by N. T. Wright
How much of all this the churches in Galatia would have understood at first hearing we may doubt. But the letter would be read aloud to them over and over again. It would have been discussed, argued over. Whoever had delivered the letter would almost certainly be called upon to explain what Paul meant. The teachers in the churches—teaching being a vital part of early church life—would do their best to help converts understand the dense web of scriptural references and allusions. We do not know how effective it was at the time, whether some non-Jewish Jesus-followers in Galatia did go ahead and get circumcised or whether they all decided to go with Paul rather than with the eager zealots who had been urging them to become full Jews. (The next time Paul is in the area Luke tells us little about the state of the churches in question.) Since we do not know who it was that had come to Galatia as an anti-Pauline missionary, we have no idea what happened to this person and his colleagues afterward.
Not that Paul had time to worry about that. He and Barnabas were already packing their bags for the trip to Jerusalem. It was time to discuss, face-to-face, the issues that had threatened the unity of the new movement and with it, from Paul’s point of view at least, the integrity of the gospel itself.
* * *
Paul never mentions the “Jerusalem Conference” described in Acts 15, so we cannot be sure what he thought of it all. Clearly things could not go on as they were, with different groups sending frantic and contradictory messages this way and that. At least, if things did go on as they were, they would precipitate a major and lasting rift among the Jesus-followers.
Why would this matter? It is interesting that, from the first and despite great pressures to split, all the early leaders of the movement seem to have valued unity, even if they had very different suggestions as to how to achieve it. Partly this may have been pragmatic. They were under multiple pressures from the outside, and they needed to hold together. But for Paul himself, right across his letters, and it seems for the Jerusalem leadership as well, it mattered that the followers of Jesus should find a way of living together as a single family despite the inevitable tensions that a new but suddenly far-flung movement would experience. This reminds us again—and it will be a feature of much of Paul’s life—that there really was no analogy in the ancient world for a movement of this kind. As we saw, the Roman army and civil service, on the one hand, and the network of Jewish synagogues, on the other hand, provide partial parallels, but Paul is trying something different from either. The challenge facing Paul and the others was how to live as an extended family without ties of kinship or ancestral symbols, without the geographical focus of Jerusalem and the Temple, and without a central authority like that of Caesar.
To Jerusalem, then, they went; not for reasons of sacred geography (Paul was now skeptical of that, as he hints in Galatians when he says that “the present Jerusalem” is “in slavery with her children”24), but because that was the center of the protest movement that was objecting to what Paul and Barnabas had been doing. The meeting took place, fairly certainly, in either late 48 or early 49.
We can imagine the conversations on the way. Paul would now be somewhat uneasy after Barnabas’s (I assume temporary) change of stance in Antioch. Paul the thinker, the scholar, the teacher would be eager to go into full sail, to expound the scriptures at length, to explain in great detail how the message about Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection not only made sense of all the old prophecies, but pointed directly to a new day in which all humans, Gentiles as well as Jews, would be welcomed into a single family.
Barnabas, we may suspect, would be urging restraint. He would have picked up the signals from the Jerusalem visitors in Antioch: they had always been suspicious of Paul, and the longer he went on, the more they would stop listening to the scriptural detail and start feeling that he was bullying them into a corner. The Jerusalem Jesus-followers might not have been able to refute his scriptural arguments, but they would still take it all with a pinch of salt and conclude that there must be a flaw somewhere, since they knew ahead of time that Paul was a dangerous and subversive character. In addition, Paul was an upstart former persecutor, presuming to tell them about the meaning of Jesus’s work just because he knew his Bible rather well, whereas they had known Jesus personally! Much better, Barnabas would suggest, for them to tell the stories of what had happened in Galatia, and indeed of what had been happening in Antioch itself, of how non-Jews had found the spirit powerfully at work in their lives and communities. Much wiser, then, to put Peter and James on the spot, to get them to recall Peter’s visit to Cornelius, to challenge them to expound the relevant scriptures. Let them do the theological heavy lifting.
The journey itself was encouraging. As the two traveled south through Phoenicia and Galilee and into Samaria, approaching Jerusalem, they told the little groups of believers they encountered on the way what had happened in the Galatian churches. The response was encouraging. This would not only have strengthened their resolve; it would have given them practice in telling their stories to good effect. That was what they then did in Jerusalem, setting out in one story after another the extraordinary things that God had done through their work. They would have explained too the violent opposition they had received, but the important thing was the way that Gentiles had been grasped by the gospel and transformed by the spirit. We can imagine Paul biting his lip, restraining his desire to expound Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and the rest, and Barnabas shooting him warning looks and hoping and praying that the plan would work. It did.
The hard-line party made its position clear: Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the Torah. There was general discussion, in which Paul and Barnabas played a restrained part but held themselves back, we suspect, from any larger theological discourse. There were plenty of people who wished to contribute, and their testimony carried its own power. Finally Peter and James stood up to speak.
