No Place for Prejudice
By Rev. Res Spears
Galatians: Be FREE! • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Many years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I did something I’ve been ashamed of doing ever since. Well, I did LOTS of things back then that were shameful. But there’s one that I’m going to tell you about today.
At the time, I was the editor of a newspaper in Wakefield. I hated going to the barber then, just as much as I do now, and — just as today — I’d begun to look less and less like a closet hippie and more and more like a full-fledged one. I needed a haircut and couldn’t put it off any longer.
I didn’t have a regular barber at the time, and I figured one barber shop was pretty much like another. So, one afternoon, I popped into a barber shop on Route 460 in Wakefield. All I knew about the place was that they had a barber pole hanging outside their door.
So, I parked in their lot, walked up to the door, opened it, and walked inside.
And then I noticed that I was the only white person in the room. The barbers were all black. Their customers were all black.
And as the door closed behind me, I heard complete silence come across the room.
Now, I’d never considered myself to be prejudiced, but the truth is that I’d never really had that assumption tested before.
My primary and secondary schools had been nearly all white, my adult friends were all white, and my co-workers were all white. My only real interaction with black people was in professional settings.
So, it actually came as a surprise to me when my response to the gentleman who told me to take a seat while he finished with his customer was to stammer, “Oh… Err… Uh… I’ve got to get to an appointment.” And then, I left.
And as I drove away that afternoon, I realized I’d failed an important test.
I had always professed a conviction that it was wrong to be prejudiced against black people, but when the test came, I lacked the courage of my convictions.
Now, praise God, I’ve got a black barber and black brothers and sisters in Christ and even black friends. But the truth is that if it hadn’t been for failing that test, I might not be able to say any of those things today.
Failing the test put me on notice that something needed to change within me. And God has done wonderful work in that regard.
Today, we’re going to see that even great leaders — even great CHRISTIAN leaders — sometimes fail to show the courage of their convictions. And we’ll see one proper response we should be ready to make when they do.
We’re continuing our study in the Book of Galatians today, looking at verses 11 through 14 of chapter 2.
But before we look at this passage, let’s have a little review.
Remember that Galatians is Paul’s defense of the one true gospel of grace against the legalistic, false gospel of salvation by faith PLUS works.
Since the Judaizers who’d come to Galatia with this false gospel had attacked Paul’s credibility with the Galatians, he’s been arguing in chapters 1 and 2 that both his calling and his gospel message are divine in origin. They came from Jesus, Himself, and not from any of the other Apostles.
Timothy George has a good paraphrase of Paul’s argument so far:
“After God called me to be an apostle, I did not even go to Jerusalem for several years. When I finally did get there, it was only for a brief get-acquainted visit with Peter, although I also bumped into James, who was present as well.
“After this my preaching ministry took me far to the north, to Syria and Cilicia. During this time the Christians in Judea only received hearsay reports about my work, although they praised the Lord for what he was doing through me.
“It was well over a dozen years later when I went to Jerusalem again, this time to talk with the leaders there about how we could collaborate most effectively in the work of world evangelization. James, Peter, and John stood shoulder to shoulder with me against some false brothers who intruded into our meeting and tried to force my young friend Titus, a Gentile convert, to be circumcised.
“Of course, I didn’t budge an inch on this crucial issue, and when the dust had cleared, the pillar apostles and I sealed our agreement with a cordial embrace.
“Given this outcome, you can imagine how disappointed I was when Peter came to Antioch and engaged in a kind of behavior that I knew belied his own convictions. Not even Peter, great as he is, could resist the pressure to back away from his earlier commitment to Christian liberty.
“So I had to oppose him publicly because in this case, no less than during my second visit to Jerusalem, the truth of the gospel was at stake.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 168.]
So, that’s where things stand with Paul’s defense of his Apostolic calling and the gospel message he preached.
Today’s passage is the final leg of Paul’s defense, and it transitions directly into his theological argument in support of the one true gospel of grace that we’ll begin to look at next week.
So, let’s read today’s passage together.
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.
13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
It seems likely that this incident in Antioch occurred after Paul and Barnabas had returned there from their first missionary journey, which Luke records at the end of Acts, chapter 14.
When the persecution of the new Christians in Jerusalem began, many of them fled to Antioch. When they arrived, they began to preach about Jesus, and many Jews and Gentiles alike in that region came to saving faith in Jesus.
Barnabas had initially stayed in Jerusalem with the Apostles. But when they heard the news about all the conversions taking place in Antioch, Barnabas was sent there to encourage the new believers in their new faith.
That was an appropriate calling for this man, whom the Apostles had nicknamed Barnabas, which Luke tells us in Acts 4:36 means Son of Encouragement.
Finally, needing help in Antioch, Barnabas retrieved Paul from his hometown of Tarsus and brought him back to Antioch, where they taught and served the church there for a year.
