2:11 後來,磯法到了安提阿;因他有可責之處,我就當面抵擋他。
2:12 從雅各那裡來的人未到以先,他和外邦人一同吃飯,及至他們來到,他因怕奉割禮的人,就退去與外邦人隔開了。
2:13 其餘的猶太人也都隨著他裝假,甚至連巴拿巴也隨夥裝假。
2:14 但我一看見他們行的不正,與福音的真理不合,就在眾人面前對磯法說:「你既是猶太人,若隨外邦人行事,不隨猶太人行事,怎麼還勉強外邦人隨猶太人呢?」
2:15 我們這生來的猶太人,不是外邦的罪人;
2:16 既知道人稱義不是因行律法,乃是因信耶穌基督,連我們也信了基督耶穌,使我們因信基督稱義,不因行律法稱義;因為凡有血氣的,沒有一人因行律法稱義。
2:17 我們若求在基督裡稱義,卻仍舊是罪人,難道基督是叫人犯罪的嗎?斷乎不是!
2:18 我素來所拆毀的,若重新建造,這就證明自己是犯罪的人。
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to
oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived,
he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward,
when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore.
He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.
As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even
Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
When I saw that they were not following the
truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since
you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a
Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish
traditions?
“You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’
like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in
Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so
that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not
because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by
obeying the law.”
But suppose we seek to be made right with
God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have
abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! Rather,
I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.
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這是保羅為真理爭戰的記載,也是我們這些傳講上帝話語之人的榜樣。的確,我們要把握任何機會,將上帝的話宣告出來,使人行在正確的路上!