Peter went back again to what had happened when he visited Cornelius and God visibly gave his spirit to the Gentiles without their needing to be circumcised. Something had happened to these Gentiles as a result of which the normal Jewish taboos preventing contact with impure people were no longer relevant. What’s more, Peter drew attention to something we have already noted—a recognition, precisely among devout Jews, that Mosaic law in its entirety, as it stood, left its adherents in a bad place. It simply warned that Israel was hard-hearted and that this would result in the covenantal curse. Why, then, should Jewish Jesus-followers place a restriction on Gentile converts that the Jewish people themselves, according to their own scriptures, find to be a burden? Peter left the assembly in no doubt that the sheer grace of God, through the message of Jesus, had transformed the hearts and lives of non-Jews without those non-Jews having to come under Mosaic law, without their being circumcised.
We sense the sigh of relief from Paul and Barnabas. They exchange quick glances. This was what they needed Peter to do. He has reinforced the impact of their own missionary stories, and they now add some more. The meeting, they think, has turned the corner.
The final word is then left to James, who we know from various sources was held in enormous respect not simply because he was Jesus’s own brother, but because he devoted himself so assiduously to prayer. James sets all the strange stories they have heard in the context of scripture. What has happened, he says, is the clear fulfillment of ancient biblical hopes, that when God finally sends the Messiah, the true son of David, then his inheritance will consist of the whole world. God will “rebuild the Tabernacle of David which had collapsed,” and the result will be that “the rest of the human race may seek the Lord, and all the nations upon whom [God’s] name has been called.”25 The point could have been made from other prophets or indeed from a good many psalms, but the message is clear as it stands. Ancient Israel’s messianic expectation had included the promise that David’s son would be Lord of the whole world. This does not explicitly indicate that such a new community would leave behind the restrictions of the Mosaic
code. But everybody knew that Moses’s Torah was for the nation of Israel. If the other nations were now coming in, then a new dispensation had been inaugurated for which the Mosaic restrictions were no longer relevant.
Barnabas and Paul allow themselves a quiet smile of gratitude. This is what they have been hoping for. The crisis has been averted.
The main point at issue had thus been dealt with—though we should not imagine that everyone meekly acquiesced. Things do not work like that in real communities. Just because an official pronouncement has been made, that does not mean that all churches will at once fall into line. However, there was an important pragmatic consequence. Just because they did not need to be circumcised, that didn’t mean that Gentile Jesus-followers were free to behave as they liked. They were to be careful to avoid giving offense to their Jewish neighbors, including their Jesus-believing Jewish neighbors. For that reason, there were certain areas where their freedom would need to be curtailed. There was to be no sexual immorality (one of the major differences between Jewish and pagan lifestyles) and no contact with what has been “polluted by idols” or “sacrificed to idols” or with meat that has been slaughtered in a nonkosher way, so that one would be eating blood, the God-given sign and bearer of life. There were, then, some typically Jewish taboos that were still to be observed, at least when in close contact with Jewish communities; the Jesus-followers were to take care when surrounded with Jewish sensibilities.
But the main point at issue—circumcision—was conceded. A letter was agreed upon, from the whole church to “our Gentile brothers and sisters.” That already made the point that the uncircumcised believers were indeed part of the family. The letter was sent to Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia (Cilicia, the broad swath of southern Turkey, had by this time been divided between the Roman provinces of Galatia and Syria, but the name was still in common use for the area as a whole). In addition to its main points, the document also made it clear that, although the people who had arrived in Antioch and in Galatia had come from Jerusalem, they had not been authorized by James and the others. A delicate diplomatic solution all around.
Like many diplomatic solutions, it was designed to keep things together at least for a while, though it left many questions unaddressed. Paul and the others would have to go on grappling with them, as we shall see. But the hard-liners in Jerusalem, though no doubt bitterly disappointed at losing their demand that Gentile converts be circumcised, would at least have been mollified by the thought that the main causes of Gentile pollution, the idolatry and sexual immorality that were the norm in non-Jewish societies, would be avoided.
Supposing Paul’s story had ended at this point, in AD 49 in Jerusalem, what would we say about him? What motivated him, and how had he come to this point? If Galatians was the only thing he had ever written, we would already know that he was a man of enormous intellectual reach and energy. The letter still feels hot off the press, covering huge areas in swift strokes, leaving much to be filled in but focusing intently on what really mattered, what had already come to define Paul. “I have been crucified with the Messiah. I am, however, alive—but it isn’t me any longer; it’s the Messiah who lives in me. And the life I do still live in the flesh, I live within the faithfulness of the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”26 It doesn’t get any clearer or any more intimate than that. Paul’s own answer to the question of what motivated him to do what he did was Jesus—Jesus crucified and risen, Jesus as the living embodiment of the love of the One God.
