Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Thursday, July 18, 2013 Read – Galatians 2:11-14 Luke mentions nothing about Cephas (Peter) travelling to Antioch. In fact, as we have noticed, once the decision has been made in the Jerusalem conference, Peter disappears from Luke’s story never to be heard from again. Paul tells us that Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch and at first all was well. The implication is that Peter ate with and interacted with the Gentile believers in Antioch without any restrictions. And then “certain people came from James” and the situation changed (Galatians 2:11-12). Peter drew back and separated himself from the Gentiles “for fear of the circumcision faction” (Galatians 2:12). Did not Luke tell us that James had concurred with Peter and in fact given the decision regarding circumcision not being required? What has happened? Did James go back on his own decision? As I mentioned yesterday, perhaps one way to think of all this is to surmise that James had indeed announced the decision that circumcision was not required – and that he was willing to stick with that decision – but that he also was well aware that certain practices of Gentiles would cause Jews to become ritually unclean – the four injunctions added to the circumcision decision are all about those sources of contamination for observant Jews. Instead of understanding the injunctions as part of the initial decision in Jerusalem as Luke portrays it, perhaps James was attempting to add them now. Peter’s initial willingness to interact with the Gentiles in Antioch without restrictions and then his withdrawing because of “certain people from James” lends itself to the thought that before those “certain people” showed up Peter didn’t know about the injunctions – or Peter really is a two-faced hypocrite. At any rate the harmonious outcome Luke reports disintegrates into a major controversy. In typical fashion, fiery Paul confronts Peter to his face. Paul will have none of this false sense of harmony. And to make matters worse, other Jews, including Barnabas join in what is called hypocrisy by Paul (Galatians 2:11, 13). Paul calls Peter on his lack of integrity – “if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:14). Paul does not tell us Peter’s reaction – likely if Peter would have “owned up” to his fault Paul would have told us, his silence likely means that the differences between Paul and Peter persisted. Peter does not come off in a very good light in this story. Perhaps it is time for us to look specifically at the four injunctions laid down by James. What are they really about? The first injunction has to do with abstaining from the pollution of idols. This is the most important of the injunctions. It is important to say first of all that this does not have anything to do with actually worshiping an idol. What this injunction has to do with in eating meat that has been sacrificed in a pagan worship ritual. At this point in history almost everyone had a sacred view of life. We think of butchering an animal as something routine and without any religious significance. At that time, the sheading of any blood, even the blood of an animal, had a religious component to it. That was true for Jews and well as for Gentiles. So when a Gentile butcher slaughtered an animal he did it with ritual prayers, perhaps asking forgiveness of a god represented by an idol for taking the life of a living thing. Hardly anything was slaughtered without this religious significance attached. In fact, often some of the meat was actually sacrificed on the altar of a god – in front of the idol of that god. What was left over was sold in the meat market. Jews would never buy food in one of these markets – they had their own Jewish meat market and there the animal was slaughtered in a proper way for Jewish people. Even today there are Jews who will only eat meat that is kosher – slaughtered in a proper Jewish manner part of which is to drain the blood from the animal. To eat meat that was not properly slaughtered was to become “unclean” for a Jewish person. We can see now why the eating of meat purchased in the Gentile marketplace would present such a problem for observant Jewish Christians as James apparently was. The point for people like James was that if a Gentile wanted to be in fellowship with a Jewish person without ritually contaminating them, one would have to abstain from eating meat from the local meat market. Was it unreasonable for Jewish Christians to require this of their Gentile brothers and sisters? Paul writes considerably about this issue. The two prominent places where Paul discusses the issue of meat offered to idols – being polluted by idols in Luke’s language – are in Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians 8. It would be well if you would pause to read those three chapters at this point. It becomes clear from reading Paul’s words in Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians 8 that Paul did not subscribe to the practice of abstaining from eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. If the four