And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
As much as we like to say we don’t need leaders and can get the work done on our own, the data disputes it. This data is not from the business world but from the Bible. King Saul had poor leadership and God eventually replaced him with David. Here Peter, who really should have learned from his many past mistakes while walking with Jesus, displayed awful leadership. The worst part is that, even when the leadership goes down the wrong path, the people will follow. Here, Peter led the Jews, even the otherwise faithful Barnabas astray by avoiding contact with Gentiles while the James coterie was in Antioch. This top-down leadership was so offensive to the gospel that Paul could not be silent, rebuking Peter in front of his friends. How embarrassing!
We all remember the days in school when we were shunned by the cool group and could not acquire an invitation to the cool lunch table. That is merely mean. This was sin. Jesus died for all mankind and this Jew/Gentile problem threatened the stability of the young Christian church. Fortunately, Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church so Peter’s stumbling would not either. Come to Cape Community Church tomorrow to see how God supplied the leader they needed. Let the truth…
Lead you to the cross.
Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church