Sermon Tone Analysis

As we continue journeying through the book of Galatians, we have seen how important the Gospel message is to the apostle Paul and the great lengths that Paul endured to protect and preserve the Gospel message.

Last week, we concluded our section on Paul’s meeting in Jerusalem with the truth of the Gospel preserved and the right hand of fellowship extended to Paul and Barnabas by the Jerusalem Pillars.

We are left with this ‘SuperTeam’ created of ministers of the Gospel where Peter, John, and James are focused on the ministry to the jews and Paul and Barnabas are sent out to the gentiles or Non-jews [anyone else who was not a jew].

So, the issue that Paul has been dealing with so far is the ‘Galatians’ wavering of the faith over a false gospel being taught by ‘false brothers’ that focused on a type of Legalism that says that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not sufficient enough to save, is not sufficient enough for the Gentiles to be included in the people of God, and that these Judaizers are saying ‘they need to become like us’, they need to observe our laws, and they need to be circumcised.

This was dangerous to the church and to Paul because even though the behavior of the people could have been right, meaning they were ‘well-meaning’, and wanted to follow based on obedience, if they are obeying and believing in wrong theology and teaching , it is all for naught.

So Paul’s focus was correcting this false teaching and correcting the wrong theology.

TRANSITION:

But what if you were put in a situation where you believed in the right and correct theology, but the behavior of the people did not line up with that theology.

We’ve all been there, we are sinners, we are going to fall short and even though our systematic theology could be correct, our practical theology [the living out of what we believe] will sometimes fall short.

And in our passage today, we have a situation where Paul deals with a brother whose theology was correct, [he isn’t correcting‘false teaching’ anymore] but now he deals with a brother whose theology is correct, but the brother’s actions were not in line with the Gospel and in fact sinful.

Thus it was hurting the rest of the church and leading them astray.

But this isn’t any ordinary brother that Paul has to deal with and correct in our text, it is Peter.

An important figure in the early church, and a prominent figure of authority and leadership.

This is the guy who Paul has to correct, but Paul is not afraid of having to confront Peter and he is not concerned with the consequences of confronting him he is concerned with the ramifications of Peter’s hypocrisy.

So here we are in our text with Paul confronting Peter and Paul sharing to us the importance of having a right behavior to match a right theology.

We are going to focus on that aspect in our sermon, why is it important that we live our lives in a manner that matches the theology or more importantly the Gospel that we believe.

So to give us a road map of our text, we are going to focus on v.11-14 on why we as a church should prioritize “Living in Line with the truth of the Gospel” and we will talk about the implications of us not living in line with the truths of the gospel, and we will key in on some applications for us a church to think through, and wrestle with together.

Walk in line with truths of the Gospel [Ch.

2.11-14

11 But when Cephas[d] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.[e]

12 For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James.

However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party.

13 Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

14 But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas[f] in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?” [CSB]

In v.11, we have Peter [Cephas] going to Antioch which is a province in Galatia, and we have Paul coming in with [full-force], coming in like Gang-busters to confront Peter.

I imagine Paul kicking a door in or doing something emphatic where everyone around is like “whoa this apostle means business”, and he does.

Paul comes and confronts Peter on an issue in regards to Peter’s table manners.

I imagine Paul kicking a door in or doing something emphatic where everyone around is like “whoa this apostle means business”, and he does.

Paul comes and confronts Peter on an issue in regards to Peter’s table manners.

Paul is saying “Hey Peter!

Hey brother, you have been in Antioch for a while now and I have seen you hanging out with our Non-jewish brothers, and you have been eating with them.

But now that James has sent some people over here, you have separated yourself from the Gentiles, and now that you have done that, since you’re a man of influence, the rest of the Christian Jews in Antioch have followed your behavior, and not just them, even Barnabas.

What are you doing Peter?”

We have Peter in our text drawing away and separating himself from the gentiles now that Jewish christians have come to Antioch.

All this, because he fears the circumcision party [how he would be thought of by all jews].

Whenever I read this text, it makes me think of the TV show FRIENDS.

There was this scene in the first 2-3 seasons where Joey is working at the Museum with Ross [a palentologist], and during lunch Joey saves a seat for Ross, but Ross chooses to sit with the fellow palentologists in fear of what they would say or think.

Ross was afraid of what the other paleontologists would think if he sat with Joey.

He was dealing with fear of man.

This leads us to our first application, that:

If you are a 1st century jew at the time it would be very uncommon to see one of your own [a fellow jew] eating with Gentiles.

But in our text, we have Peter eating with Gentiles, and in our text it says that he did this regularly.

But once Peter heard that people from the circumcision party were coming he stopped.

He separated himself from them.

1. Living in line with the truth of the Gospel means we: fear against straying from the Gospel rather than fear of man

In here we have Paul confronting Peter, and in Paul’s confrontation of Peter, just like in v.1-10, he is not worried about who Peter is but more concerned of the implications and consequences of Peter’s actions and what they have in regards to the Gospel.

Paul is essentially saying here that “Peter, your actions are not just sin and excluding others, but they are against the gospel, and causing others to deviate from the truth of the Gospel.”

We may be asking now, how does Peter’s actions go against the Gospel?

Isn’t he just choosing to sit with the jews, and not the gentiles.

“I understand that’s wrong but not necessarily deviating from the Gospel.”

