Then he goes and contradicts that by saying these rather egotistical statements:
"And when they had known the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars.......
SEEMED to be pillars? They WERE pillars of the Early Church and were given the honor of being with Jesus during His earthly mission.
But of them who seemed to be some thing, (what they were some time, it is nothing to me, God accepteth not the person of man,) for to me they that seemed to be some thing added nothing.
Whoa! Did he dare say that the Apostles, St. James, St. Peter and St. John had added NOTHING??
For I suppose that I have done nothing less than the great apostles.
They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise): I AM MORE; in many MORE labours, in prisons MORE frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.
Doesn't sound so humble to me.
Is that why Paul confronted Peter in his hypocrisy concerning the Jews and the Gentiles?
Someone should have confronted St. Paul about his own hypocrisy. He scolded St. Peter for the very SAME thing he did himself. He circumcised St. Timothy out of fear of the Jews!
AND he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, there was a certain disciple there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman that believed; but his father was a Gentile.
To this man the brethren that were in Lystra and Iconium, gave a good testimony.
Him Paul would have to go along with him: and taking him he circumcised him, because of the Jews who were in those places. For they all knew that his father was a Gentile.
St. Paul admits this:
And I became to the Jews, a Jew, that I might gain the Jews:
To them that are under the law, as if I were under the law, (whereas myself was not under the law,) that I might gain them that were under the law.
And he's got a problem with St. Peter??
Then he seems to break a promise that he made to the Apostles in the Book of Acts:
It hath seemed good to us, being assembled together, to choose out men, and to send them unto you, with our well beloved Barnabas and Paul:
Men that have given their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves also will, by word of mouth, tell you the same things.
For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things:
That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well. Fare ye well.
Well, St. Paul does an interesting little shuffle here.
If any of them that believe not, invite you, and you will be willing to go; eat of any thing that is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake.
But if any man say: This has been sacrificed to idols, do not eat of it for his sake that told it, and for conscience' sake.
Conscience, I say, not thy own, but the other's. For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience ?
If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I evil spoken of, for that for which I give thanks ?
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.
This can get kind of disturbing considering the words of Jesus Christ in the Apocalypse:
Yet I have a few things against you. You have some people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block before the Israelites: to eat food sacrificed to idols and to play the harlot.
Yet I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
St. Paul is not without a few nicks in his own armor. Like St. Peter, he had his own foibles and flaws.