Month: February 2020

Paul vs. Peter in Antioch

A troubling passage for me has been the section in Galatians 2 where Paul opposes Peter to his face, stating that he was clearly in the wrong. Both of these men were apostles, followers of Jesus. If they differed on an issue, how could we determine who was right? And why would they differ in the first place?

In looking at the passage in Galatians 2:11-14 based on what it says, trying to avoid presuppositions, we see that Peter was alternating between two courses of action. Sometimes he was eating with “Gentiles”. There is no indication whether the Gentiles mentioned here are believers in Jesus; they are simply described as Gentiles.

When a delegation of Jews comes, sent by James in Jerusalem, he acts differently, and withdraws from eating with these Gentiles. One of these actions is viewed by Paul as hypocrisy. But which one, and why?

There is some ambiguity around this situation, as I see it. But it seems to be cleared up a little by Paul’s direct words to Peter. “You are a Jew, but you live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew.” This seems to be the very definition of hypocricy, one’s life not matching his identity or claims.

In another epistle, the one to the Ephesians, Paul goes into more depth regarding what he thinks of living like a Gentile. Ephesians is the letter in which Paul points out that Gentile believers in Jesus were once “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise.” (2:12) But in Christ they are now brought near, fellow citizens with God’s people. (2:19)

In Romans 11 Paul describes this same transformation as being wild olive branches grafted into the olive tree of Israel. Clearly a believing Gentile has a new identity, as part of the commonwealth of Israel, the larger people of God.

But in Ephesians 4:17 Paul points out the difference this should make in the believer’s life. “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do.” Clearly Paul does not approve of believers living like Gentiles. For a Jewish believer like Peter to do so would be even worse.

Paul goes on in the Galatians passage to say to Peter, “If you, a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how do you expect to get Gentiles to live Jewishly?” That, after all, is one of the results of the gospel, to get “Gentile sinners” (as Paul refers to them in the following verse) to embrace the God of Israel and the Israel of God, to leave a life of sin and begin to live according to God’s commands.

A sticking point for most translators in this verse is the Greek word that they take as meaning to force or compel. A quick review of the half-dozen times it’s used in the New Testament shows that it usually means something much weaker, like to influence.

There is apparently more to the story of Peter in Antioch that we’re not told. My best guess is that if Paul is accusing Peter of living like a Gentile, he is probably eating with Gentiles in situations which are inappropriate for a believer to be part of.

It’s true that Jesus ate with tax collectors a “sinners”. But these were Jewish sinners, and eating with them would not entail breaking God’s laws about what not to eat. Perhaps Peter, for the sake of evangelism, was going to the extent of eating foods that God had prohibited in his law. This is the only thing that I can see that would cause Paul to accuse him for living like a Gentile.

The point Paul is making in the context is that Gentiles are saved by faith in Jesus, not by becoming Jews. I’m not sure how this relates to Peter’s hypocrisy in eating with Gentiles. But I’m also not sure how it relates to the typical Christian interpretation of this passage of Peter drawing back from eating with Gentiles.

The lesson that I would draw from this passage is that there are lengths to which we should not go in our attempts to evangelize. If our lifestyle leads to breaking God’s commands to his people, then we are being hypocritical, even if our intentions are good.

As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 28:20, the essence of discipleship is following his commands. And that certainly includes following God’s commands to his people, as Jesus affirmed so strongly in Matthew 5:17-20 and elsewhere.

Paul’s Defenses

In Acts 21 Paul is arrested in Jerusalem and charged with teaching all men everywhere against the temple, the law, and the Jewish people, basically denying the validity of Judaism. Essentially the rest of the book of Acts, the remaining seven chapters, is a chronicle of Paul defending himself from these false charges. In fact, much of the history of Christianity has been taken up with people believing these things about Paul. So we would do well to pay careful attention to the defenses that Paul makes for himself on the way to Rome.

