I am very pleased that you will accompany me at this time where we share
the reading of the Bible, we are doing so in the New Testament,
and we are now going to read chapter two of the Letter to Galatians,
Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians. In chapter two he thus says
the word of God. After fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem
with Barnabas taking Titus with me also, but went up according to a revelation
and not to run or to have run in vain, I exposed in private
to those who had a certain reputation the gospel which I preached among the Gentiles
but not. Even Titus, who was with me yet to be Greek,
was forced to circumcise himself. And this despite the false brothers sneaking in to
spy on our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, to reduce us to
slavery to which we did not agree for a moment to submit so that the
truth of the Gospel would remain with us. But of those who had a
reputation for being something they' ve been in the past. Nothing matters to
me. God does not mean people to me, for those of reputation have
communicated nothing new to me before. On the contrary, as they saw that
the Gospel of uncircumcision had been entrusted to me, as to Peter, the
one of circumcision, for he who acted in Peter for the apostolate of circumcision,
acted also in me toward the Gentiles and recognizing the grace that had been
given to me. James, Cephas, and John, who were regarded as
pillars. They gave me Barnabas' s right hand as a sign of fellowship,
that we might go to the Gentiles and Helios to circumcision. They only
asked us to remember the poor, which I also diligently tried to do.
But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him face to face because he
was to be condemned, for before some came from James He ate with the
Gentiles. But after they came he retreated and departed because he was afraid of
those of circumcision and in its simulation the other Jews also participated, so that
a Barnabas was also dragged away by the hypocrisy of Helios. But when I
saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel,
I said to Peter before all. If you, being a Jew, live
like the Gentiles and not as a Jew, why do you compel the Gentiles
to Judaize us Jews by birth and not sinners from among the Gentiles, knowing
that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ. We too have believed in Jesus Christ to be justified
by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law, no one shall be justified. And if
seeking to be justified in Christ, we too are found sinners. That is
why, Christ, Minister, of sin in no way, for if the
things that I destroyed them I build again transgressor. I do myself because by
the law, I am dead to the law in order to live for God
with Christ, I am crucified and no longer live, but Christ lives in
me and what I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith
of the son of God, who loved me and gave himself. For I
do not cast off the grace of God, for if righteousness were by the
law, then Christ died for the rest.