The Living Bible (371 page)

2 Corinthians
13

This is the third time I am coming to visit you. The Scriptures tell us that if two or three have seen a wrong, it must be punished. Well, this is my third warning as I come now for this visit.
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 I have already warned those who had been sinning when I was there last; now I warn them again and all others, just as I did then, that this time I come ready to punish severely and I will not spare them.

    
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 I will give you all the proof you want that Christ speaks through me. Christ is not weak in his dealings with you but is a mighty power within you.
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 His weak, human body died on the cross, but now he lives by the mighty power of God. We, too, are weak in our bodies, as he was, but now we live and are strong, as he is, and have all of God’s power to use in dealing with you.

    
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 Check up on yourselves. Are you really Christians? Do you pass the test? Do you feel Christ’s presence and power more and more within you? Or are you just pretending to be Christians when actually you aren’t at all?
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 I hope you can agree that I have stood that test and truly belong to the Lord.

    
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 I pray that you will live good lives, not because that will be a feather in our caps,
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proving that what we teach is right; no, for we want you to do right even if we ourselves are despised.
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 Our responsibility is to encourage the right at all times, not to hope for evil.
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 We are glad to be weak and despised if you are really strong. Our greatest wish and prayer is that you will become mature Christians.

    
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 I am writing this to you now in the hope that I won’t need to scold and punish when I come; for I want to use the Lord’s authority that he has given me, not to punish you but to make you strong.

    
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 I close my letter with these last words: Be happy. Grow in Christ. Pay attention to what I have said. Live in harmony and peace. And may the God of love and peace be with you.

    
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 Greet each other warmly in the Lord.
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 All the Christians here send you their best regards.
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 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. May God’s love and the Holy Spirit’s friendship be yours.

Paul

Galatians

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Galatians
1

From:
Paul the missionary and all the other Christians here.

    
To:
The churches of Galatia.
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I was not called to be a missionary by any group or agency. My call is from Jesus Christ himself and from God the Father who raised him from the dead.
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 May peace and blessing be yours from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
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 He died for our sins just as God our Father planned, and rescued us from this evil world in which we live.
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 All glory to God through all the ages of eternity. Amen.

    
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 I am amazed that you are turning away so soon from God who, in his love and mercy, invited you to share the eternal life he gives through Christ; you are already following a different “way to heaven,” which really doesn’t go to heaven at all.
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 For there is no other way than the one we showed you; you are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ.

    
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 Let God’s curses fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other way to be saved than the one we told you about; yes, if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.
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 I will say it again: if anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you welcomed, let God’s curse fall upon him.

    
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 You can see that I am not trying to please you by sweet talk and flattery; no, I am trying to please God. If I were still trying to please men I could not be Christ’s servant.

    
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 Dear friends, I solemnly swear that the way to heaven that I preach is not based on some mere human whim or dream.
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 For my message comes from no less a person than Jesus Christ himself, who told me what to say. No one else has taught me.

    
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 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I went after the Christians mercilessly, hunting them down and doing my best to get rid of them all.
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 I was one of the most religious Jews of my own age in the whole country and tried as hard as I possibly could to follow all the old, traditional rules of my religion.

    
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 But then something happened! For even before I was born, God had chosen me to be his and called me—what kindness and grace—
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 to reveal his Son within me so that I could go to the Gentiles and show them the Good News about Jesus.

    
When all this happened to me I didn’t go at once and talk it over with anyone else;
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 I didn’t go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. No, I went away into the deserts of Arabia and then came back to the city of Damascus.
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 It was not until three years later that I finally went to Jerusalem for a visit with Peter and stayed there with him for fifteen days.
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 And the only other apostle I met at that time was James, our Lord’s brother.
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 (Listen to what I am saying, for I am telling you this in the very presence of God. This is exactly what happened—I am not lying to you.)
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 Then after this visit I went to Syria and Cilicia.
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 And still the Christians in Judea didn’t even know what I looked like.
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 All they knew was what people were saying, that “our former enemy is now preaching the very faith he tried to wreck.”
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 And they gave glory to God because of me.

Galatians
2

Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along too.
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 I went there with definite orders from God to confer with the brothers there about the message I was preaching to the Gentiles. I talked privately to the leaders of the church so that they would all understand just what I had been teaching and, I hoped, agree that it was right.
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 And they did agree; they did not even demand that Titus, my companion, should be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.

    
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 Even that question wouldn’t have come up except for some so-called “Christians” there—false ones, really—who came to spy on us and see what freedom we enjoyed in Christ Jesus, as to whether we obeyed the Jewish laws or not. They tried to get us all tied up in their rules, like slaves in chains.
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 But we did not listen to them for a single moment, for we did not want to confuse you into thinking that salvation can be earned by being circumcised and by obeying Jewish laws.

    
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 And the great leaders of the church who were there had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their being great leaders made no difference to me, for all are the same to God.)
^7-9
 In fact, when Peter, James, and John, who were known as the pillars of the church, saw how greatly God had used me in winning the Gentiles, just as Peter had been blessed so greatly in his preaching to the Jews—for the same God gave us each our special gifts—they shook hands with Barnabas and me and encouraged us to keep right on with our preaching to the Gentiles while they continued their work with the Jews.
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 The only thing they did suggest was that we must always remember to help the poor, and I, too, was eager for that.

    
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 But when Peter came to Antioch I had to oppose him publicly, speaking strongly against what he was doing, for it was very wrong.
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 For when he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians who don’t bother with circumcision and the many other Jewish laws.
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But afterwards, when some Jewish friends of James came, he wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore because he was afraid of what these Jewish legalists, who insisted that circumcision was necessary for salvation, would say;
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 and then all the other Jewish Christians and even Barnabas became hypocrites too, following Peter’s example, though they certainly knew better.
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 When I saw what was happening and that they weren’t being honest about what they really believed and weren’t following the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Though you are a Jew by birth, you have long since discarded the Jewish laws; so why, all of a sudden, are you trying to make these Gentiles obey them?
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 You and I are Jews by birth, not mere Gentile sinners,
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 and yet we Jewish Christians know very well that we cannot become right with God by obeying our Jewish laws but only by faith in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And so we, too, have trusted Jesus Christ, that we might be accepted by God because of faith—and not because we have obeyed the Jewish laws. For no one will ever be saved by obeying them.”

    
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 But what if we trust Christ to save us and then find that we are wrong and that we cannot be saved without being circumcised and obeying all the other Jewish laws? Wouldn’t we need to say that faith in Christ had ruined us? God forbid that anyone should dare to think such things about our Lord.
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 Rather, we are sinners if we start rebuilding the old systems I have been destroying of trying to be saved by keeping Jewish laws,
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 for it was through reading the Scripture that I came to realize that I could never find God’s favor by trying—and failing—to obey the laws. I came to realize that acceptance with God comes by believing in Christ.
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 I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
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 I am not one of those who treats Christ’s death as meaningless. For if we could be saved by keeping Jewish laws, then there was no need for Christ to die.