Galatians 2:1

Galatians 2:1. Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem. The fourteen years of independent apostolic labor are to be reckoned not from the journey last mentioned (Galatians 1:18), but from Paul's conversion, this being the great turning point in his life (Galatians 1:15). As this probably took place A. D. 37, we would have the year 50 or 51 or the Apostolic Council here referred to. This date is confirmed by other chronological hints and combinations. The second journey to Jerusalem, on a purely benevolent mission during the famine of 44, at a season of persecution when probably all the Apostles were absent and only “the Elders” are mentioned (Acts 11:30; Acts 12:25), is omitted as irrelevant to the point here at issue. After my conversion, he means to say, I had the following opportunities of conferring with the Apostles: (1.) three years afterwards I went to Jerusalem, and saw Peter, but only for a fortnight; (2.) after a lapse of fourteen years I went to Jerusalem again and had a special conference with the chief Apostles. But in neither case was I instructed or commissioned by them; on the contrary, they recognized me as an independent, divinely appointed Apostle of the Gentiles.

Lightfoot also identifies this visit with that to the Apostolic Council, which he puts into the year 51, but dates the fourteen years from the first visit (Galatians 1:18), and throws the first visit back to A. D. 38, and the conversion to A. D. 36, adopting the Jewish mode of reckoning.

With Barnabas, having taken with me Titus also. Barnabas, next to Paul the chief leader of the Gentile mission, is mentioned by Luke (Acts 15:2) as his fellow-delegate from Antioch. Titus is nowhere mentioned in the Acts, but included in the ‘certain others,' who accompanied them. Being an uncircumcised convert and a living testimony of the efficient labors of Paul among the Gentiles, Titus was peculiarly suited for the object of this journey. He was also (as Lightfoot suggests) much in Paul's mind, if not in his company, at the time he wrote this Epistle (comp. 2Co 2:13; 2 Corinthians 7:6; 2 Corinthians 7:13-15; 2Co 8:16; 2 Corinthians 8:23; 2 Corinthians 12:18).