THE BALANCE between grace and Law is the focus of this week's New Testament study. We discuss the Council of Jerusalem, a gathering of the apostles in A.D. 49 to settle the question of whether Gentile converts were required to be circumcised and keep the Law to be saved.

Then we read Paul's letter to the Galatians, churches in what is now central Turkey. The Galatians had apparently come under the influence of Judaizers, Jewish converts to Christianity who insisted that salvation required following the Mosaic Law. Paul makes it clear that loving our neighbors as ourselves fulfills all of the Law.