I can be such a people-pleasing chicken sometimes. Through the Lord’s grace I’m growing in this area, but I confess I still identify with the apostle Peter a bit much. In Galatians 2 we read of Paul’s opposing Peter “to his face”. It’s easy to read this and think only of Paul and to place ourselves in his shoes as champion of gospel fidelity. But I think I understand a bit too well what was going on in Peter’s heart.
Tom Schreiner paints the picture well:
Presumably [those from James] expressed concern about Peter and other Jews eating with Gentiles, fearing the consequences that would follow from not observing OT food laws. We can imagine that James and other Jewish Christians in Palestine would be troubled upon hearing that Peter and his friends were abandoning dietary regulations. Such news would have been scandalous to unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, and it presumably troubled many Christian Jews in the homeland as well. (Schreiner, 140)
Peter was happily living out the gospel, eating bacon and enjoying his new Gentile friends. But suddenly the implications of the gospel started rubbing some folks the wrong way. Controversy and disunity threatened to shake up Peter’s happy existence. And so he started shrinking back from eating with Gentiles.
And here’s the kicker, the folks from James were likely making a very biblical sounding argument. I can hear Peter rationalizing now. “God has a heart to save our Jewish people. He sent His Messiah to us. Apart from Christ they won’t understand what we do about the food laws. We will become offensive and it will close the door to the gospel. God doesn’t want me to blow my witness with them. Therefore, I had better stop eating with Gentiles”.
But what was driving the bus for Peter wasn’t theology it was fear. It was fear of what might happen. Fear is a desperate thing. It’s the drowning man in the pool flailing away trying to grab hold of anything to preserve him. Fear doesn’t care what it ravages on the way to its desired safety. And what better rock to grab onto than Scripture? But when fear grabs hold of Scripture it always contorts it.
The problem for folks like Peter, and myself is that the more we grow in Christ the better we know Scripture. That is a terrific antidote to fear and anxiety…except when it isn’t. What I mean is that we aren’t immune from fear ruling our hearts. And in those moments all of our Bible learning will actually be used to serve our flesh. The more Scripture we know the more that we’ve got in our arsenal to twist and use to bow to our idol of the day.
This all sounds scary. And it is.
What we ought to conclude from this is that me—even Holy-Spirit indwelled me—and my Bible isn’t enough. We need people like Paul to call us on our Scripture twisting and fear-motivated hearts. Others can see when something else is ruling our hearts. We need them in our lives to oppose us to our face when we are wrong.
Study the Scriptures. Labor to know God’s Word with all of your might. But don’t assume this means you don’t need the community of God’s people. You do. Otherwise all your Bible knowledge will just be twisted to serve idols.
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