Galatians 2:6-10

 

Rachel Workman: ⁶ And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) ⁷ Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. ⁸ For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.

⁹ In fact, James, Peter,^[c] and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. ¹⁰ Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.

We need to recognize the fact that God calls people to different ministries in different places; yet we all preach the same gospel and are seeking to work together to build His church. Among those who know and love Christ, there can be no such thing as “competition.” Peter was a great man, and perhaps the leading apostle; yet he gladly yielded to Paul, a newcomer, and welcomed him to carry on his ministry as the Lord led him.

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John Burnett:  But from those who [b]were of high reputation (what they were, makes no difference to me; God [c]shows no partiality)—well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me. 7 But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel [d]to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been [e]to the circumcised 8 (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship [f]to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, [g]James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right [h]hand of fellowship so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do.  Paul is just starting his ministry and James, Peter, and John had given him Barnabas as a partner in his mission to spread the Gospel to the gentiles (uncircumcised).  Thank God for his plan to convert Paul and use him to bring the Gospel to us gentiles and write most of the second half of the New Testament.

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Tomorrow’s reading for Galatians 2:11-16

¹¹ But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. ¹² When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. ¹³ As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?

¹⁵ “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. ¹⁶ Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”^[d]