Exactly.. the Apostles were just being Jews.. doing Jewish things.. but Paul "got it" directly from Jesus(Holy Spirit) in a manner they all had not.. I would say a double dose.. like Isaiah.. Almost the same scenario happened in Galatia but Paul was ready for it..
If the Apostles could miss something so important like forsake the (Jewish)traditions and ceremonys of your fathers so much MORE can/could the hand me down "apostles" that replaced them.. I am getting a feeling some or all RCC and EO's and a few others should re-read the book of Galatians and consider the impact and import of it.. You have highlighted a very very important possibility of ERROR by any christian.. Tradition and Ceremony can enslave the work of God in your life and hamstring it the way it almost did to ALL OF THE APOSTLES except Paul.. No doubt they were performing other traditions besides circumcision...
BRILLIANT dear girl ... brilliant..
OKay, let's look at Galatians. Let's look at more than just one part though.
Let's look at 1:18, the part where Paul stays with Cephas and meets with James. Then again let's look at 2:1 and especially 2:2 where Paul submits his preaching to their judgment and2:9 where they approve and commission him.
Then we might go over to Acts 15 and the council in Jerusalem in which the Apostles speak in the name of the Holy Spirit. Leaving aside the unsupportable suggestion that the vague "some men came down from Judea," refers to apostles, we have Paul at once disagreeing with what some in the Church — even Cephas 镄 are doing and nevertheless submitting to the council, acquiescing in their decision, and accepting a commission, an apostolate, from them.
Yes, Paul rebuked Cephas, as Catherine of Siena rebuked her pope. It's good for popes to be rebuked from time to time. It keeps them humble. But he also went to Cephas and the other apostles for ratification of his ministry.
To me all this is another instance of making a difference starker than it is in reality. Sola Scriptura Protestants seem to disregard the submission of Paul to the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem, and then when Peter says that Baptism saves us, there is a slight lingering suggestion that Peter, well, okay, yeah, he's in the canon, but we don't have to believe the parts we don't like; after all, parts of the canon are "of straw", and we can cloak our selective disbelief under the rubric of using Scripture (the parts we like) to interpret Scripture (the parts we don't like).
The distinction between works of the Old Law and Grace is made so stark that the possibility that some things in the new covenant might meaningfully combine aspects of work and grace, so that a work like Baptism might be seen as a gift, is rejected out of hand.
The controversy of Baptism really highlights this. The apparent Protestant tendency to make distinctions starker than they are shows up in fervently maintaining, even after texts which show otherwise are cited, that when the Church says that Baptism is the "ordinary" means of salvation she means it is the "exclusive" means of salvation.
In this thread Alamo-girl has said (if I understand her) that knowledge of God's will frees her from the law of non-contradiction and of the excluded middle. But some Protestants insist that if a thing is a "work" why it must be a "work of the law" and it thus cannot also be a "grace", while Catholics bask happily in the apparently excluded middle where merit is a gift and works are graces.
It's interesting. There's a rejection of the very reason that is required for conversation and of the kind of nuance, the "in a certain way, yes, but in another way, no" that always attends conversation about great matters. "LOL" (and the like) is considered an argument and a refutation. There's not only disagreement on the terms of discourse, there's no agreement on the nature or purpose of discourse.
"Churchy" people do tend to strain at gnats and swallow camels.