Translation
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was in the wrong! For before certain men came from James, he ate with gentiles; but when they came, he stepped away from the gentiles and separated himself from them, fearing those men from the circumcision. And many of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabus got carried away with them! But when I was that they weren’t being straight with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you are a Jew, and yet live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
Reflections
Most obviously, the boldness of Paul jumps out of this text. He really does not care who he’s talking to, there is simply no tolerance in his world for distorting the gospel. What’s more, it is clear that he believes that distorting the way the community of God relates within itself is actually a major distortion of the gospel. It appears that the major ofense here is Peter’s willingness to back away from the gentile converts, making them seem like second-class christians because they haven’t also become Jews. If that’s the case, then Paul’s primary argument here is about the equality of the gentiles wehn compared to their Jewish brothers in Christ. There is no room in Paul’s theology for a divided church! We also might well heed the warning of this passage for any other way we might be tempted to relegate people within the community of God. Paul might well oppose us to our face on a number of fronts if we try to maintain barriers that should be dissolved by the work of Jesus! We might well ask, is the barrier we are trying to maintain more powerful than the cross of Jesus? Is it more powerful than the holy spirit? If so, then we should feel comfortable living our lives according to the barriers of the world.
I’m also struck by the fact that, while Peter (Cephas) probably gets the most attention here, Barnabus gets swept away too. It’s so stinking easy to get carried away, especially by things that evoke our own identities. these guys that come in and distort everything make Peter want to act like a Jew, call out to the Jew in Barnabus, saying “this is your primary identity. Protect your identity!” Even Barnabus gets sucked into somebody else’s vision of his identity.