And if, as I believe, this incident took place on the heels of Paul’s first missionary journey to the Gentile lands of East Asia, then you can imagine how frustrated Paul must have been with Cephas, which was Peter’s Aramaic name.
Paul had spent much time and effort winning Gentiles to Christ on that journey. To have them now be essentially insulted by a Jewish brother in Christ was unacceptable.
And then, in the very first verse of Acts, chapter 15, right on the heels of the incident we’re studying today, we see that the Judaizers came to Antioch with the very same false gospel Paul would warn the Galatians against — that Gentiles would have to be circumcised to be truly saved.
To have the true gospel gutted by the lingering prejudices of Jewish believers was absolutely unacceptable.
Clearly, something needed to be done to protect the message of the one true gospel of grace from those who were attempting to destroy it by adding works to the formula for salvation.
Hence, Acts, chapter 15, recounts the discussion of elders and other leaders of the Mother Church in Jerusalem about the matter and their Spirit-led agreement that keeping the Mosaic Law wasn’t a necessary precondition for salvation.
Salvation, they determined, is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But here in Antioch, the matter still hadn’t been fully settled, at least not for Peter and the other Jewish followers of Jesus.
And, just like my test in the barber shop, Peter faced his own test over lunch one day.
He’d spent some time in Antioch, and he’d apparently treated the Gentile believers there as true brothers and sisters in Christ. He had shared table fellowship with them, despite the fact that Judaism at this point in history was staunchly opposed to such mingling of Jews and Gentiles.
For a Jew, eating with Gentiles wasn’t acceptable. Devout Jews of that time considered Gentiles to be sinners. And even those Gentiles who embraced Judaism were required to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic Law in order to be welcomed into fellowship with the Jews.
And for the Gentile believers in Antioch, not only did they not observe the Mosaic Law, but they’d not RECEIVED the Mosaic Law.
So in the Jewish mind, they were UNABLE to be justified. They were unable to be in relationship with God because they were unrighteous.
The Jews, on the other hand, at least in the strain of Judaism that had developed and become popular by the time of Jesus, were justified — they were approved by God — through the keeping of the Law. and they believed they’d become unclean by associating with sinners.
But Jesus had turned all this upside-down in some important ways.
First, and most significantly, He’d made clear that people could be justified — they could be made right with God — only through faith in Him.
Placing their trust for justification before God in their own obedience to the Law, the Pharisees and others who believed this way were literally being self-righteous.
They were placing their faith in their OWN righteousness. And, from their perspective, they were VERY righteous.
But Jesus told His followers: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Self-righteousness, in other words, isn’t the way to heaven.
Instead, he told them, “Seek first the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness.” In other words, take hold of the righteousness of God through faith in His perfectly righteous Son, Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Him.
One other important way Jesus shook things up was in His association with people the Jewish religious leaders considered to be sinners unable to enjoy a relationship with God.
Jesus healed Gentiles. He ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. He gave the example for us as His followers.
Jesus had already broken down the barriers between Jew and Gentile. But Peter and the others here seem to have forgotten about that.
And remember that Peter and John and James, the half-brother of Jesus, had essentially already concluded that both Jewish and Gentile believers were equal before God.
So, there shouldn’t have been an incident in Antioch, and certainly not one that demonstrated Peter’s continuing prejudice against the Gentiles.
But, like all of us, Peter was a complicated mix of faith and fear, compassion and prejudice, humility and pride. And, just like all of us, he wasn’t always very good at making his actions match his convictions.
He’d jumped from the boat to walk with Jesus on the water. But he’d looked away from Jesus and sank into the water.
He’d proclaimed his willingness to follow Jesus, even to death. But then, he’d denied even knowing Jesus when Jesus was being questioned by the high priest after His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
“Peter and Paul both acknowledged the equality of Jews and Gentiles in the church. But it evidently took Peter longer to see the practical implications of this truth and to apply them to his own conduct.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ga 2:14.]
What’s worse is the effect Peter’s actions had on the other Jewish believers there. When they saw him move to the other side of the room, away from the Gentiles, they did likewise, even Barnabas.
The Son of Encouragement had been enticed into becoming a DIScouragement to the Gentile believers in Antioch.
And that’s sad for Barnabas. But it’s even sadder for the people who caused this young believer to stumble in his faith.
Jesus had strong words for those who put stumbling blocks in the way of young believers, and the legalistic Judaizers will have to answer for that when they stand before Him in heaven.
Look, this has a DIRECT bearing on how we’re to live out our faith, too. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to become stumbling blocks to ANYBODY, but especially to those who haven’t met Christ yet or are still new to the faith.
I don’t care who it is sitting in these chairs from week to week. We’re called to love every one of them and to demonstrate Christlike character in every interaction we have.
Whether it’s an abortion doctor, a prostitute, a homosexual couple, a drunkard, or the most pious Christian you could name — they should be objects of our love and compassion, not our derision and contempt.
Can you imagine what it must have felt like to the Gentile believers in Antioch when, suddenly, the whole dining area had been self-segregated?
