Simply stating your position doesn’t help me understand how you came to this conclusion.
If Paul wasn’t worried about the accuracy of his gospel, what does he mean by in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
His comment in verse three about Titus not having to be circumcised seems to indicate that he was worried about his visit to the twelve would be interpreted as an endorsement of their gospel (i.e. the circumcision gospel spoken of in verse 9). He didn't make a big public spectacle of his visit and went to the twelve privately so as not undermine his gospel.
Where do you think the 12 got theirs.
I don't have to think. They got it from Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry. Matthew 28:18-20
No, he was not under their authority. What I’m saying is that when Paul submitted his gospel to them they didn’t see anything different than what they had been preaching and doing. Hence, who seemed influential added nothing to me.
This is your doctrine, not what the bible says. If the two were the same, there would have been no distinction made in verse 9 and there would have been no need for the meeting in the first place.
I love this about the Acts 15 counsel. There was a question about what was truth and instead of God telling them directly, they came to an understanding based on what God had already revealed. That is how we come to the knowledge of the truth today.
Again, this is your doctrine speaking, not the text.
Paul explicitly states that he received what he repeatedly called "my gospel" by direct divine revelation and that the twelve added nothing to him (i.e. to his gospel). Paul's gospel was therefore not the result of any council, Acts 15 or otherwise.
God sent Paul to the Twelve because they needed to understand what he was preaching and why so that there wouldn't be a conflict between the two groups over circumcision and the eating of unclean foods. And even after that meeting it was all Paul could do to keep Peter from mucky it all up when he separated himself from the Gentiles when "men from James" showed up for dinner. (Gal. 2:12)
I see your logic here and can understand how one could see it that way. The problem I have with that logic is the 12 were told to preach the gospel to everyone and baptize the believers. If Paul was not baptizing the believers, wouldn’t they want to add that?
NO!
Same question, same answer!
Why would they want to add that if they understood that what Paul was preaching and doing was a result of what he (Paul) had received by divine revelation?
Remember that it wasn't the Twelve that sent for Paul, it was God who sent Paul to the Twelve, the result of which was not any modification of Paul's activities but rather a cessation of the Twelve (and their followers) giving Paul's converts a hard time about circumcision and following the customs of the Jewish faith (Acts 21:15-25)
Please consider this. Peter was the first to convert Gentiles. When Peter saw that God had accepted them, he COMMANDED them to be baptized. If Paul is not baptizing, or having them baptized, everyone who believes as Jesus personally instructed the 12, wouldn't Peter at the very least want to mention this difference?
There was probably all kinds of things that Paul was preaching and doing that Peter didn't understand. In fact, he even said exactly that. (2 Peter 3:15)
And, by the way, your point here is, in fact, an actual argument from silence, unlike what you accuse me of later in the post.
An argument from silence happens when you take what is not said or what does not happen and make an affirmative case based on that non-event. Such arguments are not necessarily fallacious but they are rather weak, especially in comparison to a case built on affirmative evidence. And while arguments from silence are not necessarily fallacious, they very often are fallacious because the premise of the argument often presupposes the rightness of the person's position who's making the argument. In other words, arguments from silence very often beg the question.
In this case, your premise is that Paul's gospel is the same as Peter's and if that were the case then you would think that Peter would want Paul to be baptizing if in fact he wasn't doing so. But the problem with that argument is that if Paul wasn't baptizing because his gospel was different then Peter wouldn't have wanted to add baptism to it if he knew it was different. Thus I could argue that Peter's silence is a tacit endorsement of Paul's lack of baptizing. And so Peter's silence can be used as an argument for either side of the debate depending on which premise you wanted to interpret the silence through. A text book example of why question begging doesn't advance one's position in any debate.
I’m trying to understand this 2 gospel thing. Does Paul’s gospel include baptizing believers or not?? If it does NOT, then if Paul is baptizing believes wouldn’t that be adding something to the gospel that he did not receive from Christ?? Just like the discussion they're having about circumcision. Men wanted to add circumcision to those who believed the gospel.