Paul’s first defense is to the crowd in Jerusalem. After he gets permission from the soldiers to address them, he speaks to them in Hebrew. Among the things he tells them is, “I am a Jew… Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today” (22:3). He goes on to tell the story of his encounter on the Damascus road. He describes Ananias as “a devout observer of the law.” It is when he mentions God’s commission to preach to the Gentiles that the crowd goes berserk and calls for his death. They were not upset that he was a bad Jew, but that he was including Gentiles in his ministry.

From there the soldiers decided to bring him before the Sanhedrin to find out about the charges against him. Among the statements he made to this group was, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead” (23:6). Part of his preaching was consistent with the beliefs of the Pharisees, and he wanted them to know that.

As a result of this, some of the Jews (not the Pharisees) formed a plot and took an oath to kill Paul. When the commander found out, he sent Paul ahead to Caesarea to defend himself before Governor Felix. When his accusers arrived there was a trial. The prosecuting attorney, named Tertullus, brought this accusation. “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He… even tried to desecrate the temple” (24:5-6).

Paul responds by claiming that the charges are false. He says, “However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.” Here as elsewhere he emphasizes the continuity between Judaism and his teaching. And he denies that he was doing anything wrong in the temple.

Two years later, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and Paul was still in prison. In a trial before Festus, the same charges were brought. But Paul said, “I have done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar.” Then he made his appeal to Caesar.

A few days later, King Agrippa visited Festus, and Paul was brought to trial before him because Festus was unclear of the charges against him. In Paul’s address to Agrippa he said that the Jews all know that “according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee” (26:5). He reiterates his claim that he is on trial because of his hope in what God had promised through the prophets, i.e. the coming of the Messiah. He goes on to say that his message to both Jews and Gentiles is to “repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (26:20). He makes the claim, “I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen” regarding the Messiah (26:22). Again he emphasizes the continuity of his message with Judaism.

Agrippa and Festus were convinced that he was innocent of any charges, but since he had appealed to Caesar, they put him on a ship to Rome. He experienced a shipwreck and a snake bite on the trip, but he arrived in Rome. Paul was allowed to stay in a house by himself, under Roman guard. But he met with Jewish leaders and reiterated that he had “dome nothing against our people or against the customs of our ancestors… It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain” (28:17, 20). He went on to try to “convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (28:23).

Over and over again in every appearance, Paul continues to emphasize that his message is based on Judaism, the Law of Moses and the promises of the Hebrew scriptures regarding Messiah. It’s hard to imagine while reading these passages that Paul ever imagined himself abandoning Judaism. But rather, he recognized its fulfillment.

Paul in Jerusalem

In Acts 21 we have an episode in the life of Paul that is confusing to many people. Paul has been in Macedonia, and is traveling by ship to Jerusalem. The festival of Passover is past, and Paul is trying to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost, seven weeks later. Pentecost (Shavuot) is one of the festivals that Jewish men are to go to Jerusalem for (Deu. 16:16), and Paul missed going there for Passover because of his travels.

Paul suspected that he might run into trouble in Jerusalem (20:22), and stated that none of those from Ephesus would see his face again (20:25). In Caesarea a prophet told him that he would be bound and handed over to the Gentiles. But Paul was convinced that God wanted him to go to Jerusalem.

When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he was greeted warmly. Then he went to see James and the elders, who told him that there was a false rumor about him going around. First they point out that there are thousands of Jews there who have believed in Jesus, and all of them are zealous for the law. Then they reveal the rumor that is being spread about him.

Some people have been claiming that Paul has been teaching Jews in the diaspora that they no longer should circumcise their children or live according to God’s law. Where in the world could they have gotten that idea? They probably got it from the same place that many today have gotten the same impression of Paul, from misunderstanding some of Paul’s early writings, like the epistle to the Galatians.

But Paul will have none of it. He eagerly accepts the suggestion of the elders that he demonstrate his fealty to the law by taking on the expenses of some men who are in the process of concluding a Nazirite vow (Num. 6). Paul himself had taken a similar vow a year or two earlier (Acts 18:18), and he was happy to participate. All involved agreed that this would show that Paul was living in obedience to the law, and that there was no truth in the rumors (21:24).

