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New Defender's Study Bible Notes

2:1 fourteen years after. This visit possibly was the occasion of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:1-4), at which the leaders among the Jewish Christians (especially Peter and James) officially declared that the Mosaic laws—circumcision in particular—were not binding on Gentile converts (Acts 15:5,23-29). It was this same issue with which the Galatian Christians were now being challenged by the “Judaizers.” They seem to have been professing (but not genuine) Jewish Christians who were going around to the Gentile churches trying to undermine Paul’s work and his preaching of salvation by grace alone. Paul was thus forced to defend himself and his teachings (just as he was constrained to do at Corinth) by stressing his own solid Hebrew and Pharisaical training, as well as his divine calling, and the authorization of the apostles at Jerusalem themselves. On the other hand, since he made no mention of the Council’s decision, it seems more likely that this particular visit was the occasion mentioned in Acts 11:30.


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