Apostolic Commendation (2:1-10)

Apostolic
Commendation
(2:1-10)

Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. And it was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. But not even Titus who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me. But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do. (2:1-10)

As Jesus made clear in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24-30), wherever and whenever the good seed of God’s truth is sown Satan will be there to sow his seed of falsehood. It was therefore inevitable that, as Paul faithfully and powerfully planted the truth of the gospel, Satan’s false teachers would be on the apostle’s heels planting lies.

Paul warned the Ephesian elders to “be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28-30). He warned Timothy, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).

Throughout his long and widespread ministry Paul fought against the emissaries of Satan who always seek to discredit both the truth and its representatives. In Galatians 2:1-10 he continues defending himself against their accusation that he was a self-appointed apostle proclaiming a self-devised message that was different from that of Peter and the other apostles at Jerusalem. He devastatingly argues that, although he received his message independently of the other apostles, he preached a message identical to theirs, a fact they wholeheartedly acknowledged. His gospel was independent in terms of revelation but identical in terms of content.

Recounting his most significant trip to Jerusalem after his conversion, Paul shows by his coming, his companion, his commission, and his commendation that he was of one truth and one spirit with the other twelve apostles.

PAUL’S COMING

Paul had already established that his contact with the other apostles was almost nil during the first years after his conversion. He did not see any of them until three years after his Damascus Road encounter with the Lord, and then only briefly. He had stayed with Peter for fifteen days in Jerusalem and had met James, Jesus’ half brother (1:18-19; cf. Acts 9:26-28). He later went to Jerusalem a second time for probably an even briefer period, which he does not refer to in this text since it had no direct bearing on the issue of apostleship. During that brief second visit he helped Barnabas take the collection to Jerusalem from the church at Antioch for relief of famine-stricken believers in Judea (Acts 11:27-30; 12:24-25).

Then after an interval of fourteen years from the first visit when he met Peter and James, he went up again to Jerusalem. During the previous seventeen years he had preached the gospel without any human instruction, his message having been given to him entirely by God’s direct revelation (Gal. 1:11-12, 16-17).

Paul and Barnabas had completed their first missionary tour (Acts 13:1—14:28) and returned to Antioch to report the miracles of Gentile conversion by grace through faith. Jewish legalists in Judea were upset when they heard the report and went to Antioch to teach that a Gentile had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian.

It seems probable, as many scholars believe, that this trip of Paul’s again to Jerusalem was for the council (Acts 15) called to resolve the issue, and that again does not linguistically denote a second visit. (For a thorough treatment of the viability of that view of Acts 15 compared with the view that this text refers to Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem for famine relief recorded in Acts 11:27-30; 12:24-25, see William Hendricksen’s New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Galatians [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971], pp. 69-77.)

According to Acts 15, those professing Jewish Christians from Judea went to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas were ministering, “and began teaching the brethren, ‘unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue” (Acts 15:1-2). The whole debate was to be resolved in Jerusalem.

In addition to the leader Paul and his intimate Jewish friend and companion Barnabas, . . . Titus, a spiritual child of Paul and his co-worker (Titus 1:4-5), went along also, being among the “certain others” mentioned by Luke. Titus, as an uncircumcised Gentile and a product of the very ministry the Judaizers were attacking, was a fitting attendee to take along to the council. Consistent with their deceitful, self-serving methods of operation, the Judaizers likely claimed they sent the delegation from Antioch to Jerusalem to have Paul’s and Barnabas’s doctrine corrected. But both Luke and Paul make clear that such was not the case. Luke states that they were “sent on their way by the church” at Antioch (v. 3). Though there may have been some reluctance on the part of Paul in accepting the assignment to go to Jerusalem, a direct revelation by God affirmed his obligation. Paul says more specifically that it was because of a revelation that I went up. It is possible that the Holy Spirit spoke to the leaders of the Antioch church, along with Paul, just as He had done when Paul and Barnabas were commissioned for their first missionary venture (Acts 13:2). In any case, the matter was resolved when Paul, divinely commanded to go to Jerusalem, was obedient, and the Antioch church affirmed that command by giving their blessing.

When Paul reached Jerusalem, he simply submitted (from anatithemi, to lay something before someone for consideration) to them the gospel which he had always preached among the Gentiles, the gospel of salvation by God’s sovereign grace through man’s penitent faith—a gospel utterly contrary to the works-righteous belief of the Judaizers that “unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1).

