1 Timothy 2:7God's WordI was appointed to spread this Good News and to be an apostle to teach people who are not Jewish about faith and truth. I’m telling you the truth. I’m not lying. See the chapter |
Instead, I spread the message that I first told to the ⌞Jewish⌟ people in Damascus and Jerusalem and throughout the whole country of Judea. I spread the same message to non-Jewish people. Both groups were expected to change the way they thought and acted and to turn to God. I told them to do things that prove they had changed their lives.
Yet, we know that people don’t receive God’s approval by any effort to follow the laws in the Scriptures, but only by believing in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Jesus Christ in order to receive God’s approval by faith in Christ and not by our own efforts. People won’t receive God’s approval by their own efforts.
James, Cephas, and John (who were recognized as the most important people) acknowledged that God had given me this special gift. So they shook hands with Barnabas and me, agreeing to be our partners. It was understood that we would work among the people who are not Jewish and they would work among Jewish people.