Book of Common Prayer

Controversy and vindication

11 The apostles, and the brothers and sisters with them in Judaea, heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who wanted to emphasize circumcision took issue with him.

³ “Why did you do it?” they asked. “Why did you go in to visit uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

⁴ So Peter began to explain it all, step by step.

⁵ “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and I was praying. I was in a trance, and I saw a vision: something like a great sail suspended by its four corners was let down from heaven, and came towards me. ⁶ I stared at it, then I began to look in, and I saw four-footed land animals, wild beasts, reptiles and birds of the air. ⁷ I heard a voice, saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!’ ⁸ ‘Certainly not, Lord,’ I replied. ‘Nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth!’ ⁹ Then the voice came from heaven a second time: ‘What God made clean, you must not regard as common.’ ¹⁰ All this happened three times, and then the whole lot was drawn back up into heaven.

¹¹ “Just then, suddenly, three men appeared at the house where I was, sent to me from Caesarea. ¹² The spirit told me to go with them, without raising scrupulous objections. These six brothers also came with me, and we went into the man’s house. ¹³ He told us that he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and fetch Simon called Peter, ¹⁴ who will speak to you words by which you and all your house will be saved.’ ¹⁵ As I began to speak, the holy spirit fell on them, just as the spirit did on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word which the Lord had spoken: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the holy spirit.’

¹⁷ “So, then,” Peter concluded, “if God gave them the same gift as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus the Messiah, who was I to stand in the way of God?”

¹⁸ When they heard this, they had nothing more to say. They praised God.

“Well, then,” they declared, “God has given the Gentiles, too, the repentance that leads to life!”

Standing firm against opposition

2 Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem. I took Barnabas with me, and Titus. ² I went up because of a revelation. I laid before them the gospel which I announce among the Gentiles (I did this privately, in the presence of the key people), in case somehow I might be running, or might have run, to no good effect. ³ But even the Greek, Titus, who was with me, was not forced to get circumcised . . . ⁴ but because of some pseudo-family members who had been secretly smuggled in, who came in on the side to spy on the freedom which we have in the Messiah, Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery . . . ⁵ I didn’t yield authority to them, no, not for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be maintained for you.

Paul’s agreement with Peter and James

⁶ However, those who appeared to be Something—what sort of “thing” they were makes no difference to me, God shows no partiality—those of reputation added nothing extra to me. ⁷ On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcision, just as Peter had been with the gospel for the circumcision ⁸ (for the one who gave Peter the power to be an apostle to the circumcision gave me the power to go to the Gentiles). They knew, moreover, the grace that had been given to me. ⁹ So James, Cephas and John, who were reputed to be “pillars,” gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.