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The church leaders in Jerusalem agreed with Paul
1-2 Then, 14 years later, God told me to go to Jerusalem again. This time I went with Barnabas, and I took Titus with me too. We had a little meeting there, with just the important church people, and I told them all about the message that I teach to the people that are not Jews. I wanted to see if they agreed with what I was doing. I didn’t want anyone to mess up my work.*
3-4 You see, Titus was there with me, and he is a Greek man, not a Jew. But there were some Jewish men that came secretly into the church in Jerusalem. They reckoned they believed in Jesus, but they didn’t really trust him properly. They only came into the church to see what we were doing. And they reckoned that Titus had to follow the Jewish law and have a young man operation. But, you see, if we belong to Jesus Christ, we are free from that law. But those men wanted to force us to keep that law. 5 But we didn’t listen to them, not even a little bit. We knew they were wrong. So we didn’t tell Titus to have that young man operation. You see, we only want to teach the true message about Jesus, and we want you mob to keep on believing that true message.
6 The Christians in Jerusalem reckon their leaders are important, but it doesn’t matter to me if they are important, or not. God treats everybody the same way.* Anyway, those leaders agreed that I was already teaching the true message about Jesus, and that I wasn’t leaving anything out. 7 No, they understood that God gave me a special job, just like he gave Peter a special job. God told me to tell the good news about Jesus to the people that are not Jews. And he told Peter to tell that same good news to the Jewish people. 8 God gave Peter the power to be his messenger to the Jews. And God gave me the power to be his messenger to the people that are not Jews.
9 The 3 very important leaders in Jerusalem were James, Peter and John. They heard how much God helped Barnabas and me in our work, and they understood that God gave me this special job. Then they were happy with us, and they shook hands with us to show that they are our friends. They agreed that we had to go to people that are not Jews, and they themselves had to go to the Jewish people. 10 The only other thing that they asked us to do was to help the poor Christians. And that was what I myself really wanted to do.
Paul told Peter, “You are wrong”
11 You know, Peter came to the city called Antioch to visit us Christians there. At that time, I had to straighten him out. I stood up in front of everybody, and I said, “Peter, you are wrong.”
12-13 You see, it was like this. Peter is a Jewish man, and at first he was friends with the Christians at Antioch that were not Jews. He even broke the Jewish rules and ate food with them. But then James sent some other Jewish men to Antioch, and after they got there, Peter changed. Those new men reckoned that every Christian has to become a Jew, and Peter was frightened of them. He went back to following the Jewish rules and stopped eating food with those people that were not Jews. All the other Jewish Christians at Antioch were frightened too, and they did the same as Peter, even though they knew it was wrong. And Barnabas did that too. He stopped eating food with people that are not Jews.
14 I knew that they were not properly following God’s true message, so I talked straight to Peter in front of everyone. I said, “Listen, Peter, you are wrong. You are a Jew, but you have been living here like you are not a Jew. So you can’t turn around now and agree with this new mob. You can’t try to force these people that are not Jews to follow the same rules as us Jews.”
God will only say you are all right if you trust Jesus
15 You see, Peter and me, we are Jews, and our Jewish people taught us God’s law. We Jews are not like you people that are not Jews. Nobody taught you mob God’s law. 16 And we know that if people just try to follow that law, they can’t do it properly, so God will not say they are all right. He will only do that for people that trust Jesus Christ. And we trusted Jesus Christ, so now God will say we are all right. You see, if we believe in Jesus, God will say we are all right, and he will not punish us. If we only think about following the law, we will never do it properly, so he will never say we are all right. Nobody can get God to say they are all right by just following the law.*
17 Yes, we trusted Jesus Christ, and now God says we are all right. But some people might reckon, “You left God’s law, so now God will say you are guilty. Jesus got you to do something bad.” But they are not right. 18 You see, it is like this. I used to try to follow that law to get God to say that I’m all right, but then I found out that I just have to believe in Jesus. So now I can’t go back and think that law will make me all right. If I do that, then I really will be guilty.
Jesus lives in his people
19-20 You see, I used to try to follow that law, so that law controlled me. I tried to do everything in that law, but I couldn’t do it, so the law said that I had to die. But then I stopped thinking about that law, and I turned around to follow Jesus, and now he controls me, and God makes me properly alive. And you know that Jesus died on a cross. Well, I believe in Jesus, so it is like I died there too. But Jesus is alive now, so I’m alive now too. You see, Jesus lives inside me, right here in my body. And he gets me to do the things that God wants me to do. He is God’s son. He loved me, and he gave up his life and died for me. 21 Yes, God is really good to us, and he really did a lot for us. I will never change my mind about that. You see, we can’t become good people by following the law. If we could do that, it would mean that Jesus died for nothing. But, of course, he didn’t.
* 2:1-2 Acts 11:30; 15:2 * 2:6 Deuteronomy 10:17 * 2:16 Psalm 143:2; Romans 3:20, 22