Them refers first of all to the local church apostles and elders, including chiefly Peter, John, and James, our Lord’s half-brother, and then to the whole assembled church at Jerusalem, composed of all the apostles and elders as well as other church members and possibly other visiting believers besides those sent by the Antioch church (Acts 15:4). Paul and Barnabas gave that group a general report on “all that God had done with them,” after which “certain ones of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, stood up, saying, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them [Gentiles], and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses’” (w. 4-5).

At that point the “apostles and elders came together to look into this matter” more thoroughly. After much debate, Peter addressed the group, declaring that God makes no distinction betweens Jews and Gentiles, saving them both by faith and granting them both the gift of His indwelling Spirit. Concerning the supposed necessity of being circumcised and of following all the Mosaic law in order to be saved, he said, “Why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are” (w. 10-11).

It seems reasonable to assume that this private meeting occurred first because Paul wanted to be sure of the theology of the Jerusalem leaders before he spoke publicly. Therefore before any council appearance, Paul and Barnabas related in private to those who were of reputation “what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:12). In complete accord with what Peter was to say, Paul and Barnabas declared, first privately and then publicly, that God had saved Gentiles wherever they had proclaimed the gospel and that their message and those conversions were attested by God himself through means of miraculous “signs and wonders.” That evidence was conclusive, because God does not confirm falsehood. When the Lord attested preaching and conversion with signs and wonders, there was no greater proof that the preaching was according to divine truth and the conversions were by the power of His Spirit.

That the Jerusalem church, and probably most of the church at large, had not been seriously devastated by the heretical teaching of the Judaizers is seen in the fact that the matter was quickly and decisively resolved at the Jerusalem Council. The entire body “kept silent” when Peter finished his address, and immediately after Paul and Barnabas spoke, James summarized their messages and proposed that the substance of what they said be sent as a directive to all the churches. After Peter, Paul, and Barnabas spoke there was no more debate (cf. v. 7). James’s proposal “seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church,” and a letter stating their decision was sent to “the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles” (w. 12-22). The believers at Antioch, having been thoroughly grounded in the true gospel by Paul and Barnabas, “rejoiced because of its encouragement” when the council’s letter was read to them (w. 30-31).

Paul’s referring to the apostles with whom he spoke in private as those who were of reputation reflected the general attitude of the church toward those Christ-appointed leaders. The phrase describing them is used of authorities and implies a position of honor. But the fact that he refers to them in this way four times in eight verses (Gal. 2:2-9) suggests a tinge of sarcasm. It is not, however, directed at the apostles but at the Judaizers who had been claiming apostolic approval of their legalistic perversions of the gospel. In the letter sent out by the council the deceitful Judaizers are described as “some of our number to whom we gave no instruction” who had been disturbing the churches and “unsettling [their] souls” (Acts 15:24).

Although the Judaizers did not proclaim the same gospel taught by the Twelve, they knew they needed apostolic confirmation in order to be taken seriously. They therefore fabricated the lie that their message was approved by the apostles in Jerusalem and that they were among its acknowledged representatives. But that claim was absolutely denied by the apostles and elders at the council in Jerusalem.

The fact that Paul probably wrote Galatians some years after the Jerusalem Council shows that the decision and proclamation of that council had not stopped the Judaizers either from preaching their false doctrines or from claiming approval by the apostles, those who were of reputation. Paul was obviously not of any reputation, they told the Galatian believers, because his gospel conflicted with theirs and the apostles’.

But when Paul took Titus to Jerusalem and presented his gospel before these men of reputation, he was vindicated and the Judaizers were denounced. He had not sought vindication because he doubted the validity of his preaching. He had just declared emphatically that his message was by direct revelation from God and that it did not have and did not need any human clarification or confirmation (Gal. 1:11-19). He went to Jerusalem to prove that the gospel he preached was identical to that preached by the other apostles, having been revealed to him directly, though separately, by the Lord Jesus Himself. Paul did not go to confirm the apostolicity of his message in his own mind but in the minds of Galatian believers who were being confused and deceived by the Judaizers.

