What Do You Think?

Read Galatians 2:11-21

For some it might be hard to imagine that Peter would succumb to social pressures or what many today call peer pressure. However, that is exactly what happened when a group of men came to Antioch claiming to have been sent by the Apostle James in Jerusalem, it is important to note that Acts 15:24 quells these “certain men’s” claim that they were sent by James. These men obviously had a problem with the idea of gentiles becoming Christians and not following after Jewish customs. I think it is a fairly safe bet that these are some of the Judaizers Paul refers to in chapter one and the beginning of chapter two. Nevertheless, it would seem that Peter enjoyed feasting with the gentile believers, however, when these men came Peter changed his tune and separated himself from the gentile believers for fear of what others might think. I can only imagine how the gentile believers must have felt when this happened, after sharing what was probably some wonderful times of fellowship only to see Peter act like that, it must have been quite disheartening.

I am sure that Peter tried to dress it up and say that he was just trying to avoid a huge conflict but the problem was that Peter knew better, he knew that the gentile believers were Christians just as much as he was and they deserved no lesser treatment than that of anyone else. The greater problem occurred when others followed after Peter and shunned the gentiles as well. When Peter should have been standing up and setting the right example he was sitting down and setting the wrong one for others to follow. Now it is certainly easy for us to criticize Peter at this point and shake our heads because we would never do such a terrible thing, but the truth is we all have made compromises at one point or another with what we know to be right. Furthermore, we all have played the part of the gentiles or the part of Peter; either being abandoned by the hypocrite or playing the part ourselves.
 

The apostle Paul’s public rebuke of Peter certainly flies in the face of the idea that Peter was infallible. The fact is that Peter was but a mere man who succumbed to the flesh; a battle which every last one of us will deal with at one time or another. This is a battle that the Apostle Paul clearly recognized and so aptly laid out for us in the seventh chapter of Romans when he said that the good which he willed to do, he did not do; but, it was the evil which he willed not to do, that is what he did, he went on to say “ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Friends, the answer is Jesus Christ! Paul reminds Peter in verse sixteen, that we (then and now) are all justified by faith in Jesus Christ, we are not justified by anything else, not by works and definitely not by the law, and to place ourselves under a system that says Christ’s blood is not enough is the equivalent of looking up to heaven and telling God that His son died for nothing. Friends, Christ did not die to rebuild the law, He died to tear down that middle wall of separation, He died to tear down the curtain that once separated us from the Holy of Holies granting us access to the very throne room of God.

I was at a retreat this past weekend and a gentleman from the National Guard got up and spoke for about twenty minutes and he was talking about each one of us who call ourselves Christian are essentially a soldier for Christ, enlisted in Gods army. I can remember from my own days in the military marching by cadences and as I was reading the last few verses of this chapter over and over verse 20 kept jumping out at me and I began to see a cadence in which the Christian can march to in Gods army; in addition, for all of us who have been purchased by the blood of Christ verse 20 sums up in one sentence who we now are in Him, it states: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” I cannot think of a better way to lose myself than to be crucified with Him in order that I may gain my identity in and with Him.

In closing I leave with this final thought; it’s funny how we withdraw and turn from even our closest brothers for fear of what others may think and the greatest tragedy is at times we do this for fear of what other Christians may think.

May Christ Jesus rule and reign in each of our hearts,
Mark