UBF Daily Bread

PAUL OPPOSES PETER

Passage: Galatians 2:11~16

Key verse: 16

Paul Opposes Cephas

¹¹When Cephas^(A) came to Antioch,^(B) I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James,^(C) he used to eat with the Gentiles.^(D) 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.^(E) ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas^(F) was led astray.

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel,^(G) I said to Cephas^(H) in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.^(I) How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?^(J)

¹⁵“We who are Jews by birth^(K) and not sinful Gentiles^(L) ¹⁶know that a person is not justified by the works of the law,^(M) but by faith in Jesus Christ.^(N) So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in^[a] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.^(O)

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Footnotes

Galatians 2:16 Or but through the faithfulness of … justified on the basis of the faithfulness of

1. Paul rebukes Peter (11-14)

Peter was the spiritual leader of the church, but he was not infallible. He thoughtlessly allowed his Jewish cultural taboos to hurt some Gentile Christians. When he visited Antioch, he enjoyed eating with Gentile Christians until some strict Jews arrived. Then he didn't eat with the Gentiles again. Paul was angry for two reasons: The implication of Peter's action was that the Gentiles were not accepted fully as Christian brothers. More importantly, his actions called the absolute sufficiency of the gospel into question.

2. Justified by faith in Jesus (15-16)

This problem became an opportunity for all the apostles, including both Peter and Paul, to affirm the fact that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone. We are not made righteous by zealously keeping the law, nor by practicing religious ritual.

Prayer: Lord, help me to challenge cultural patterns that run counter to the gospel.

One Word: Follow the gospel, not habit or culture

Daily Bread

PAUL OPPOSES PETER

Passage: Galatians 2:11~16

Key verse: 16

Paul Opposes Cephas

Footnotes

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