The Judaistic teachings were not simply misinterpretations or misapplications of the true gospel but the very antithesis of it. It was for fear that they might compromise with the teaching of the Judaizers and their perverse gospel that Paul sought in private to be certain that the teachers in Jerusalem agreed with his revelation of the gospel and would not be soft on legalism. Otherwise he might discover he was like an athlete who was running, or had run, in vain by seeing that all the spiritual effort in his ministry past and present was in conflict with them and was futile. The apostles affirmed Paul’s gospel and added nothing to it (Gal. 2:6). That private confirmation set the stage for the decision in the public council that followed. It was of the greatest importance that believers in Galatia, and everywhere else, understand that his gospel of grace was identical to that of the other apostles and that it was the Satanic message of the Judaizers that was the aberration of God’s saving truth.

PAUL’S COMPANION

But not even Titus who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. (2:3-5)

Although the Greek text of these verses may have been perfectly intelligible to the Galatians, it is almost impossible for modern scholars to translate. The noted biblical scholar J. B. Lightfoot called the passage “a shipwreck of Greek grammar.” Perhaps Paul became so emotional while defending the very heart of the gospel and was so afraid that his beloved flocks would be corrupted by the Judaistic heresy that he used complex grammar and failed to complete his sentences.

But Paul’s meaning is obvious, and there is no difficulty in understanding precisely what he is saying. As specific evidence in a test case showing that the Jerusalem apostles were in complete accord with him, Paul states that not even Titus who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised while at Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15:10, 19). Titus, a true Christian, was living and incontrovertible proof that circumcision and Mosaic regulations are not necessary for salvation. The Jerusalem Council refused to accede to the demands of the Judaizers to have Titus and all other Gentile believers circumcised, determining that they would “not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles” by compelling them to be circumcised (Acts 15:19, cf. v. 28).

It should be noted that some years after that occasion Paul circumcised Timothy “because of the Jews who were in those parts” (the region of Galatia), but he did so because Timothy was half Jewish (Acts 16:1-3). He was not making a concession to the Judaizers, but rather was giving Timothy closer identity with Jews to whom they might witness. Timothy was circumcised as a Jew, not as a Christian. His circumcision had no relationship to his salvation but simply gave him entrance to Jewish synagogues, from which he would otherwise have been excluded.

Titus, however, was a full Gentile, and to have had him circumcised would have undercut the gospel of grace and made him a monument of victory for the Judaizers. Paul may have intentionally brought Titus to Jerusalem to confound the Judaizing false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. Paul was perfectly confident in the outcome of the Jerusalem Council and knew that afterward he would have a companion who would be personal proof that his gospel of grace apart from law was valid. He was confident that Titus would be allowed to leave Jerusalem uncircumcised, just as he had entered, with the full blessing of the apostles and elders. And if Gentile believers were not compelled to be circumcised in Jerusalem, which was still home base for most of the apostles, how could they be required to be circumcised in their home countries? Henceforth Titus was a living verification that the Judaizers taught a spurious gospel that was rejected by the rest of the church.

The Judaizers were marked as false brethren (pseudadelphos), a phrase that has also been translated “sham Christians” (NEB) and “pseudo-Christians” (Phillips). Those professing Jewish believers had developed a hybrid faith that was true neither to traditional Judaism (because it claimed allegiance to Christ) nor to apostolic Christianity (because it demanded circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic law for salvation).

It is impossible to be a legalist and a Christian. “If you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you,” Paul declares later in the letter. “Every man who receives circumcision . . . is under obligation to keep the whole Law You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:2-4). To do a single thing to earn salvation is to vitiate grace.

Some of the Judaizers no doubt sincerely believed their legalistic gospel was correct and that they were the only genuine Christians. But Paul refers to those who had sneaked in to spy out the liberty of true believers in terms that suggest enemies entering a camp by stealth with the objective of sabotage. Those men may not even have been honest Judaizers. Some scholars believe they were planted in the churches by Pharisees or priests in order to corrupt this threat to traditional Judaism. In any case, Satan, as always, was the primary instigator of the subterfuge. The Judaizers were first of all the devil’s agents, whatever their human associations and loyalties.

Their specific purpose was to undermine the liberty which true believers have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring them into the bondage of legalism. The verb (katadoulo) is a compound and conveys the strong slavery of a works system. The Judaizers could not tolerate a gospel that was not tied to Mosaic ritual and law, because their view of salvation was centered in what they could self-righteously perform to earn favor from God rather than in what God could do for them.

