Grace Makes Room at the Table

Paul describes going to Jerusalem after fourteen years, taking Barnabas and Titus with him. God had directed him to go. In a private meeting, Paul explained the good news he preached among the Gentiles. He wanted to make sure that division would not harm that work. Titus was Greek, yet the leaders did not require him to be circumcised, the physical sign of belonging to Israel under the law. That mattered because false believers had slipped in to attack the freedom Christians have in Christ. They wanted to make keeping Jewish law a requirement for belonging to God's people. Paul would not give in. I see care for the Galatians in his firmness. He was protecting the truth that Jesus is enough for everyone who trusts Him.

The respected leaders in Jerusalem added no new requirements to Paul's message. Paul was not careless about their role, but he knew that God does not judge people by their rank. These leaders recognized that God was working through Paul among the Gentiles, just as He was working through Peter among the Jews. James, Peter, and John offered Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, a public sign of welcome and shared work. Their main fields of service differed, but their good news was the same. They also asked Paul to remember the poor, something he was already eager to do. Grace does not make us cold toward human need. The same faith that joins us to Christ joins us to people who need our care.

When Peter came to Antioch, he ate with Gentile believers. Sharing meals showed that he welcomed them as members of God's family. But after certain men came from James, Peter pulled back. Paul says Peter feared those who insisted on circumcision; he does not say James ordered this withdrawal. Other Jewish believers followed Peter's example, and even Barnabas was carried along. Paul confronted Peter openly because his public behavior went against the truth of the good news. Peter had lived freely among Gentiles, yet now his actions pressured them to adopt Jewish ways. Don't rush past this: a person can speak about grace while acting as though grace is not enough. Peter's fear built a wall where Christ had brought people together.

Paul speaks from the shared background he and Peter had as Jews. They had received God's law, unlike the Gentiles whom Jews commonly labeled sinners. Yet even they had trusted Christ to be made right with God. This is what being justified means: God declares a person right with Him. Keeping the law cannot give anyone that standing. Paul then answers an objection. If Jewish believers leave the law behind as the way to gain God's acceptance and are called sinners for doing so, does that make Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not. The wrong lies in rebuilding the barrier they had already torn down. Returning to law-keeping as the basis of acceptance would deny what they had learned through Christ. Jesus is not leading them into sin by teaching them to trust Him.

Paul explains that through the law he died to the law so that he could live for God. The law exposed sin, but it could not give him the life he needed. Joined to Christ in His death, Paul no longer looked to the law to make him right with God. His old life had ended, and Christ now lived in him. Paul still lived an ordinary human life, but faith in God's Son shaped it from within. I love how personal this becomes: Christ's love and willing death were for Paul himself, not merely for some distant crowd. Grace did not free Paul from caring about God; it freed him to live for God. If keeping the law could make us right with God, Christ's death would have been needless.