its work, the interests of the Church would suffer. Both groups, therefore, were absolutely necessary in order that both Jews and Gentiles should be won. In one particular, indeed, the Jerusalem leaders requested expressly that the division of labor should not be taken too strictly; they hoped that Paul would not be so much engrossed in his Gentile work as to forget the poor of the Jerusalem Church (Gal. ii. 10). It should be observed very carefully that this request about the poor forms an exception, not at all to the full recognition of Paul's gospel, but only to the division of labor as between Jews and Gentiles. It does not go with the remote words of verse 6 ("for to me those who were of repute added nothing"), but with the immediately adjacent words in verse 9. Paul does not say, therefore, "To me those of repute added (or imposed) nothing except that I should remember the Jerusalem poor." If he had said that, then perhaps it would be difficult to explain the omission of the Apostolic Decree; for the Decree as much as the request for aid of the Jerusalem poor was something that the Jerusalem leaders laid upon him. But the fact is that neither the Decree nor the request about the poor has anything whatever to do with Paul's gospel or the attitude of the Jerusalem leaders toward it. What is really meant by the request for aid is simply this: "You are the apostle to the Gentiles; it is a great work; we wish you Godspeed in it. But even in so great a work as that, do not forget your needy Jewish brethren in Jerusalem."