Key Verse Spotlight
Galatians 2:16 - Meaning and Application
Understand how this verse speaks to what you're facing and how to apply it today
Translation: World English Bible — Catholic Edition
" yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. "
Galatians 2:16
Verse in Context
Understanding the surrounding verses prevents misinterpretation:
14 But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
15 “We, being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners,
16 yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law.
17 But if while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not!
18 For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.
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Galatians 2:1
"Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me."
Galatians 2:2
"I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain."
Galatians 2:3
"But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised."
Galatians 2:4
"This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage,"
Galatians 2:5
"to whom we gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour, that the truth of the Good News might continue with you."
Galatians 2:6
"But from those who were reputed to be important—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,"
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