How long must it have taken to heal the wounds of this incident? What would a Gentile who’d not yet come to faith in Jesus have thought about Christianity — what would they have thought about JESUS — if they’d seen this take place?
Paul understood that these were the things that were on the line in this incident, and so, he rebuked Peter strongly and publicly.
Peter’s very public sin and the damage it could cause to Church unity, not to mention the way it damaged the gospel of grace, couldn’t be allowed to fester.
Whether intentionally or not, Peter and the other Jews in Antioch had acted hypocritically by withdrawing from fellowship with the Gentile believers.
The Greek word translated as hypocrisy in verse 13 comes from the theater and referred to wearing a mask or playing a part in a drama.
It was used outside of the theater to describe someone who was acting on a pretense, being insincere, or acting in a way that shows one’s convictions to be different than what one claims.
As one commentator puts it, Peter “should have known better! [He wasn’t] guilty of an honest mistake, nor was there any evidence that he had changed his mind about the extension of salvation to the Gentiles, a truth revealed to him by a special revelation. Peter had donned a mask of pretense; he was shamefully acting a part contrary to his own true convictions. What Paul rebuked was the inconsistency of his conduct.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 177.]
The now-segregated Jews in the Antioch church weren’t being “straightforward about the truth of the gospel,” Paul says in verse 14.
The word that’s translated as “straightforward” here means “to walk with straight feet.” In other words, to walk a straight course.
Later in Galatians, Paul calls the Galatians to “walk by the Spirit.” And the story about Peter’s crooked walk would give them a clear example of a follower of Jesus who’d allowed himself to be knocked off the path.
Despite the time he’d spent with Jesus — despite the special revelations he’d received regarding the Gentiles and the Mosaic Law — despite the understanding that had been reached among Paul, Peter, James, and John regarding circumcision of Gentile believers — despite all this, Peter lacked the courage of his convictions.
But Paul did not.
And in the presence of everybody there — Jews and Gentiles alike — he chastised Peter and the others for their actions.
You Jews now live like Gentiles, he said. In other words, you’ve been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
You’ve rejected the powerlessness of self-righteousness as the way to be approved by God. Instead, you’ve put your faith in Jesus as the only way to be justified before God.
So why would you try to make the Gentiles do what you know to have no power to save them?
The Jews in Antioch were acting as if they were somehow better than their Gentile brothers and sisters, as if their own ritual purity and adherence to the Law put them in a better relationship with God.
But both the Jewish and Gentile believers there had been “redeemed by the same Christ, regenerated by the same Holy Spirit, and made partakers of the same fellowship. Who then could dare say they should not come to the same table to partake of the same Lord’s Supper just as already they had been baptized into the name of the same one triune God?” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 181.]
A few important lessons appear from this passage that we shouldn’t miss.
First, even great Christian leaders can fall. Peter was pre-eminent among the Apostles. He was one of the closest disciples to Jesus. He was the first to preach following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.
But he sinned in this incident, and his sin caused a period of disunity in the church.
We need to be careful about exalting human leaders, even beloved pastors. And we need to be ready, as Paul puts it in chapter 6, to restore leaders in gentleness when they’re caught in trespasses.
Second, there are no second-class Christians. We are all equal before God. Every follower of Christ in this room is a sinner saved by grace. There’s no room for boasting, except in the cross of Jesus Christ.
This means there’s also no place for racism or any other type of prejudice in the church. Rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, white or brown, all are welcome at the table here.
And third, we need to prepare ourselves to be lonely when we stand up for the gospel.
In Antioch, I can imagine Paul standing in the middle of the room, as Gentile believers filled the tables along one side and the Jewish believers moved to the other side of the room. He alone stood for truth.
But the biggest lesson for us here is that our actions should bear out our convictions.
If we truly believe that we’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, then we need to act that way, regardless of the situation.
We need to be sure that we’re not putting stumbling blocks in the paths of people on their way to meet Jesus. We need to be certain that what they experience from us are the same kinds of things we’ve experienced from Jesus: grace, compassion, mercy, love.
Yes, they’re sinners. Yes, they’ve done terrible things in their rebellion against God. But so have we. We’re no better. Jesus is.
And because He’s better — because He’s perfectly righteous — we AND they can be saved through faith in Him — and ONLY through faith in Him.
And once that happens, HE will begin dealing with their sins through the work of the Holy Spirit.
That’s what He does for me. That’s what He does for you if you’ve followed Jesus in faith.
And THAT’S the message we should be prepared to protect at all costs. THAT’S the message we should be prepared to stand alone while defending.
Sometimes, having the courage of our convictions means facing a test of what we truly believe. Would YOU pass that test?
Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This observance is important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us of the love He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.
Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us what He did for us.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.
And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love. That there’s no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.
Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we are to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith. We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord.
If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.
The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.
Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.
Let us pray.
As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.
“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
Let us pray.
Take and drink.
“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Maranatha! Lord, come!
Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.
Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”
