No small argument this one!

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood self-condemned, for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?”
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing (Gal. 2:10-20).

Now we have some fun verses. Followers of Jesus, first Century believers having a good old dust up. The guy that can certainly be viewed as the central character from the original 12, and the central character beyond the 12 who has shaped our faith more than probably anyone else. They don’t agree! Surely on some of these issues Jesus could have put down some clear guidelines for them, it was pretty obvious the whole Jew / Gentile issue would come into play very soon, and before the Fall of Jerusalem that Jesus spoke so accurately into. He, as Risen Lord, had spent days teaching on the kingdom of God, so I can only presume he taught in such a way that did not mean they would forever avoid difficulties, disputes and disagreements. Unity of agreement seems to me to be overrated.

So in simple terms Peter is willing to eat with Gentiles (and eating of course was much more than satisfying hunger but demonstrating their oneness together) until some people come down from Jerusalem claiming to represent the Jerusalem view. Peter conforms, and then shock, even Mr Bridge builder Barnabas pulls back. Paul saw all this behaviour as hypocrisy – of presenting something that was an ‘act’ that was not true. Paul then is armed and confronts Peter publicly (oh to be a fly on the wall!).

Peter knows that there was to be no division, so what on earth caused him (and Barnabas!) to pull back? Fear is mentioned, people pleasing I am sure was involved, but I think there must have also been a convincing argument, and I consider it had to be a ‘missiological’ argument.

Building bridges, not offending, even compromise for the sake of the Gospel is all part of missiological principles, so here is my plausible suggestion:

The argument went.

If you eat with Gentiles, and show no respect for the law you will make our task in Judea all-but impossible. How will we tell this to our law abiding people who have found faith in Jesus as Messiah. They will be offended as your behaviour in eating with the Gentiles presents our faith as something in opposition to our historic faith, the faith of Abraham. Some of them might even lose their new found faith in Jesus. The offence to those who have found faith will be enormous and when we come to share our faith in Jesus with our fellow-Jews we will have no entrance there; they will immediately reject everything we have to say. Peter, this will get out, so pull back now, FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOOD NEWS.

Missiological!

And here is Paul on his mission throughout the empire. ‘You are grafted into the historic people of God, and grafted in without needing to conform to the law’. Two missiological principles; two clashing arguments.

I love Paul’s approach – he does not reflect that they sat down to discuss how the two opposing views might work out… he simply wades in with ‘you are in the wrong and I am calling it out’. I like the approach but cannot claim that it gives me the right to do that. But for Paul it was the freedom of the Gospel that gave him his strength. Maybe his approach did cause some issues in the home land of Jerusalem (and we can read in Acts of how nervous they were when he showed up back there!) but the coming of Jesus, for Paul, meant the whole world was now re-ordered and this had implications for Gentiles – and for Jews. Jews, as chosen were no longer the centre, but Jesus as chosen was the centre. They both had to realign themselves around him, and that meant freedom was the watchword and the two peoples had to learn how not to offend one another (a big theme in Romans) but he insisted that in the big world there could be no calling for Gentiles to conform to Jewish practices (works of the law) and no pulling back of Jews because of viewing Gentiles as unclean.

There is so much in this conflict that could be explored, but at least again we see that ‘freedom’ and togetherness based on freedom was the guiding principle. Not offending those who were hiding behind religion certainly was not an option that Paul entertained.

The latter verses in the section above could still be the continuation of what Paul said to Peter as it is hard to work out where the ‘I said to Cephas’ ends. That section also involves some strange, convoluting language and arguments – strange at least to us in the way that we approach logic. In particular when he says,

But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

He is referring to if he should build / implement again the law (what Peter had done out of intimidation) then he would be a transgressor. Given that transgression was measured by the law this indeed sounds strange; but if we realise that for Paul the coming of Jesus changed everything we can make some sense of it. The future in the coming of Jesus caused the past to be re-calibrated, the future was not to be understood from the past. For some theologians the shift was so remarkable that they suggested that Paul was so impacted when he found Jesus that he discovered the ‘solution’ and from there worked back as to what the ‘problem’ was. The problem was not ‘guilt’ (as per Martin Luther) and Jesus took his guilt away. He found the solution but as he was already ‘righteous according to the law’ the problem had to lie elsewhere. There has to be a great element of truth in that in that he worked from the future and then looked backward to assess everything else, including his former life and the whole chosenness of Israel and the giving of the law. The coming of Jesus caused a disruption to everything. We might well wish to read the Old Testament as pointing forward, but at a very real level we read the New Testament and it points back, re-calibrates what is prior, and even nullifies some of it (‘I died to the law’ for example).

Life now for Paul was the life of Jesus. Nothing else counted. If Peter, Barnabas and others have responded to Jesus, then they can no longer act of out any previous grid; should they do so they would be living an act (hypocrisy), and if pushed I guess he would have to say they had become transgressors!