​To the churches in Galatia:

From the

apostle Paul and

from all the Lord's followers with me



I was chosen to be an apostle by

Jesus Christ and by God the Father,

who raised him from death.

No mere human chose or appointed me to this work.



To the churches in Galatia:

I pray that God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ
will be kind to you and will

bless you with peace! 


Christ obeyed God our Father

and

gave himself as a sacrifice


for our sins to rescue us from this evil world. 

God will be given glory

forever and ever. Amen.





The Only True Message


I am shocked that you have so quickly turned from God,
who chose you with his gift of undeserved grace.[a] 

You have believed another message, 

when there is really only one true message.

But some people are causing you trouble
and want to

make you turn away from the

good news about Christ. 


I pray that God will punish anyone who preaches

anything different from our message to you!

It doesn't matter if that person is one of us or an angel from heaven.

 I have said it before, and I will say it again.
I hope God will punish anyone who preaches

anything different from what you

have already believed.

I am not trying to please people. I want to please God.

Do you think I am trying to please people?

If I were doing that,

I would not be a servant of Christ.




How Paul Became

an Apostle




​My friends,

I want you to know that

no one made up the message I preach.

 

 It wasn't given or taught to me by

some mere human.


My message

came directly from


Jesus Christ

when he appeared to me.



You know how I used to live as a Jew.


I was cruel to God's church and even tried to destroy it. 
I was a much better Jew than anyone else my own age,

and I obeyed every law our ancestors had
given us. 

But even before I was born,
God had chosen me by his gift of undeserved grace
and had decided to show me his Son,
so I would announce
his message to the Gentiles.


I didn't talk this over with anyone. 

I didn't say a word,

not even to the men in Jerusalem
who were apostles before I was.

Instead, I went at once to Arabia,
and afterwards I returned to Damascus.



Three years later

I went to visit

Peter


in Jerusalem and stayed with him for 15 days. 

The only other apostle I saw was James, the Lord's brother. 

And in the

presence of God

I swear I am

telling the truth.


Later, I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. But no one who belonged to Christ's churches in Judea had ever seen me in person.

 They had only heard that the one who had been cruel to them was now preaching the message that he had once tried to destroy. 

And because of me, they praised God.

Fourteen years later I went to Jerusalem with Barnabas.

I also took along Titus. But I went there

because God had told me to go,


and I explained the good news

I had been preaching to the Gentiles.


Then I met

privately with the ones

who seemed to be the most important leaders.


I wanted to make sure

my work in the past and my future work

​would not be for nothing.


Titus went to Jerusalem with me.

He was a Greek, but
still

he wasn't forced to be circumcised. 



We went there because of those who

pretended to be followers
and had

sneaked in among us as spies.


They had come to

take away

the freedom Christ Jesus had given us,


and they were trying
to
make us their slaves. 



But we wanted you to have the


true message.


This is why we didn't give in to them, not even for a second.


Some of them were

supposed to be important leaders, but

I didn't care who they were.


God doesn't have any favorites!



None of these so-called special leaders


added anything to my message. 


​They realized

God had sent me with the good news

for Gentiles, and he had

sent

Peter with the same message for Jews. 


God, who had sent Peter on a mission to the Jews,

was now

using me to preach to the Gentiles.


James, Peter, and John realized


that God had

given me the message

about his

gift of undeserved grace.



And these men are supposed to be the

backbone of the church.


They even gave Barnabas and me a friendly handshake.

This was to show that we would work with Gentiles
and that they would work with Jews. 
They only asked us to remember the poor,
and this was something I had always been eager to do.




Paul Corrects Peter at Antioch


When Peter came to Antioch,

I told him face to face
that

he was wrong. 


He used to eat with Gentile followers of the Lord,
until

James sent some Jewish followers.

Peter was afraid of the Jews and soon stopped eating with Gentiles. 

He and the others hid their true feelings so well
that

even Barnabas was fooled. 



But when I saw they were not really


obeying the truth that is in the


good news,


I corrected Peter in front of everyone

and said:


Peter, you are a Jew,

but


you live like a Gentile.

So how can you


force Gentiles to live like Jews?


We are Jews by birth and are not sinners like Gentiles. 



But we know

that God

accepts only those who have


faith in Jesus Christ.



No one

can please God

by simply


obeying the Law.




So we put our faith

in

Christ Jesus,


and

God accepted us because of

our

faith.



When we Jews started looking
for a

way to please God,

we

discovered

that we are sinners too.



Does this mean that Christ is the one who makes us sinners?


No, it doesn't! 



But if I tear down something and then build it again,
I prove that I was wrong at first. 

It was the Law itself that killed me and freed me from

its power,

so I could live for God.


I have been nailed to the cross with Christ.

 I have died, but


Christ lives in me.

And I now live by

faith in the Son of God,

who loved me and gave his life for me. 


I don't turn my back on

God's gift of undeserved grace.


If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law,

it was useless for Christ to die.


​