Fourteen Years Later
1 Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. 2 I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. 3 But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. 4 This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, 5 to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you.
Paul brings an uncircumcised Greek to Jerusalem as a test case, and the outcome is stated as something not conceded rather than something won.
After fourteen years — the second interval, and together with the first it means Paul had been preaching for seventeen years before the meeting this paragraph describes. The chronology is still doing the work of chapter 1.
He went by revelation, not by summons, and he took two men. Barnabas, a Jewish believer, and Titus, whom verse 3 identifies as a Greek. Bringing an uncircumcised gentile into that room was not incidental; it put the question in the flesh before it was put in words.
The presentation was privately before those who were respected, and Paul gives his reason with disarming candor: for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. He was confident of his gospel and not confident the churches would hold together. That is a different anxiety, and an honest one.
Verse 3 states the result, and the grammar is careful: Titus was not compelled to be circumcised. Not was welcomed without it — the negative form implies pressure existed and did not prevail.
Verses 4 and 5 name the source of the pressure. False brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty — the vocabulary is of infiltration, and their aim is stated as enslavement. Against them Paul gave way not for an hour.
And the reason he refused is not his own standing: that the truth of the Good News might continue with you. The Galatians reading this are being told the concession was refused on their behalf, before they existed as churches.
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