Paul’s own answer to the question of what happened on the road to Damascus and what it meant is equally clear. “God set me apart from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace . . . so that I might announce the good news about him among the nations.”27 This was not a “conversion” in the sense of leaving behind the Jewish world and starting or propagating a new “religion.” But it was a “conversion” in the sense that Israel’s Messiah himself, going down into death, had taken with him the whole world, including the whole Jewish world and its traditions, in order then to emerge from death in a new form; and in the sense that all those who now belonged to the Messiah shared that death, that resurrection, and the new identity that followed. There had never been a moment when Paul had not been out-and-out loyal to the One God. But the One God had unveiled his age-old purpose in the shocking form of the crucified Messiah, and that changed everything. A contested loyalty.
If we find all this puzzling or paradoxical, we can be sure that many of Paul’s friends and associates, not to mention his opponents, would have said the same thing. The letter we know as 2 Peter puts it like this, speaking of Paul’s letters (the only New Testament reference, outside Paul himself, to Paul as a letter writer):
There are some things in them [i.e., in Paul’s letters] which are difficult to understand. Untaught and unstable people twist his words to their own destruction, as they do with the other scriptures.28
It is not particularly remarkable that some found Paul’s letters hard to understand and open to misinterpretation. What is remarkable is that Paul’s writings were already being referred to as “scriptures.” That points us to the larger question his work raises to this day. What was he doing that caused these little communities, with all their problems, contested loyalties, and external threats, not only to survive, but to thrive? This question is sharpened to a point by what happened next.
Antioch to Athens
7
Into Europe
LUKE DOES NOT spare Paul’s blushes. The apostle to the Gentiles may be the main subject of Acts, at least in its second half, but there is a tale now to be told from which nobody comes out well. Paul will later characterize his vocation as “the ministry of reconciliation.” His whole theme in Galatians and in all the activity that surrounded it had been the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in the single messianic family. But when it came to reconciliation, Paul must always have had a sense of shame and failure. He and Barnabas had a falling-out.
Perhaps it was the long-term result of that shocking moment in Antioch when Peter had separated himself from the non-Jewish believers and “even Barnabas” had been led astray by their “hypocrisy.” They had made up then, it seems. They had gone together to Jerusalem and, side by side, had argued the case for Gentile inclusion. But Paul’s trust in his friend and colleague had received a heavy blow. If things went wrong on another trip, would Barnabas prove utterly reliable? His ability to encourage and help people had been vital in Paul’s own early work. But the real strength of his character—his desire to get alongside people and support them—had led him in the wrong direction in Antioch. Might the same thing happen once more?
The specific flash point concerned Barnabas’s nephew, John Mark (normally reckoned to be the Mark of the Gospel that bears his name). It was natural that Paul would suggest revisiting the churches of southern Anatolia. He felt a close bond with them, and, having written the letter, he was eager to see how things had turned out, to visit them again (as he had said) and be able to use a different tone of voice.1 It was equally natural that Barnabas would want to take Mark, to give him a second chance. And it was utterly predictable that Paul would refuse.
Ostensibly, this was about reliability. Mark had abandoned them on the earlier journey as soon as they landed on the south Turkish mainland. If they were going to have assistance on another trip, it would make sense to have someone they knew would not let them down that way again. But there may be other factors at work. Mark was related not only to Barnabas, but also to Peter. Peter had of course supported Paul’s mission at the Jerusalem Conference; but Mark, a young man with a question mark already over his character, might be inclined to take the same line that Peter had taken in Antioch. Supposing there were still some in Galatia who were claiming the authority of Peter or James in support of a two-table mealtime policy—in support, in other words, of some version of the circumcision agenda? What might Mark do then?
For his part, Barnabas would have found it intolerab
le that Paul would question his judgment. He had himself stood up for Paul ten years before when others were doubtful. Now he wanted to do the same for Mark. He had most likely spoken privately with the young man and believed that he had learned his lesson.
With the ease of hindsight we can think of many ways in which this could have been resolved amicably. Indeed, the solution that emerged—Barnabas and John Mark going back to Cyprus, Paul and someone else going to Galatia and beyond—was staring them in the face and could have been agreed on with prayer and mutual encouragement. But no. There was what Luke calls a paroxysmos: a blazing, horrible, bitter row. Nobody came out of it well. Goodness knows what the young church in Antioch made of it. We must assume that some of what Paul would later write about avoiding angry and bitter speech had already been part of his regular ethical teaching. But on this occasion all of that went out of the window, leaving not only a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but also a sorrowful memory.
So Barnabas and Mark sail away, not only to Cyprus, but right out of the narrative of Acts. Mark reappears as one of Paul’s co-workers during his Ephesian imprisonment, and a later mention indicates that he had become a valued colleague at last.2 Paul knows of Barnabas’s continuing work, but they never team up again.3 Paul now chooses a different companion, Silas (or Silvanus), like Paul a Roman citizen, a member of the Jerusalem church, indeed, one of those entrusted with the letter that the Jerusalem leaders had sent to the wider churches. It made good sense. The Antioch church sends them on their way, commending them to God’s grace. They were going to need it.
