Seven days with Paul_HAVING A WORD

I’ll never forget what my friend said to me when I was seventeen. He had overheard me laughing at a dirty joke someone was telling at school. So he said he had admired my Christian beliefs, and was surprised that I would laugh at something so rude. Embarrassment swept over me. I admitted that I hadn’t been very Jesus-like.

It’s not nice when someone has to have a word with us about something we’ve said or done. I can imagine that the apostle Paul didn’t like confronting Peter (GALATIANS 2:11). But he felt he had to, because Peter’s hypocritical behaviour was hurtful and confusing to the gentile Christians at Antioch. Peter had freely eaten with them, but after some Christian Jews from Jerusalem came to the Antioch church, he separated himself from the gentiles, worrying about the Jews’ disapproval.

I imagine that Peter felt shame, but he apparently accepted the telling off and changed his ways. He knew that Paul was a true friend who loved him. And in later years he referred to him as “our dear brother Paul” (2 PETER 3:15).

If you need to have a word with someone, do it gently. If you are told off, avoid getting angry; instead try to listen to the truth of what you’re being told. You may be getting a needed “wound from a friend”.

Completing the picture . . .

The Galatian church (in modern-day Turkey) was made up of non-Jews (gentiles). They didn’t have the Old Testament law as part of their culture, so they didn’t follow its rules or traditions. Christian Jews would sometimes look down on Christian gentiles because of this. But Paul made it clear that everyone (whether Jew or gentile) comes to God through Jesus, who created “in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross” (EPHESIANS 2:15-16).

Peter’s choice to eat only with the Jews wasn’t a good example of Jesus’ love. His actions suggested the Jews were somehow better. So Paul called him out on it, setting the record straight: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (GALATIANS 3:28).