2:15–16
In these verses, Paul reminded Peter of the issues that they had already agreed upon. They agreed that Christ accepted both Jews and non-Jews through faith in him. It is impossible to be justified by obeying the law.
2:15
We who: The Greek pronoun that the Berean Standard Bible translates as We who is emphatic.
Another way to translate this Greek word is:
As for us, we
Paul used this pronoun to identify those who know God. He included himself, Peter, and all Jewish Christians.
We: Note that if you consider verses 15–21 to be direct speech, the pronoun We here is inclusive. If you consider these verses to be indirect speech, then the We is exclusive, since Paul would be reporting to the Galatians what he went on to tell Peter.
are Jews by birth: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as by birth implies that being born a Jew was a special privilege. It was special because it was only to the Jews that God had given the law.
Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
were born Jews
-or-
were born Jews ?and had the law?
-or-
are Jews ?and know God? because our parents are Jews
and not Gentile “sinners”: The Jews commonly used the expression “Gentile sinners” to show their disdain for anyone who was not a Jew. This phrase referred to those who did not know God and lived without the law.
Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
and not Gentile sinners ?who do not know God?
-or-
?we do not have? evil behavior like those who do not know ?the law of? God
This traditional attitude of the Jews was not something that Paul would agree with after he met Jesus and understood the gospel. One way to make this clear is:
and not “Gentile sinners,” as they are called (Good News Translation)
Gentile: Here the word Gentile refers to those who did not know God. This is in contrast to the Jews who did know God.
© 2016 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.