Does this imply that Paul considered James to be an apostle? In the strict sense of the term James was not an apostle, but an elder in the church at Jerusalem. Machen avoids the conclusion that Paul here treats James as an apostle by translating: ‘but another of the apostles I did not see - only I saw James the brother of the Lord’. He adds however that anyway it would have been quibbling for Paul to have pointed out that James was not one of the twelve in order to insist on his point. Others understand Paul to be using the term in a wider sense as he does also in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7. This is also how Luke appears to use the term in Acts 9:27 where he records Barnabas bringing Paul to the apostles (plural) on the occasion of this visit, even though Peter was the only literal apostle in Jerusalem at the time.