Confirmation of Paul’s leadership

2 Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, and I took Titus along also.

⁹ James, Cephas, and John, who are considered to be key leaders, shook hands with me and Barnabas as equals when they recognized the grace that was given to me. So it was agreed that we would go to the Gentiles, while they continue to go to the people who were circumcised. ¹⁰ They asked only that we would remember the poor, which was certainly something I was willing to do.

The Jewish-Gentile controversy

¹¹ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was wrong. ¹² He had been eating with the Gentiles before certain people came from James. But when they came, he began to back out and separate himself, because he was afraid of the people who promoted circumcision. ¹³ And the rest of the Jews also joined him in this hypocrisy so that even Barnabas got carried away with them in their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that they weren’t acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, though you’re a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you require the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

¹⁵ We are born Jews—we’re not Gentile sinners. ¹⁶ However, we know that a person isn’t made righteous by the works of the Law but rather through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We ourselves believed in Christ Jesus so that we could be made righteous by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the Law—because no one will be made righteous by the works of the Law.

¹⁹ I died to the Law through the Law, so that I could live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me.

²⁷ All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ Now if you belong to Christ, then indeed you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.