It did include water baptism for a time but baptism and miracles and speaking in tongues and other similar things were "done away" with as Paul's gospel became better known, understood and widespread. (I Cor. 13)
Are you suggesting that v.5 is talking about the 12? If so, I suggest the context along with Acts 15 indicates that it is not the 12 in v. 5.
2:4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment
Your understanding of this is so convoluted that its difficult to even understand where this question would come from.
The parenthetical comment in verse 4 is explaining, at least in part, what prompted the need for Paul to go to Jerusalem. My only point was that it had nothing to do with baptism as you had suggested in your previous post and that Paul is sort of giving a list of people here (in verse 4 - 6) that he did not submit himself to.
Nope it’s mine. That’s why it’s not the strongest argument. You don’t address two different books meant for two different audiences in your example as is the claim of v.7. Can you do that only using book once? I’m not saying you can’t but it would help me to the see the error in my logic better if you would.
"Charles Mackay wrote the book 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" while Ayn Rand wrote 'Atlas Shrugged'."
It makes no difference who the author is or which books are being discussed or how many difference intended audiences. It's the form of the sentence that is the point here. The number of times the word "book" is used is entirely irrelevant to how many books are being discussed. In fact, you wouldn't even have to use the word "book" at all in that sentence if you didn't want too.
Preached to UNBELIEVERS to convert them. I don’t know off the top of my head of a another sermon to unbelievers other than maybe Mars hill. It usually says something like Paul "spoke the word of the Lord". So to see what is the word of the Lord, I go back to his sermon in Acts 13.
Listen, you have got to drop this technique of doing theology. Seriously. This is dangerously poor hermeneutics. You read the bible as though it were written by lawyers, picking out single words and linking passages in the flimsiest, most unsubstantial manner possible.
There is no doctrine, none at all, no matter how hideously heretical it might be, that one could not formulate using such a method.
That's not to say that you're a heretic or a cultist or anything like that but merely that this particular technique has no place in the proper formation of sound doctrine.
I suggest they didn’t dispute it because it’s exactly the same.
Except that if it were exactly the same there would have been no need for the meeting to take place at all and there would have been no distinction made between the two gospels in verse 9 nor any conflict over circumcision and observing the customs of the Jewish faith nor any reason for Paul to get into Peter's face about his conduct when the "men from James" showed up.
Yes, they recognize Paul received it from God but if it was different there would at the very least be a discussion about the difference.
Verses 7 - 9 seem to state explicitly that there was exactly that. In fact, discussing the differences was precisely the point of God having sent Paul there in the first place.
Galatians 2:2a And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles
Notice also that he went in private (Gal. 2:2b). If his gospel was no different then were was the risk of controversy?
This is an argument from silence.
No, sorry but it just isn't. The questions are all based on your own premise and cite events that clearly happened and aren't even in dispute.
The affirmative fact of the matter is and the bible affirmatively and explicitly states that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to Paul, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter.
That's two gospels to two people to two audiences (Gal. 2:7-9).
If there were the same then verses 7, 8 and 9 do not mean what they say and more than that, there would have been no need for Paul in the first place because God already had 12 fully trained and Holy Spirit filled Apostles on the ground doing ministry.
There is exactly zero sense in which my questions were in any way an argument from silence. The only thing silent about those questions is what I have almost universally gotten in response to them by those who fail to rightly divide the Word of Truth.
And so I ask you them again and challenge you to make some sort of an attempt to answer them. At the very least you should think such questions through because, like I said, they start by accepting your own premise, that Paul's gospel is the same as that of the Twelve, and ask you reconcile that premise with the occurrence of events that definitely happened and that are not in dispute.
If Paul's gospel is the same as that the of the Twelve, where's the need for them to stay and minister to the Jews while Paul goes to the Gentiles?
In fact, if Paul's gospel was the same as the Twelve, why was Paul taught it by revelation and wny was there any need to explain himself to the Twelve at all?
Indeed, why Paul at all? What was wrong with the Twelve that they could not have been given this gospel to the Gentiles? Where's the need for a thirteenth apostle?
Clete
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