What follows is a selection from James and Galatians in The Everyday Bible Study series, which is designed for daily Bible readings with my reflections. The studies have proven helpful for lay folks who want to read the Bible better, as well as for Sunday School teachers and preachers and teachers who want some reading for their preparations.
The questions are written for each volume by Becky Castle Miller.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Galatians 2:1-10
2:1 Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the liberation we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.
Sometimes an event tells the whole story. Sometimes they are dramatic events. Think of the Selma march led by those protesting segregation. Leading the march are Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Arm in arm. Flanked by ministers – black and white – and social activists – black and white – and crowds behind them – black and white. They expressed solidarity in their resistance of injustice. What they did, because it turned into photos seen in the world, told the story of the call for racial reconciliation and integration.
I will never forget the day that I opened up the newspaper to see a woman on her knees with her hands stretched out, expressing the deep misery of “Why?” Her name was Mary Ann Vecchio. She was a fourteen-year-old runaway. It was Kent State University, May 4, 1970. I was sixteen. The National Guard troops fired a shot and killed a young man named Jeffrey Miller. The Vietnam conflict was being protested across the USA (and world). The event told us the Powers had too much power.
In both of these events, what the persons did not do – use violence – and what they did do – march in peaceful protests with a message – told the story.
In Galatians 2, the apostle Paul appeals to events, three of them. The first two are in the passage above and the third one in 2:11-14. First event: He takes Titus, “a Greek,” to Jerusalem. Second event: Paul’s message of liberation was affirmed by the most important gospel leaders of his day – Peter, James, Cephas, and John. The two stories, one focusing on what they did not do and one on what they did do, told the whole story even more than what was written to explain it.
What did not happen
Fourteen years after Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem (see Galatians 1:18-20), Paul returned (2:1). He was sent by the church in Antioch because of a revelation (cf. Acts 11:25-30) with his co-mission workers Barnabas and Titus. Titus was a gentile, a Greek, which means he was uncircumcised. Paul told the leaders there what he was preaching and how they were embodying the message of liberation living in the Christ Era.
The crucial event is this: “Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek” (Galatians 2:3). Circumcision was the sign of covenant membership (Genesis 17). It was, Genesis tells us, “an everlasting covenant” between God and Israel (17:13). Those in the community who choose not to be circumcised break the covenant (17:14). This is in the Bible for Paul’s critics in Galatia, and you can bet they were quoting it the way my father quoted the King James Bible. Gentile converts to Judaism were circumcised. It was for them what baptism is for Christians. In an Old Testament apocryphal book called Judith, we read of a man named Achior who turned to Israel’s God in faith and was circumcised and thus “admitted to the community of Israel” (Judith 14:10). Those who participated in Judaism but didn’t undergo circumcision were called Godfearers. As Peter preached the gospel to the gentile Cornelius and those who were with him, “the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message,” seen in their speaking in tongues (Acts 10:44-46). They are then baptized (10:47-48), and Peter goes away. I’m guessing you didn’t notice something. Paul’s critics and some believers in Jerusalem surely noticed that Peter did not require circumcision of this gentile convert!
Not requiring Titus to be circumcised is the event that tells the story that converts to Jesus are free from that ancient practice. A new community was being formed with a new rite of entry: baptism. What did not happen tells the story of shifting from the Moses Era into the Christ Era. Paul upends the demand of Paul’s critics that gentiles who come into the faith without circumcision are Godfearers and not converts. No, Paul says, all that is needed is faith in Christ formalized in baptism. If circumcision, which embodies full observance of the law of Moses, was not required for Titus, then surely it wasn’t a requirement for anyone, and Paul grins, stating implicitly that the Jerusalem leaders were in his corner on this one.
In fact, a discussion occurred about Titus. Paul calls the proponents of the rite for Titus “false believers” or “false siblings” and, to use the term of David deSilva, they weaseled their way into the gathering, and their purpose was “to spy on the freedom we have in Christ” (Galatians 2:4). He ramps it up more than one notch when he says they did this “to make us slaves.” Which is a way of saying moving from the Christ Era back to the Moses Era! Paul refuses to back down to sustain “the truth of the gospel” (2:5).
Events matter and can tell the story. In this case, what did not happen and thus what was not required told the story by embodying this shift from the Moses Era to the Christ Era. This was the perfect chance for the leaders in Jerusalem to require the rite. They didn’t because they knew it was not required. To make it clear, this is like a Baptist not requiring baptism or a Catholic not requiring mass.