In Christ Jesus believers have liberty from the law as the way of salvation and liberty from its external ceremonies and regulations as the way of living. Because Christ has borne that curse (3:13), they also have liberty from the curse for disobedience of the law, which God requires all men to obey but which no man is able to perfectly keep. Christians are under an entirely different kind of law, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [that sets them] free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).

Freedom is a much-repeated theme of the New Testament. In Christ believers “have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6), because “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). “If therefore the Son shall make you free,” Jesus said, “you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Christian freedom is not license. When we become free in Christ we lose our freedom to sin, of which we were once a slave. In Christ, “having been freed from sin, [we] become slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:18). “For you were called to freedom, brethren,” Paul explains; “only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal. 5:13). Peter expresses the same truth in these words: “Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God” (1 Pet. 2:16).

Paul did not yield in subjection to the legalistic bondage of the Judaizers for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you Galatian believers (and all others), untainted and unadulterated. Remain is from diamen and emphasizes a permanent state. In regard to methods of ministry and issues of no spiritual importance, Paul became “all things to all men, that [he might] by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). But in doctrinal matters, especially those relating to the heart of the gospel, he was intransigent. He would make considerable concessions in order to accommodate weak Christians, but he would not yield an inch of truth to accommodate false Christians. And the leaders of the church at Jerusalem were wholeheartedly in agreement with Paul’s gospel, as their declarations in the council indicated (Acts 15:13-21).

PAUL’S COMMISSION

But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—well, those who were of reputation contributed nothing to me. But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles), and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, (2:6-9a)

Again Paul refers to the other apostles as those who were of high reputation, apparently a favorite phrase of the Judaizers. In going on to say, what they were makes no difference to me, he was not depreciating those godly men. He respected them or he would not have sought a private audience with them, nor would he have sought their public confirmation so that people would know he was not running in vain. He rather was defending himself against the depreciation of the Judaizers, who accused him of not comparing with the Jerusalem apostles and of being a false, self-appointed, and inferior apostle. His point here was that, although those twelve men were personally appointed apostles by Jesus Christ, so was he. He did not need their approval for his own confidence, nor did he need to seek their confirmation to convince himself, and in that regard who or what they were made no difference to him and his ministry. He had no doubts about his calling and revelations.

It may be that the Judaizers put Paul down by reminding him that the Twelve had been with Jesus for the entire course of His earthly ministry, whereas he had not (cf. 1:19). The twelve were also leaders in the Jerusalem church, which understandably was held in high regard by Christians as the first and leading congregation. But, Paul goes on to say, God shows no partiality, as Peter had learned with some difficulty (Acts 10:9-48). The unique privileges of the twelve therefore did not make their apostleship more legitimate or authoritative than Paul’s.

Paul was not being proud or boastful but was simply stating a truth. He knew that all he was and had was entirely by God’s grace (Gal. 2:9). He acknowledged himself as the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and “the least of the apostles, who [was] not fit to be called an apostle, because [he had] persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9). But under God’s grace he was equal to all other believers, and in his calling he was equal to all the other apostles. In 2 Corinthians 11:5 he affirmed, “I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles.”

The Twelve had contributed nothing to Paul’s knowledge or understanding of the gospel or to his authority to preach it. For seventeen years he had preached the gospel without their having had the least part in it. When he finally went to Jerusalem to testify to what he preached, it was not for approval or correction but simply for recognition—and that not for his own sake but for the sake of those who had been deceived by the false accusations against him being spread by the Judaizers.

But on the contrary, seeing that Paul had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised, the apostles in Jerusalem recognized he was entrusted with preaching the true gospel. At that point the Judaizers’ contention that Paul was preaching a deviant message was refuted once and for all. As Luke explains, not only did the Jerusalem Council vindicate Paul’s message of grace apart from law but they entrusted him with the primary responsibility of reporting their decision to the churches in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia—areas where his work had been severely criticized by the Judaizers (Acts 15:22-24).

Because some versions, such as the King James, have translated “the gospel of the uncircumcised” and “of the. circumcised,” many liberal interpreters have suggested (for this and other reasons) that Peter and Paul preached different messages. But that idea is disproved by Galatians 1:6-9, by the decision of the Jerusalem Council, and by Greek grammar. The Greek article (ts) is here an objective genitive and does not indicate definition (“of”) but direction (to), as in our text and most modern translations.