So Paul purified himself along with these men, and went to the temple with them to arrange for the finalizing of the ceremony. This passage is a problem for many Christians today because they have been taught that Paul was opposed to keeping the law, and that he was being a hypocrite by affirming it like this. When I was in college, I heard my own father preach on this passage, and he was convinced that Paul was in error to do this. I agreed with him at the time, since that is what I had been taught as well. But in the years since, through studying the New Testament, I’ve come to some very different conclusions.

The story goes on to tell how several days later Paul was recognized in the temple by some Jews from Asia, and they made the same false accusation, that he had been teaching aginst the temple and the law and the Jewish people. Paul is arrested, and over the next several chapters he strenuously denies these charges many times.

But the main point to be made here is that Paul, as well as the believers in Jerusalem, was “zealous for the law”. It comprised the commands that God had given to his people for living to please him.

The elders admitted that Gentile believers were given a little bit of leeway, as they got used to keeping the law. But Jewish believers, as Paul himself, were to follow God’s commands for living, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Jerusalem Council

In Acts 15 there is a description of a meeting of leaders of the believing community in Jerusalem to settle a question that had arisen in Antioch when Paul and Barnabas were ministering there. The causes and results of this meeting have been misunderstood by many.

The controversy starts when some men come from Judea to Antioch and teach, “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (15:1). What did they mean by this? If taken very literally, it would imply that women can’t be saved. We need to understand that circumcision is used as a kind of shorthand for conversion to Judaism. Jews were “the circumcised”, while “the uncircumcised” were Gentiles. The claim of these men was that in order to be saved, you had to convert to Judaism.

This was not such a far-fetched idea. Until quite recently, all the believers had been Jews, and synagogues were the main places that the apostles taught. But Paul and Barnabas recognized that this idea was a grave error. It was not Judaism that saved, but faith in Jesus. Throughout biblical times, before there was any concept of conversion to Judaism, there were Gentiles who embraced God and the people of Israel, for example, Ruth. Throughout the Torah there were instructions given to both the native-born and the sojourner (e.g. Lev. 24:22). It was clear to Paul and Barnabas that God accepted the faith of Gentiles.

Some potential confusion is thrown into the mix. When the apostles and elders meet in Jerusalem to discuss the question, “Some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses'” (15:5). From this verse many interpreters have concluded that the issue here was whether believers should obey the law of Moses. This is not the issue at all.

It helps to be aware that in biblical times as well as today there were considered to be three elements to conversion to Judaism. The person had to be circumcised (if male), immersed in water, and vow to follow God’s commands in scripture. It was this process that was being addressed here. Ther question was the same; “Do Gentile believers need to convert to Judaism to be right with God?”

After a lot of discussion, including testimonies of how God had brought Gentiles to faith, James, who was apparently the leader of the group, got up and summarized the biblical teaching from the prophets on promises regarding Gentiles. It seemed to be the consensus of the council that God saves Gentiles. James, however, recognized the difficulty that Gentiles would face in transitioning to a lifestyle of following God’s commands completely, seeing that it was difficult even for Jews who had been raised in Torah-observance to do so. So he suggests a compromise.

Newly-believing Gentiles would be encouraged to focus on four specific laws at first. Why these four? It seems that they are practices that would allow the Gentiles to be accepted in the Jewish community and not offend practicing Jews.

James concludes his presentation by noting that the law is taught in synagogues all over the empire. The implication is that these new believers will attend synagogue services and gradually increase in their knowledge of the ways in which God commanded his people to live.

This suggestion of James is accepted by all the apostles and elders, and was communicated by messengers to Gentile congregations in the diaspora.

The difficulty that many readers have with this passage, as well as the epistle to the Galatians, which addresses a similar theme, is that they think the apostles are teaching not to follow the law. If that were the case, the recommendation of four laws to start with wouldn’t make any sense, nor would the reference to Moses being taught in the synagogues.

The point of this passage, and the epistle to the Galatians, is that God saves Gentiles, as Gentiles, by faith in Jesus. Paul does point out in Romans and Ephesians that those Gentiles are grafted into the covenant people of God, but as to their identity, they remain Gentiles. God is the God of all peoples, not only the Jews. (Romans 3:29)