if I am trying to win human approval? No indeed! What I want is God's approval! Am I trying to be popular with people? If I were still trying to do so, I would not be a servant of Christ.

11 Let me tell you, my friends, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin.

12 I did not receive it from any human being, nor did anyone teach it to me. It was Jesus Christ himself who revealed it to me.

13 You have been told how I used to live when I was devoted to the Jewish religion, how I persecuted without mercy the church of God and did my best to destroy it.

14 I was ahead of most other Jews of my age in my practice of the Jewish religion, and was much more devoted to the traditions of our ancestors.

15 But God in his grace chose me even before I was born, and called me to serve him. And when he decided

16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach the Good News about him to the Gentiles, I did not go to anyone for advice,

17 nor did I go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me. Instead, I went at once to Arabia, and then I returned to Damascus.

18 It was three years later that I went to Jerusalem to obtain information from Peter, and I stayed with him for two weeks.

19 I did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord's brother.

20 What I write is true. God knows that I am not lying!

21 Afterward I went to places in Syria and Cilicia.

22 At that time the members of the churches in Judea did not know me personally.

23 They knew only what others were saying: "The man who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith that he once tried to destroy!"

24 And so they praised God because of me.

Galatians 2:1-14

1 Fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.

2 I went because God revealed to me that I should go. In a private meeting with the leaders I explained the gospel message that I preach to the Gentiles. I did not want my work in the past or in the present to be a failure.

3 My companion Titus, even though he is Greek, was not forced to be circumcised,

4 although some wanted it done. Pretending to be believers, these men slipped into our group as spies, in order to find out about the freedom we have through our union with Christ Jesus. They wanted to make slaves of us,

5 but in order to keep the truth of the gospel safe for you, we did not give in to them for a minute.

6 But those who seemed to be the leaders - I say this because it makes no difference to me what they were; God does not judge by outward appearances - those leaders, I say, made no new suggestions to me.

7 On the contrary, they saw that God had given me the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the task of preaching the gospel to the Jews.

8 For by God's power I was made an apostle to the Gentiles, just as Peter was made an apostle to the Jews.

9 James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be the leaders, recognized that God had given me this special task; so they shook hands with Barnabas and me, as a sign that we were all partners. We agreed that Barnabas and I would work among the Gentiles and they among the Jews.

10 All they asked was that we should remember the needy in their group, which is the very thing I have been eager to do.

11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him in public, because he was clearly wrong.

12 Before some men who had been sent by James arrived there, Peter had been eating with the Gentile believers. But after these men arrived, he drew back and would not eat with the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who were in favor of circumcising them.

13 The other Jewish believers also started acting like cowards along with Peter; and even Barnabas was swept along by their cowardly action.

14 When I saw that they were not walking a straight path in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you have been living like a Gentile, not like a Jew. How, then, can you try to force Gentiles to live like Jews?"