Wednesday, January 16, 2008

confronting Peter

Galatians 2:11-16

The key words are: Jew and Gentile, law and faith, justified. Paul compares Judaic Christianity to the message of freedom that he preaches; even relating an incident where he confronted Peter for siding with the Judaizers out of fear. Paul's point to Peter is that we are not justified by following the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. I think there is a secondary point that Paul is making to his audience: Paul is at least equal to Peter in the authourity that God has granted him to grow the Church of Christ (as evidenced by Paul confronting Peter publicly).
What I notice from this passage is the transformation the gospel had in Peter - he strikes me as an impulsive person but one who could be a bit hard core when it comes to the Law. This is seen in Acts when he refuses to eat "unclean" animals. Paul points out that Peter is no longer living like a Jew but like a Gentile. This means that Peter's understanding of the message of Jesus has completely changed his view on what is necessary to achieve justification.
The other thing I notice is Peter's humility. We don't read of any split in the Church happening because of this confrontation (which means that Paul must also have been humble in the way that he approached it - although his words sound pretty harsh) so Peter must have heard what Paul said, recognized the truth of it and changed. I know that when someone confronts me, my default is defensive (which quickly moves to offensive). This ministry is not about me. My life is not about me. Everything I do is supposed to be about bringing glory to God. If I can remember that, then I can listen to criticism because I might learn something I could do to better bring glory to God and seek his kingdom.

2 comments:

Jeff Beer said...

Criticism can be a hard thing to take sometimes. People often don't know how to criticize, which makes things difficult. On the other ide, people don't know how to take criticism either. This is the part I hate about my job. Sometimes I have to give criticism which sucks. Other times I have to take criticism, but often in ways that seem to be harsh. How can we love each other in our problems. I wish there was more detail into how the disagreement with Paul and Peter went.

jerlight said...

I agree that it would be good to know more about how that confrontation took place. The NIV has everything from v. 15-21 as a quote of what Paul said to Peter in the confrontation. What Paul says is certainly true and if he practices what he preaches, we can be sure he said it in love (it's hard to pick up on tone in a written account, though). Honestly, if I evaluate most of the criticism I give, it is pretty selfish - mostly to do with "you are making me look bad so I am going to address your behaviour" or "I am jealous that you get to engage in that behaviour and I am too afraid to do it myself". Even if the behaviour is wrong and needs to be confronted, those motives are not good ones!