Behavioral Disputes

Introduction

This morning we will be finishing up our “sub-series” that deals with how the early Church, the Ekklesia dealt with disputes.

And remember how we said that the very presence of disputes in the early Church is an encouragement to us. Because so much of what we have learned is amazing in how the Church banded together in unity and how God did so many miraculous things among them. So much so that we may be tempted to see the highlight real of their successes... thinking that they never had to deal with kind of challenges we do today and so we can’t relate.

But one of the many beautiful things about God’s Word is that He doesn’t hide the messy parts. The Bible presents an honest picture of human and Church history so that we can learn from the example of both the successes and the challenges of God’s people. This includes how they operated and functioned even amidst internal conflicts, tensions and disputes.

This is an essential part of understanding what it means to be the Church that Jesus prayed for and the Church that He himself is building. To be a part of the “Unstoppable Movement of God”

So two weeks ago we looked at how they dealt with Doctrinal Disputes where we saw Church leaders meet together at something we call the “Jerusalem Council” to apply God’s Word to the testimonies of God’s work, particularly among the Gentiles. The decisions that were made in that meeting worked to protect the message of the Gospel.

Then last week we looked at Directional Disputes. We saw two pillars in the early Church disagree on the best way of moving forward in the mission that God had given them. This wasn’t a moral disagreement, but a directional one. They were united in their goal, but divided in their approach to how to accomplish that goal. God redeemed their separation so that two missionary teams were sent out instead of just one. God was working through His Church to preserve the message of the Gospel.

Today we are going to look at how the early Church handled a particular Behavioral Dispute. The topic of this dispute is a return to the conflict that was settled at the Jerusalem Council. This time the debate was not about what should be taught, but how it should or should not be lived out. It just goes to show that “settling” a doctrinal dispute doesn’t mean that all the work is done - after the teaching you have to learn how to apply that teaching…and then return to that teaching over and over again. To practice the message of the Gospel.

Tension

Many of you are participating in our “Biblical Citizenship” class on Wednesday night and so you might recognize these words from George Mason, one of our nations founding fathers. He said...

“No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” - George Mason

George Mason was one of only three founding fathers that did not sign the Constitution because he believed it lacked some “fundamental principles” like the Bill of Rights, which he was later instrumental in implementing but he also would not sign because it lacked the prohibition to slavery. This too was later added, but only after a great cost of American lives in the Civil War. In the face of that war, the Abolitionist Wendell Phillips famously said:

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” - Wendall Phillips

The big idea is that there is something in nature of liberty that requires us to practice it. We have to maintain it, to live in it, to give intention focus to it. Unless we are vigilant in keeping the principle of liberty on our mind, we will be drawn away into something else. Ever since our first parents reached for that piece of fruit, it has become a part of the fallen nature of humanity to reach for more and more power, instead of living in the liberty found in submission to God alone as our sovereign King.

At the beginning of this sub-series, we followed Paul to what became known as the Jerusalem Council because some men had come to the Church in Antioch from Jerusalem to “teach” the doctrine that said that one must first become Jewish before they could be a true Christian. Paul referred back to this event in his letter to the Church in Galatia. In that letter he said:

Galatians 2:4–5 (ESV)

4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom (older translations “liberty”) that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

The very diverse Church in Antioch had been enjoying the freedom that the truth of the gospel brought, but these “false brothers” Jewish men from Jerusalem wanted to bring them into a “slavery” to which Paul was like “Nope - we will fight for the freedom given to all of us in the Gospel.”

And then he and Barnabas went down to Jerusalem to meet with the other Apostles and Elders on this doctrinal issue. You remember how it began? Acts 15 starting in verse 7 it says :

Acts 15:7–12a (ESV)

7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith

Peter is just rocking it here. I love how he brings it right to the heart. That phrase “who knows the heart” is one word in Greek: καρδιογνώστης (kardiognostes) from “kardio” meaning heart and gnosis meaning knowledge. Our God is the knower of hearts and Peter is saying that God has made no distinction between them and us...

. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” 12 And all the assembly fell silent, ...

And we were like, yeah…go get ‘em Peter! Why are you putting God to the test? The “law” didn’t work for us-we are all “grace through faith” people. We are all Jesus people and if God doesn’t make any distinction between them and us then how can we? And it shut everybody up that day…but... “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”.

You see in our text for today, this same Peter was confronted because he was not practicing what he preached. He got the Doctrine part right, but when he had a chance to “live what he believed” he blew it. And he needed a brother to stand up to him, confront his behavior and help him get back on track.

And if it can happen to an Apostle in the early Church, then we know that we have to watch out for it in our lives as well.

So open up your Bibles with me to Galatians chapter 2, we are going to start in verse 11. It’s on page 973 in the Bibles in the chairs. I’ll pray and we will continue to learn from God’s Word together.

Truth

Our first theme for the week is that…

Fearful behavior can threaten the message of the Gospel. (Galatians 2:11-12)

So after Paul tells the Church in Galatia of the events of Jerusalem Council, when He an Barnabas went down to Jerusalem to see Peter and the others, he tells of a different time when Peter came came up to the Church in Antioch...

Galatians 2:11–12 (ESV)

11 But when Cephas (meaning Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

Back when Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ, he was given a new name. Matthew and Mark call him “Peter”, but John’s gospel calls him “Cephas” and then in parenthesis it says (which when translated, is Peter). Both names mean rock, “Cephas” is Aramaic and “Peter” is Greek. Paul uses both “Peter” and “Cephas” to refer to the same Apostle.

And this Apostle, was behaving in such a way as Paul said he opposed him to his face! That is some pretty serious stuff. The peacemaker in me wants to give Peter the benefit of the doubt, but Paul makes it plain what Peter was doing. He was fine fellowshipping with the Gentile Christians in the Antioch Church, right up until these other guys arrived.

