Bible Synapse
On his first visit to Jerusalem, did Paul meet the apostles or only Peter and James?
Hard question · Acts and the letters · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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In Jerusalem the disciples feared Saul, but Barnabas “brought him to the apostles”, and he was with them coming in and going out.
And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.
After three years Paul went up “to see Peter”, stayed fifteen days, and saw no other apostle “save James the Lord’s brother”.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.
The objection
Acts says that when Paul first came to Jerusalem after his conversion, Barnabas brought him to “the apostles”, and he moved about freely with them. Paul, writing to the Galatians, insists before God that on that visit he saw only Peter, and of the other apostles none but James. Did he meet the apostles or not?
The answer
Both describe the same short visit, and both can be true. Luke tells it in summary. Barnabas vouched for Paul and “brought him to the apostles” (Acts 9:27), that is, to the apostles who were there; Luke gives no names and no number. Paul gives the details in Galatians because his argument needed them. Some in Galatia were saying that he had learned his gospel second-hand from the leaders in Jerusalem. He replies that he received it “by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12), did not go up to Jerusalem for three years, stayed only fifteen days, met only Peter and James, and was not known by sight to the churches of Judea (1:17–22). He even adds “before God, I lie not” (1:20), because every detail counted.
Peter was the leading apostle, and James, the Lord’s brother, became the leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Galatians 2:9). To bring Paul to these two was to bring him to the apostles’ leadership, and ‘the apostles’ is Luke’s natural way of speaking of the leaders as a body. The others may well have been away. Acts shows the apostles travelling in these years, and soon afterwards Peter himself “passed throughout all quarters” (Acts 9:32). Gill and Barnes both identify the apostles of Acts 9:27 as Peter and James. Luke’s next words, “he was with them coming in and going out” (9:28), describe Paul moving freely among the believers in the city; they do not say that he met all the Twelve.
Other answers Christians give
Was James an apostle?
Galatians 1:19 can be read in two ways: James is counted as an apostle in a wider sense, as Barnabas is called an apostle in Acts 14:14; or Paul saw no other apostle, only James. Either way he met two of the church’s leaders, and Luke’s plural ‘apostles’ fits.
From the classic commentators
But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles,.... To Peter and James, the brother of our Lord, for no other apostles did he see at this time, Galatians 1:18.John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Acts 9:27 (1746–1763)