We had a covered dish lunch last Sunday at church. And everyone sat at tables in the fellowship hall wherever they wanted to sit. We didn’t have a section that was marked out for “people who had devotions every day this week.” They would have all been beaming with pride at each other. We also didn’t have a section marked out for “people who are gladly holding something against a fellow believer.” That would have been a sad group for sure, even if they didn’t know it. We also didn’t have a section for “those who like each other,” because we don’t need that sign. But many years ago in the church at Antioch, not the one in Elon, there was a covered dish meal and the Gentiles were asked to sit in the back room where no one could see them. And they were told they couldn’t go through the same buffet line with the real Christians. In fact, the Gentiles had to bring their own food. Everybody else was terrified to even touch their ham sandwiches and popcorn shrimp.
The story in Galatians is a familiar one, but it is still shocking to me every time I read it. That Peter the apostle would give in to the fear of man and treat Gentiles with disrespect. Peter had already heard from Jesus that what goes into a man doesn’t defile him. He heard Jesus pronounce all foods clean. In other words, he had heard Jesus say in effect that He was the fulfillment of the ceremonial laws. Peter needed further convincing later so God sent him a vision showing that we should never call something (or someone) unclean that God had pronounced clean. Right after that he met Cornelius, an uncircumcised Gentile whom God was drawing to Christ. Peter preached to him and to all the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ house and they believed the Gospel and were filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter saw with his own eyes those whom he had considered to be unclean made clean by the same faith in Christ which had made Peter clean! Now here he was in Antioch, eating with the Gentile believers, enjoying their fellowship. And suddenly when “certain men came down” from Jerusalem, Peter forgot everything he had believed before about God not showing partiality. And he refused to eat with the Gentile believers. His hypocrisy set up a powerful scene, where Paul confronted Peter because of his sin.
How did he do it? We are told he confronted him “to his face,” and “before them all.” Why didn’t he speak to Peter privately? Because this was a public sin that had affected others and led them into sin. It required a public rebuke. I saw a bumper sticker last week that said, “Caution: Blind Driver.” I was laughing at the joke, but also thinking about the damage that driver could cause to himself and others. It made me think about Peter’s deadly sin in Antioch. It was certainly a sin against the Gentiles. But it was also a sin against God and against the gospel. Paul knew that, too, and wrote that their conduct “was not in step with the truth of the gospel.” That could also be translated, “not in line with the gospel.” The prefix “ortho” means straight, or to make straight. We go to orthodontists to straighten our teeth. Orthopedists can straighten broken bones. We believe in orthodoxy because it is correct doctrine, truths about God and man and sin and salvation that are straight, right in line with Scripture. Paul sees that Peter is out of line, acting in a way that speaks lies about the gospel. And that Peter stood condemned because of this. The gospel cannot be changed or made crooked in any way by anyone. It must be preserved at all costs, because eternity is at stake.
Paul saw Peter acting in a way that would lead the Gentile believers in Antioch to think that they were not accepted, that they were unclean, and Paul was not a little bit upset. He pointed out their hypocrisy, Peter and everyone else, asking, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” In other words, “Peter, you have forgotten your welcome in Christ. And as a result, you have misrepresented the gospel in not welcoming the Gentile believers.”
May God help us bring everything in line with the gospel, including our fears of man, our prejudices, our cowardice in the face of opposition, and our laziness in welcoming others as Christ has welcomed us.
J. Mark Fox 