In order for us to understand the implications of Peter’s actions, we need to give some context of this man named Peter.

So if you understand a little history of Peter.

We know that he is an apostle.

We know that he is a passionate person, and this zeal and passion have gotten himself in trouble in the past.

When Jesus was betrayed and arrested, Peter drew his sword and cut off one Malchus’ ear [a servant and guard of the high priest]

We also know Peter as the disciple who denied Jesus three times

But I want to specifically point to :1-47

So Peter receives this vision from God, where God tells him to rise and eat of all types of meat.

This is certainly in reference to the ‘clean laws’ in Levititus 11.

And these clean laws were a a series of rules and regulations that the nation of Israel were to follow in order to be ‘ceremonially clean’.

People could not draw near to God if they ate of certain ‘unclean’ foods including: pork.

Not only that, in these ‘clean laws’ in Leviticus, you could not touch dead things, pretty much anything that was seen as ‘unclean’.

These laws were supposed to point his people to the fact that a sinful people cannot come before the presence of a holy God without cleansing.

Jesus, however comes to abolish these laws.

and specifically makes note of these specific laws in

Walking in Line with the truths of the Gospel means we oppose any and every type of racism

So in , God sends Peter a vision to show him that these laws had been abolished, and he meets with a Gentile man named Cornelius who ends up being saved.

Peter realizes that not only are these previously unclean foods now clean, but that the Gospel is no longer for jew only but for everyone []

So here in , Peter understands the effects of the Gospel’s reach to all people even so, that in Chapter 11, we have a similar situation where Peter is confronted by Jews in Jerusalem and they said to him “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them”, and Peter in chapter 11 defends his actions of eating with Gentiles and defends the truth that the Gospel is for everybody.

But what’s confusing now is Peter’s actions in Galatians.

He was eating with the Gentiles here, and he also ate with them in .

It’s safe also to say that if Peter ate with the gentiles here in the book of Galatians, he is likely not observing OT food laws.

If Peter is eating with Gentiles, and the Gentiles are over here eating pork, Peter is likely also eating pork [remember he had the vision that these previously unclean meat was now free to eat].

So when Peter stops eating with the Gentiles, he does this because of fear of man.

[Fear of the circumcision party and what they would say.]

It is not like Peter once again believed that he should not eat of these type of meats or not eat with the Gentiles, he held the same conviction, his theology did not change, but he was hypocritical in his actions and feared men and let that fear dictate his actions.

Peter’s withdrawal was not prompted by a change in theology, he was spurred on a fear of jewish men, and these men were likely unbelieving Jews who were persecuting Christians.

These men that James sent probably had told Peter that the persecution against Christians from the Jewish party was getting stronger thus leading to Peter’s actions.

Peter was likely scared of this coming persecution, and he not only was trying to protect himself by not being seen eating with the gentiles, but also he didn’t want to be seen eating their food.

Thus he was letting this circumcision party know that he still adhered to the OT ceremonial laws.

But Peter did not see what Paul saw in regards to Peter’s actions.

He needed to talk to Peter because in v.14 he saw that Peter’s actions actually “deviated from the truth of the Gospel”.

Paul’s rebuke against Peter reveals something that Peter may have not thought through when he was making this decision, that in Peter’s rejection of Gentiles and also seemingly going back to OT food laws, Peter was actually sending a message that imposing these food laws on the Gentiles is the same thing as the Judaizers imposing circumcision on Titus in the first 10 verses in chapter 2.

For Paul, the gospel was at stake, Peter was in a sense implying that Gentiles needed to adhere to the same food laws as well to be saved.

Hence that is why Paul says that Peter is deviating from the truths of the Gospel.

Peter’s change of behavior was sending a message that these Gentiles had to live like Jews in order to become a part of the people of God.

There is a danger in Peter’s actions.

He is not like a ‘false brother’ who wants to add and change the Gospel message, Peter believed in the right Gospel, but his actions were not in line with the Gospel, he was a hypocrite and Paul needed to let him know of this.

Maybe you are in the line of thinking, I get that Peter needed to be rebuked but why did Paul need to do it in public in front of other people.

Doesn’t the process of church discipline apply here:

The reason Paul does this publicly, and the reason it needed to be done publicly because Peter’s sin was done in a public sphere, and it had public ramifications and it had impact on other Christians and other people.

A public rebuke was necessary for Paul to address to Peter.

In doing this, Paul made once again of first importance the protection of the Gospel, even if it comes at the expense of Peter.

Application for CBF as we think through correction and rebuke:

This passage goes against the thinking that correcting someone is not-loving or not Christian, or the belief that “only God can judge me”.

If someone is claiming to be a Christian and sin is prevalent in their life, there is a place for correction and rebuke.

But why do we not lovingly correct each other, or church members who need correction in our church?

Do we hesitate to correct each other because we think we are sinners too, who am I to judge?

God calls us to restore others gently, we take the logs out of our own eyes, helping us to repent of our own sins, but we still gently call those who have wandered to come home.

Our culture defines love as not correcting and leaving others and letting them be, but we see that the Bible teaches that love has the courage to confront, and when we rebuke others, our desire is their holiness and their joy to be made complete in Christ not in the sin that casts them astray.

Paul’s rebuke of Peter was not Paul angry at Peter but a loving action of Paul for the sake of the Gospel and to correct Peter whose actions had strayed him away from the Gospel.