i think interpreting paul out of context of the other apostles just makes for very poor interpretations... almost as different as interpreting Catholics through what protestants do...
That is true of just about the entire Bible. However, the Church was initially deeply divided over +Paul's teaching.
The smoothing over described in the Acts (written at about 80 AD) was an attempt to show that the Church reconciled the whole issue of not following the law and circumcision as explained by +Paul (and +Paul's reasoning was not simply dismissive).
1 Clement was written c. 95 AD as an attmept to smooth over the deep rift that developed between the backers of +Peter/+James and +Paul. The same is true of 2 Peter (which was not written by +Peter; in fact, +Peter probably never wotre anything).
This rift lingered well into the 2nd century (i.e. Marcion, Gnostics, Ebionites).
In fact most of the latter-day Pauline Epistles are most likely not his because they lack many of the 'Gnostic' flavor Paul's earlier work is said to contain.