Galatians 2: Freedom in Jesusنموونە

In verses 6 to 10, Paul says that in his discussions with Peter and the other leaders they came to recognise the wonderful way in which God had used him in preaching to the non-Jews in Asia Minor. 

In fact, they all agreed that God had clearly called Paul to ‘go to the Gentiles’ (to the non-Jews), just as God had clearly given Peter and the others the task of preaching to the Jews (the ‘circumcised ‘, verse 9).

This was an important recognition of Paul’s ministry on the part of Peter, James and John, the senior disciples who had been with Jesus. They could easily have dismissed Paul, since he had not been one of those who had travelled around Palestine with Jesus when He was alive.

As Jews, they could easily have been suspicious of Paul’s claim to have had a vision of the risen Christ, and to have been commissioned personally by Him to preach the Gospel to the non-Jews. If they had rejected his claim, it would not have changed Paul’s determination one bit! He would have gone on preaching, whatever. 

Their ‘stamp of approval’ (verse 6) did not ‘add’ anything to the authority that he had already received from the Lord Himself (see Acts 26: 16-18). It’s just possible, however, that had they not accepted his authority as being of God, then we might not have about half of the New Testament (Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books)! 

In verse 10, they all agreed that they should remember and support those who were not as well off as they were. They were to help ‘the poor’. This tiny statement about helping the poor is an indicator of the way the early Christians saw things. 

They knew that they had experienced God’s wonderful blessing in their lives, and not only were they anxious to speak about it to others, but they were also keen to show something of God’s love by helping in practical ways those who needed their help.

Previously, we talked about grace. Grace really means God’s loving-kindness. It means that God is always setting out to do us good. There is never a moment when He is not showering us with His blessings. He does it with no strings attached. 

In other words: He doesn’t just bless us when we are doing good. He is gracious to us all the time. He is always doing us good.

Once we really begin to see this, then we will begin to shower others with love too. We will begin to be gracious to others. It will be the overflow of His love to us. We will be demonstrating His love to others as a reflection of His love to us. In fact it will be His love in us.

Can you see that we will never really care for the needs of others if we do not first see how much God has cared for us? We will never want to share His truth with those who have not heard, if we are not sure of the truth ourselves. 

If we think that it finally depends on us ‘performing’ or ‘doing’ certain things before God is satisfied with us and can accept us, then we will never know if we have done enough! It will always depend on us. Such a belief is a contradiction of grace. It denies the fact that God does it all out of His unmerited love for us.

Down through the centuries, the purity of the Gospel has constantly been under threat. We’re such proud creatures that we will always want to have a hand in our salvation somewhere. Our ego demands it. The moment we yield to that temptation, we have, in fact, polluted the Gospel. We have denied grace. That’s what was happening in Galatia, and Paul knew that he had to do something about it very quickly. This is what he was fighting for in the Galatian church.

And it is the same great principle of grace that we must fight for today. You and I will constantly be tempted in a hundred different ways to think that we have to do something in order to be in God’s favour, or at least to stay in His favour. 

Not so. We need only come back each day to the cross, and know that there He made an end of all our sin. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God or to anyone else. He has done it all. He accepts us just as we are. Our salvation and our ongoing acceptance by Him is all of grace.