These other guys were from the Christian Church in Jerusalem where the Apostle James was most influential. They would have been Jewish in their traditions, but Christians in their faith. So when they came to the Church in Antioch, Peter acted differently out of fear of loosing face with the circumcision party who apparently still were not fully welcoming Gentiles into their fellowship.

Many of us have experienced something like this in group settings of some flavor. Whether looking back at school, among friends or even in dynamics of the work place we find that some people are great talking with us when it is just us... but when other people show up…they seem afraid to be seen with us. And that shows poor character, but the stakes in this case are higher than just establishing who “the cool kids” are or working toward the favor of the boss.

Paul calls Peter’s behavior “hypocritical” and certainly it was, especially after all Peter said at the Jerusalem Council. But Paul’s concern is not as much over the hypocritical as it was the theological.

Peter’s fear of being seen fellowshipping with Gentiles would have communicated that he was willing to accept Gentile believers as brothers in Christ, yes…but at a different level than Jewish Brethren. So that the strength of ones faith was not determined by their relationship with Jesus, but by what they came into that relationship with.

His attitude asked this question, “What did you bring to the table, when Jesus saved you?”

I hope you can see how this posture is a threat to the sufficiency of the good news of the Gospel. The idea that anyone comes to Jesus with anything but our need for him is to lose the Gospel message entirely. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Being so close to Baseball opener, I can’t help but think that Peter is like one of those old school home-run hitters. You know the ones where you just know if they connect that ball is out of here…but other than that, they are likely to strike out. And as many homeruns as Peter may have hit, this is one of his big whiffs... and just like in baseball, it doesn’t just effect him, it effects the whole team.

Our second theme for this week.

Hypocritical behavior can threaten the unity of the Church. (Galatians 2:13-14)

Galatians 2:13–14 (ESV)

13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step 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 force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

This public rebuke would have stung. Basically Paul is saying, in front of the guys Peter is trying to impress...”You haven’t even been behaving like a “good Jew”, how can you expect these Gentiles to follow you? It was one of those “Do as I say and not as I do” kind of deals. It was Hypocrisy.

Since we have been walking through the book of Acts we know how significant it is that “even Barnabas was led astray”. Barnabas was Paul’s ministry partner, he went with him to the Jerusalem Council, he heard Peter’s great speech. Worse than that, he was one of leaders of this Church full of Gentiles - and now he is rejecting them too. To hear of his participation in this hypocrisy is especially difficult.

And it gives me pause to think: If leaders like Peter and Barnabas can get so off track then I need to be attentive to my behavior. I may say the right things, but is my life reflecting those same things? This is a place where we desperately need each other. Sometimes we can’t see our hypocrisy, so we need a brother or sister in Christ to lovingly confront us and help us to get back on track.

Of course WE should probably begin by doing this privately. Paul confronted Peter publically because he was a fellow Apostle and the danger of this quickly spreading throughout the early Church was so great.

And I love how Paul describes the real problem of Peter’s behavior. He got upset when he “saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, It might have caused hurt feelings, and that can be something worth addressing, but Paul’s greater concern was what this hypocrisy communicated about the Christian Church and the Gospel that we are called to herald. And this was out of step, it was out of line.

The Greek word is : ὀρθοποδέω (ortho-podeo) “ortho” meaning “right” as is in “orthodox” and “podeo” meaning “walking” like podiatrist. Peter may have spoken rightly about the power of the Gospel to bring us all together as the Church, but on this day he was walking wrongly.

So Paul, another Apostle, confronted Peter publically and pointedly. Leading to our final them for the week.

Faithful behavior protects the liberty found in the “life-giving message of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:19-21).

Moving down to verse 19 we see Paul speaking of how he will behave, how he will “live” in light of the Gospel and it stands in contrast to Peter’s behavior that day. He says:

Galatians 2:19–21 (ESV)

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Just like Peter, Paul was born Jewish, but now he has “been crucified with Christ”. So he died, and a “Jewish” birthright means nothing to a crucified man. But Paul is pointing the Galatians, Peter and even us to something much better.

Paul could have condemned Peter with guilt and shame over his hypocrisy, but instead he called him back with the “life-giving message of Jesus Christ”. He was saying, “You don’t need the approval of those men, Peter, in Christ you have the approval of God!” Don’t you remember? We all died to that way of living, in fact it was dead living, it stunk because we were powerless to behave as the law demanded. But in Christ we are free! The purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection was to pour out for us the sweet grace of God for our salvation. Why we would go back to living like that?

Gospel Application

Did you notice how Paul was not just talking about how the Gospel affects his “spiritual life” like so many of us do. He was talking about the life he lives “in the flesh”. His daily life. His behavior.

So many of us are great with the Gospel because we think it holds our place in heaven while we live our life for us on earth. That is not only dangerous, it is missing out on all that God has for us while we are still here on earth. The message of the Gospel brings us freedom!

Tim Keller reflects on Peter’s attitude behavior like this:

All this comes from not living in line with the gospel. Without the gospel, our hearts have to manufacture self-esteem by comparing our group with other groups. But the gospel tells us we are all unclean without Christ and all clean in Him. - Tim Keller

Living our lives in line with the “Life-giving message of Jesus Christ” is where true liberty is found. Aligning our Church with the Gospel is the only place where true unity will be found. And when we see a brother or sister in Christ behaving out of step with a right understanding of the grace, love and acceptance that is found in the “Life-giving message of Jesus Christ”, then we lovingly call them back to it.

Landing

Galatians 5:1,13(ESV)

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery...

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Let’s Pray