Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was eager to do.
All Commentaries on Galatians 2:10 Go To Galatians 2
Gaius Marius Victorinus
AD 400
When Paul and Barnabas were having these discussions with John and Peter and James, the gospel was accepted and established in the way that Paul describes. The only thing that they did not hear willingly in this dispute was that works were not part of salvation. Their sole injunction, however, was that they should be mindful of the poor. Thus they agree on this point also, that the hope of salvation does not reside in the activity of doing works for the poor, but they simply enjoin—what?—that we be mindful of the poor. Not that we should spend all our efforts on it but that we should share with those who have not what we are able to have. We are instructed simply that we should be mindful of the poor, not that we should place our care and thought upon our own capacity to hold on to our salvation by this means. Thus he is almost corrected and admonished in this matter, but this is not all Paul says. “That we should be mindful,” he says, not “that we should do this” but “that we should keep them in mind,” which is less than putting our work into this and fulfilling this alone. He adds that he took thought even for this matter outside the gospel that he preached, which consisted in being mindful of the poor and bestowing whatever he could upon them. In truth, indeed, no one is poor if, simply keeping faith and trusting in God, he awaits the riches of his salvation. .
