GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 2:14
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14 But when I saw that they were not walking straight, with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “If you, though a Jew, live the Gentile way and not the Jewish way, how can you compel the Gentiles to live the Jewish way?”
Peter’s actions betrayed his fear and the indecisiveness of his mind. He was ready to listen to the Holy Spirit, but then when he was confronted by Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, the sort of men who are very sure of themselves and quite vocal about it, Peter stepped back to avoid a confrontation. The issue was not that Peter was shocking a few loud-mouth Jews, but that he was destroying what the Lord himself had established to welcome the Gentiles.
Paul heard about this while he was there in Antioch. He stood up to Peter in public, perhaps in one of the larger Christian churches there, and he rebuked Peter in front of everyone. Why did Paul do this in public? Why not take Peter aside and speak with him quietly?
There were two problems with that. First, “It was not expedient to correct in secret an error tht was doing public harm” (Augustine). When a person in a position of leadership commits a sin in public, or if any Christian commits a public sin, known to everyone, they should be corrected and admonished in public. There have been a few instances that I have been involved with where a young person, not yet confirmed or still in their teens, has been involved in a sinful error that a few people know about, but not everyone, and when we have handled the issue privately, seeking repentance and a change in the life of the individual, we have run into opposition and sometimes heated questions from the few who knew about the issue. But for the sake of the child’s self-esteem and in some cases to avoid hypocrisy, we have chosen to address such a sin quietly and then answer questions about it in private as well. But this was not the case with Peter.
The second matter is that Peter’s error was done at the prodding and as a result of an error by others. By addressing Peter in public, Paul was able to root out the mistake in the hearts of other men there without having to investigate who they might have been, or who else they might have confused with their twisting of the gospel. For Paul says that even Barnabas got turned around by all of this (verse 13)! Therefore, he was following Solomon’s admonition: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5). And Paul himself said later: “Preach the word. Be ready whether it is inconvenient or not. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, with all patience and teaching, for there will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in line with their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:2-3). And “the Lord rebukes and trains and teaches every living thing, and turns them back, as a shepherd does to his flock.”
So Paul stood up to confront Peter. He had seen how things were going. He saw that other men were being affected by Peter’s mistake. In general, the whole group was no longer “walking straight” and according to the word of God. The word I have translated “walking straight” is orthopodoúsin (ὀρθοποδοῦσιν), to go with straight feet or steps, as opposed to crooked steps. Everybody was now crooked, lopsided, listing, and cattywampus. Peter, Paul says, had been living “Gentile-ly,” an adverb meaning “like a Gentile.” Why make the Gentiles live “Jewishly” if the other was acceptable and now opened by Christ and the Holy Spirit? Within the Trinity, God cannot and does not ever disagree one Person with another. What the Father’s will is, so is the will of the Son and the Spirit. And therefore this new way of living was strange to everyone. Before Sinai, there had been very few rules placed on God’s people. The Law of Moses gave them structure but also a hegde behind which they lived. Now that was at an end. The hedge was down. They were in many ways back to the way things had been in the days of Noah, Abraham, and the Patriarchs. They weren’t used to it. The main thing was to give Christ first place in the heart and to trust in God for everything. The summary of God’s will was to love God and love mankind. This restricting of the Gentiles that was going on, with a return to the regulations of Moses, was not loving at all. Maybe it was the reflection of an attitude in the heart that said: “This is how we became Christians, through the long, hard tunnel of the Law of Moses. If you Gentiles are going to be Christians, you’d better not take any shortcuts. Into the tunnel with you! Obey the Law before you embrace the Gospel!” But this was unloving (if indeed it was their thought), and it was based on nothing but air. God made no such restrictions. What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross? “Today you will be with me.” There was no law for that repentant thief, who hung there nailed up and dying under the cruel law of the Romans. No, there was only gospel coming from Jesus. Where there is faith, there is forgiveness and the resurrection and everlasting life. There are no other pathways to heaven apart from Jesus.
Paul stood up to rebuke Peter because souls were at stake. That’s the heart of the matter. And that should be the matter in our hearts, always.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 2:14 The matter at heart