injunctions were part of the initial agreement, Paul either agreed to them at the time and then later decided to not abide by the decision or Paul never agreed to such a thing. Almost certainly Paul never agreed to the first injunction laid down by James. Paul does say that, “for the sake of a weaker brother of sister” one might choose to abstain from eating meat sacrificed to an idol, but to make it a requirement is impossible. Perhaps the gap between James and Paul is not completely unbridgeable. Request for the sake of “weak” brother, perhaps; but requirement, absolutely not! Of course such an arrangement would require James to acknowledge that he was the “weak” brother – something that would have been hard for James, and impossible for Luke. Why is this such an important issue for Paul? In Paul’s mind the very gospel of salvation by grace alone is at stake. The gospel plus anything else, any requirement, ends up not being the gospel at all! For Paul this injunction and anything like it, things like observing various days and months, was at the heart of the matter – it was why he was so angry at the Galatians – they were influenced by those who told them that had to “do something” in order to be faithful Christians. Faith alone was the hallmark for Paul. The other three injunctions follow from this one. Paul would not have argued against teaching believers in Jesus to abstain from fornication – in fact Paul does teach exactly that. As far abstaining from what it strangled – the issue is almost the same as the first injunction regarding meat offered to idols. Strangling an animal made it difficult to drain the blood. Paul does not speak about eating what is strangled but he likely would have taken the same position as he did about meat offered to idols – go ahead and eat what is strangled. And the last issue has to do with eating blood. Again, Paul would likely have found nothing wrong with Gentiles not ritually draining the blood from an animal. Before we leave our discussion of the four injunctions it is interesting to note that Luke does not mention the one thing Paul says was asked of him – “to remember to poor” (Galatians 10)! Knowing Luke’s concern for the perils of wealth makes it all the more unusual that he did not mention it. In fact, readers of Acts have noticed that Luke totally downplays Paul’s great concern to collect an offering for the church in Jerusalem because Paul was aware that they were suffering. The very reason why Paul goes to Jerusalem as told from the point of view of his letters is to deliver this offering – in response to the one thing Paul understood they asked of him. Paul was keeping his word. Luke barely mentions the offering that was so important to Paul. This, along with a whole host of issues that we have been examining, is the strongest evidence that the writer of Acts was not a companion of Paul. The Paul portrayed by Luke in Acts is not the same Paul we find in his letters – of course there are many places where there is convergence, but there are enough differences to make the judgment that Luke never knew Paul personally – and likely he did not know Paul’s letters either. For those who are wondering about when these events happened from a historical point of view, Paul has provided us with a good deal of valuable information – and Luke has added at least a small piece. Let’s start by remembering that Luke told us of a famine that occurred. That famine happened between the years of 46-48 AD. So the events surrounding the Jerusalem conference happened sometime after 46 AD at the earliest and perhaps no earlier than 48 AD. In his letter to the Galatians Paul tells us that after his encounter with Jesus he spent 3 years in Arabia and that it was at 14 years after that that he visited Jerusalem for the Jerusalem conference. That’s 17 years at a minimum. Later in Acts Luke will tell us that Paul was brought before Gallio in the city of Corinth (Acts 18:12-17). From archeological evidence we can date that Gallio served as proconsul in 50 and 51 AD. The date of the Jerusalem conference can thus be no later than that and likely must have happened a few years earlier since we need to give time for Paul to travel from Antioch to Corinth with stops along the way. Likely the best guess is that the conference happened in 48 AD. We do not know exactly when Jesus was crucified but his death and resurrection most likely could not have been later than 31 AD (48 minus 17 equal 31) and most likely happened in 30 AD. The overall point is that the Jerusalem conference in which the decision of the church that Gentiles could be welcomed into the church without circumcision happened almost 20 years into the existence of the church! For almost 20 years the church was mostly a Jewish Christian sect – a branch of Judaism. That may not seem to be very important at first but it does point to the difficulty that the early church experienced in breaking out of the limits of Judaism. We often wonder why it takes so long to get anything done in the church. Maybe it has always been that way – it is difficult for God to accomplish what God intends to do!