Galatians 2:11-14
Oct. 1 – Galatians 2:11-14
11 But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; 12 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. 13 And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 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?”
In the early church the first believers in Jesus were Jews. They lived by Jewish practices and patterns and they followed Jesus (who was also a Jew). They assumed that to be a Christian individuals would live by Jewish patterns and follow Jesus, just like they did. Then Gentiles (like Cornelius in Acts 10) started to become followers of Jesus. Did these Gentiles need to take up Jewish patterns (including male circumcision) to be followers of Jesus? And on this the church was divided, with Paul and others saying “no” and James and others saying “yes”. Peter [Cephas in this translation] got caught in the middle.
Paul put the point bluntly, challenging Peter, “If you as a Jewish Christian live like a Gentile most of the time because that is convenient – then why impose Jewish patterns of living on Gentile Christians?” Paul argued that the truth of the gospel is that in Jesus Christ the cultural lines – Jew/Gentile, Indigenous/Settler, and so on – are not indicators if someone is a follower of Jesus. Instead, the life patterns that indicate that someone is a Christian is if they are a follower of the Jesus way as described the gospels. People do not need to give up their ethnicity or race or culture to become followers of Jesus, as long as their culture is not in conflict with Jesus’ teaching about how his followers live. The Christian community’s primary goal is not imposing one culture on another, rather the Christian community is interested in inviting people to follow Jesus from whatever culture they come from.
In this week that we have been thinking about Truth and Reconciliation it is worth asking if at times we have imposed white, Anglo-Saxon culture on Indigenous peoples, thinking that was what we were supposed to do; instead of understanding that we simply wanted to invite them to follow Jesus as Indigenous people.
PRAYER:
God of all peoples and languages and ethnicities, we have so often confused the gospel of your Son Jesus Christ with our own culture, thinking they were the same thing. We have become people who imposed our culture on others instead of offering an invitation to meet Jesus. Show us that your Son Jesus invites all to follow without needing to become like us first. In Jesus’ name. Amen.