daily java

Daily Java:

But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish Christians followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? (Galatians 2:11-14)

Sin is so infectious. That is its nature. And no one is immune to its power.

Peter was the one who brought the Gentiles into the church. The early church even called him on the carpet to explain why in Acts 12 and he told them that it was God’s will.

Barnabas was a close associate of the apostle Paul’s. it was his mandate to go and preach the gospel to Gentiles, along with Paul.

If anyone knew that there was now no separation between Jew and Gentile in the kingdom, it was these two.

But James, the Lord’s brother, was a different kind of person. He was staunchly Jewish and tried his best to keep the customs of his people. When Paul came to Jerusalem in Acts 15 to consult with the rest of the apostles, he shared his commission: to be an apostle to the Gentiles.

If there was anything they had enough of, it was apostles to the Jews. But when Paul left Jerusalem, James made it clear to him that he could go and do that and that was fine, but he would stay here with his people. James had no desire to go to the Gentiles and to do anything other than what he was doing.

James had a problem with racism. He had a problem seeing a multi-racial church. And his failure to see that infected all around him. It even infected the great apostle Peter.

When they were in Antioch, a strong multi-racial church that sent out a lot of teachers to the rest of the world, Peter was fine. He ate with the Gentiles and did all the stuff he should have. But when James’ friends came from Jerusalem, they were so entrenched in the Jewish faith that they refused to “lower” themselves to eating with the Gentiles.

After all, the Gentiles ate such weird stuff and had such weird customs. They were just a lot more comfortable doing their own thing. Nothing wrong with the Gentiles, mind you, just they did not feel comfortable with them.

Their discomfort showed itself so strongly that after a while, even Peter began to shun the Gentiles. After all, this was Peter’s background, Judaism. He had been Jewish for a long time and it was hard to change his mindset.

And it was easy to lapse back into old ways of thinking, even if they were wrong.

Not only this, but he lapsed back so well and completely that before long others lapsed with him. One of them was Barnabas, one of the major teachers of the Gentiles.

There came up a pretty good sized schism. And Paul wasn’t going to have it.

If there was one thing Paul was good at, it was confrontation. He was full of his mission and full of drive to accomplish it. And he was also not a guy that you did something wrong in front of if he thought you should know better.

He called out Peter and Barnabas and roundly chastised them both. Paul always felt outside anyway, but it didn’t bother him a bit to be even more outside by opposing Peter, the lead apostle.

It doesn’t say what came of this, if Peter and Barnabas repented or told Paul to buzz off. I would imagine both of them knew they were wrong, but I would also imagine, given Peter’s personality, that he didn’t take it too well.  Especially from this new guy. Barnabas was probably used to it.

But Paul was such a driven man, such a perfectionist in his teaching. He would be a hard person to put up with.

I believe that attitude was why Jesus made him keep that thorn in the flesh (1 Corinthians 11). It kept him humble and reminded him that he was human. It reminded him that he was not some super-apostle, sent by God to save the world.

It would have been easy for Paul to think this, given his mindset and his nature.

But Peter showed himself to be gracious. In 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter wrote this:

And remember, the Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him – speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.

Quite a different reaction than you would think from one who was embarrassed publicly in front of people who thought highly of him.

I would hope I would have the same reaction.