Finishing the Race - Strong! (11)

What do we see in the conflict that occurred in Antioch between Peter and Paul? What can we learn? (Galatians 2:11 – 21). 

Peter, who Christ had expressly spoken to about calling no man unclean (Acts 10:1 – 11:18) and who had brought the Gospel to the non-Jewish peoples, was visiting Antioch and fellowshipping with Gentiles, including eating with them. Eating with others is a special form of fellowship, is it not? Is not our Lord’s Supper a sacred element of our koinonia with one another? 

But then “certain men from James” showed up and he distanced himself from the non-Jews when it came time to eat, holding himself “aloof” and “fearing the party of the circumcision.” When the rest of the Jews saw this, that is those Jews who were living in Antioch, “they joined in the hypocrisy” and even Barnabas “was carried away by their hypocrisy.” 

Before we get too judgmental about Peter’s behavior, let’s be thankful that the relationship between Paul and Peter (and Paul and Barnabas) was secure to the point that Paul could write about this after the fact to help others understand the Gospel and the grace of God. This is not something that needed to be hidden and not ever talked about, but rather something that the Galatians could learn from, and something that Christians have hopefully been learning from for the past 2,000 years. 

Paul was a good model for Barnabas in Galatians 2:11 – 21, and I think that Barnabas was likely a good model for Paul in Acts 15:36 – 41. Hopefully John Mark learned by observing both conflicts, and I am sure he especially learned in seeing the reconciliation between Paul and Barnabas, however that played out. 

We finish strong when our relationships are strong, when we are committed to one another, when we learn and grow through conflict, when our mutual commitment to Jesus Christ transcends our relational difficulties. 

The appearance of this “certain group from James” reminds us that there are professing Christians who don’t care what the Gospel really teaches, their religious traditions and self-righteousness are more important than Jesus and others. In spite of the teaching of Jesus, in spite of Jesus’s words to Peter, in spite of the Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), in spite of the working of the Holy Spirit and the unfolding of the grace of God, there were professing Christians who insisted on keeping old ways of thinking and living, who taught that their righteousness before God rested on their religious works.

We still see this in congregations, in denominations and movements, in cities and in regions. As Paul writes in Galatians 4:29, “But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.” 

It is really a copout when we say, “Well the church isn’t perfect, it is made up of sinners.” The Bible doesn’t teach that, the Bible teaches that the Church of Jesus Christ consists of saints and that when we encounter sin, including hypocrisy, that we ought to repent of it and live as those who belong to Jesus Christ and who are members of one another. 

Hypocrisy hurts the innocent, it crushes those young in Christ, it drives people away from Jesus, it makes us stink and look ugly in the eyes of the world, a world than needs Jesus. Again, what Jesus taught meant nothing to these “certain men from James,” what mattered to them was maintaining their false Gospel and their self-righteousness. These people are still with us, and they are often so successful in their messages that we don’t see them, in fact many of us follow them rather than the Lamb of God. Others are so entrenched in their religious power structures that their predatory behavior is virtually unassailable, and their practice of secrecy and crushing the opposition by sheer power, ostracization, and money overwhelm those who raise a voice against their perfidious practices. 

Still, let us take care that we are not too harsh with Peter and Barnabas. Let us not be so foolish as to discount peer pressure. 

Have you ever been having a joyous time with people when all of a sudden something happened to take you aback, to hurt you, to shock you? What was that like? Did you recover? How long did it take you to recover? How did you recover? 

I think Peter was having a ball in Antioch, I think he was enjoying his time with all of the brothers and sisters, Jew and Gentile. I think Peter was looking back on his vision of the great sheet filled with clean and unclean animals (Acts 10) and of his time with Cornelius and saying, “Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. O thank you Jesus.” I think the worship was great, I think the teaching times were great, and I think the meals were wonderful – just think of the different types of food Peter might have experienced in Antioch – a cosmopolitan city. Can you see him asking, “What is that? Who made that? That’s your grandmother’s recipe?”

I think Peter was enjoying himself, maybe having the time of his life. I think that in his innocence his guard was down, and then it happened, “certain men from James showed up.”

Friends, let’s not dismiss out of hand the power and surprise of peer pressure, especially when we don’t see it coming. 

Now maybe I’m off base about the situation with Peter, but I’m not sure about that and I want to think the best of Peter. I think Peter was a “what you see is what you get” kind of man. Now should Peter have done better? Of course, especially considering his position as one of the leading apostles. I imagine Peter learned through this, as hopefully we’ve learned when we’ve been confronted with peer pressure and hypocrisy. 

We’ll continue to ponder this in the next reflection in this series.