March 7 - Galatians 2:11-14

March 7 - Galatians 2:11-14

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

When I was a freshman in high school, our choir went to state contest.  We did poorly and our score reflected that.  However, as students will do, once we got on the bus, everyone complained about how the judges had it in for our community and that it wasn’t fair, on and on and on.

Stupid little freshman girl got herself in a MESS o’ trouble.  It was the seniors that were making all the noise and the last thing they wanted to hear from a wet behind the ears freshman was the truth regarding their performance.  We had not done a good job, we had really screwed up several things and for heaven’s sake, why would out of state judges even KNOW about our community, much less have it in for us.  Oh yes, I said all of those things.  Some of those girls have never forgiven me.  Fortunately, we only had a month or so left before summer and by the next fall, I was a sophomore, the worst of the mean girls were gone and there was a new crop of freshman to hate.

I walked into that argument with truth on my side against people who didn’t want to hear it.  Paul did the same thing … but, he went up against leaders who had proven themselves … not as mean and petty girls, but as men who had been through the worst of it all and remained as followers of Jesus.  He was willing to take them on and make them see the truth, no matter how difficult it might make the relationship.