For He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised, Paul continues, effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles. The same Holy Spirit (He) who energized (worked, from energe, to be at work, to produce results) and empowered Peter energized and empowered Paul, and the Spirit has but one gospel. When Paul returned to Jerusalem several years later, “the brethren received [him and those with him] gladly,” and when he “began to relate one by one the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry,” James and the other elders “began glorifying God” (Acts 21:17-20). After the Jerusalem Council there was never a question about Paul’s message or apostleship. In his second letter Peter highly commended Paul as a wise and beloved brother and ranked Paul’s letters with “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

Recognizing the grace that had been given to Paul, the other apostles and the church at large could only conclude that this man was a divinely commissioned and blessed instrument of God. Only God’s grace—His free, sovereign, and undeserved blessing—could account for the mighty spreading of the gospel and building up of the church that the Lord had accomplished through this mortal.

PAUL’S COMMENDATION

James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do. (2:9b-l0)

Still again Paul refers to the reputation of James and Cephas (Peter) and John—those who were reputed to be pillars (a Jewish term used to refer to great teachers). As already mentioned, the somewhat sarcastic reference does not reflect against these men but against the Judaizers. Because those false teachers apparently used the term pillars (emphasizing their role in establishing and supporting the church) when referring to the three Jerusalem leaders, Paul throws the term back in their faces. He demonstrates to them and to the Galatian believers they were trying to turn against him that he was in perfect doctrinal harmony with those three pillars and with all the other apostles and elders at Jerusalem.

He not only was in doctrinal harmony with them but in personal harmony with them as well. There is only one gospel, and those five men (who wrote 21 of the 27 New Testament books) demonstrate that truth. They gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, Paul says as he continues to confound the false claims of the Judaizers. In the Near East, to clasp the right hand of a person was to make a solemn vow of friendship and was a mark of fellowship, or partnership. The “pillars” at Jerusalem recognized Paul not only as a true preacher and teacher of the gospel but also as a beloved partner with them in Christ’s service. They had different fields of service—Paul and Barnabas ministered primarily to the Gentiles and the Jerusalem leaders primarily to the circumcised—but they proclaimed the same gospel and served the same Lord in the power of His Spirit. That act of affirmation both of Paul and of his message was a devastating blow to the Judaizers. In fact, Paul’s apostolate to the Gentiles was recognized as the equal of Peter’s apostolate to the Jews.

The only request made of Paul and Barnabas at Jerusalem was that they remember the poor. The request was not doctrinal but practical, a reminder about the special needs of believers in Judea, especially Jerusalem. Even before the widespread famine (see Acts 11:28) for which Paul was called to bring relief, the Jerusalem church faced a serious problem of feeding and caring for its members. Its ranks were swelled by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of believers who had been converted while visiting the city and who then decided to stay there rather than return home. Many had little money, and they soon discovered that, because they were Christians, it was sometimes difficult to find employment. In the early days of the church those who had money and other possessions generously shared what they had “with all, as anyone might have need” (Acts 2:45). But those resources were rapidly depleted as the number of converts grew For many years, therefore, the church at Jerusalem had been economically pressed.

To take care of the poor is not only a practical but a spiritual responsibility, because to forsake that responsibility is to disobey God’s Word. “Whoever has this world’s goods,” John declares, “and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). James says that it is a sham believer who says to “a brother or sister . . . without clothing and in need of daily food, . . . ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet [does] not give them what is necessary for their body” (James 2:15-16; cf. Ex. 23:10-11; 30:15; Lev 19:10; Deut. 15:7-11; Jer. 22:16; Amos 2:6-7; Luke 6:36, 38; 2 Cor. 8-9).

Paul was therefore eager to do all he could to fulfill the request of James, Peter, and John, as his numerous and constant collections for the poverty-stricken saints in Judea attested. His command that “if anyone will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thess. 3:10) pertained to the lazy, not the helpless and needy. He continually encouraged believers who were more prosperous to give financial aid to fellow believers who were in need; and he heartily commended those who were generous (Acts 11:29-30; 24:17; Rom. 15:25-26; 1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 Cor. 8:1-6; 9:1-5,12). “For if the Gentiles have shared in their [the Jerusalem saints’] spiritual things,” Paul explained to the Roman church, “they are indebted to minister to them also in material things” (Rom. 15:27).