Some churches don’t require what other churches do. Some say, You don’t have to read this translation. Some say, You don’t have to believe in one form of Christian theology or you don’t have to belong to that political party or you don’t have to be white or you don’t have to be of this social class to be in our family. Instead, it is what they don’t do and don’t require that tells the story that “Anyone accepted by Christ is good enough for us.” Some churches don’t permit women to be elders or deacons or preach or teach. What they don’t do or don’t permit also tells the story.
What did happen
I like the next paragraph in this passage for an odd reason. After arguing very hard for his total independence from the Jerusalem authorities in chapter one, Paul shifts. Truth be told, he says with a wink, wink and a nod, nod, “By the way, the major leaders all embraced my liberation message!” He didn’t get his message from them, and he didn’t need their endorsement, but, now that you bring it up, he tells them, they did validate my message. He appeals to their status: “those who were held in high esteem” (2:6; see also 2:2) and “those esteemed to be pillars” (2:9). He names them, and everyone agrees these are the major players: Peter, James, Cephas, and John. He makes it clear again their status doesn’t matter to him because his message is from God (2:6: “whatever they were makes no difference to me”). He states that “they added nothing to his message” – backing up to what they did not do. He then states what they did do:
1. “they recognized” (2:7),
2. that “God … was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles” (2:8),
3. that they “gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship” (2:9) by endorsing the “grace [gift] given to me” (2:9),
4. they “agreed” on equal but separate missions (2:9),
5. and they asked him to find support for the poor in Jerusalem (2:10).
Each of these actions alone embodies official endorsement of the Pauline mission. Again, we keep his mission in mind: preaching the gospel to gentiles, forming churches made up Judean and gentile believers, and not requiring gentile converts to Jesus to observe the whole law of Moses. The apostles of Jerusalem’s church – and this is as close as the church got to the Vatican in the first century – endorsed and embraced the Pauline gospel mission. Paul agreed to what became a life-passion, raising funds for the poor of Jerusalem (McKnight), which demonstrated the unity of the church. One can read about this passion in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Romans 15:25-31.
We experience embodied affirmations of a person as endorsements of their ministry. In the Spring of 2021, our local church, Church of the Redeemer, ordained Amanda Holm Rosengren. After she spent a decade leading us in worship, preaching, and pastoring our church along with our rector Jay Greener, a bishop from Rwanda came to our church, laid hands on her, and publicly endorsed her as a minister of the Word and Sacrament. What he did and what we did – not a few joyous tears appearing – told the story of her calling, her giftedness, and our belief that God calls Jews and gentiles, slave and free, and both women and men into the ministry. What we did mattered.
Events can tell the whole story. The event of not requiring Titus to be circumcised and the event of endorsing Paul’s mission tells the story that gentile believers don’t have to observe the law of Moses. Therefore, the critics of Paul who are persuading and even coercing (2:3, 14; 6:12) gentile believers to undergo Israel’s covenant rite are wrong about the very truth of the gospel!
Questions for Reflection and Application
1. If events can tell the whole story, what are the important events in this passage that tell the story of what God required of gentile believers?
2. What was the difference between converts to Judaism and Godfearers?
3. Were you surprised by the telling of Cornelius’s conversion here? Why or why not? Had you ever considered the importance of what Peter did not do? How does this detail impact your view of that narrative?
4. What “events that tell the whole story” stand out in your memory of your own lifetime, such as the examples given in the opening of this chapter?
5. Baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of conversion for Christians. What was your baptism experience like? What did you see, feel, hear, and believe?
For further reading:
https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article250930469.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/martin-luther-king-abraham-heschel_b_8929718
David deSilva, Galatians
Scot McKnight, Pastor Paul, 83-99.
Tom Schreiner, “Circumcision,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 2d edition (Downers Grove: IVP, 2022), pp. xxx-xxx.
‘Circumcision was the sign of covenant membership (Genesis 17). It was, Genesis tells us, “an everlasting covenant” between God and Israel (17:13). ‘
‘What did not happen tells the story of shifting from the Moses Era into the Christ Era.’
This is what stood out to me. “Everlasting covenant” shifts from Moses Era into the Christ Era. So my thought is are we misinterpreting what God meant with “Everlasting Covenant”? Because it does change which makes it easy to say Genesis 17:13 is wrong. I know God this was only between God and Israel also. Could God mean it as eternity with Jesus and not meant to have every generation be circumcised? Interesting post today! Got me thinking.... Thank you.