Summary of Galatians 2

 This is the second of two week 6 discussion questions from my Spring 2022 course Understanding the Bible as a Progressive Christian through Pathways Theological Education.

Summarize the story Paul tells in Galatians 2 with attention to the issues raised by Osiek concerning women and foreigners.

Galatians 2 starts out with Paul in the middle of recounting his background and credentials in becoming an apostle. Paul reports that 14 years after he was last in Jerusalem (and about 17 or 18 years after his conversion based on information in 1), he had a revelation that he needed to go to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles there. He was accompanied by Barnabas and Titus (who was a Greek gentile). In Jerusalem he met with the apostles to share what he was preaching to the Gentiles and make sure he wasn't leaving anything important out. He specifically says he wasn't looking for approval because that comes from God. The Jerusalem leaders did not feel the need to add anything except that he "remember the poor" (collect donations for the central Jerusalem church), something he claims was always his goal. He gives the fact that he was not asked to circumcise Titus as proof that the Jerusalem leaders agreed with him that it was unnecessary for gentile Christians to convert to Judaism or follow Jewish law. (Circumcision is both part of converting for men and required for Jews in the law and  Paul uses circumcision as a symbol of both converting and following all the rules of the law.) It was agreed that he would focus on preaching to the gentiles and both the 3 of them and Paul's mission to the gentiles was treated as equal in value to the preexisting apostles to the Jews and the mission of sharing the good news among the Jews. This wasn't uncontroversial among the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and some of them tried to force Paul to make the gentile believers follow the Law out of obligation, not out of God's will or in accordance to anything in the truth Paul was preaching, but he did not give in to the social pressure.

Despite this being settled, and Cephas following this advice, Cephas gave in to public pressure and started again promoting the need to follow the law, convincing others to go along with him, and Paul called him out for hypocrisy and shares his teaching on this with his readers: Whether born a Jew or Gentile, it is impossible to become righteous just by following the Law, it requires Christ. The most important thing is to live for God and follow Christ. If we try to do that via the law, we break the law. If we ignore the grace of God and try to follow the law, Christ died for nothing.