Peter and Paul at Antioch

[Christian2]

Hello to all,

Peter and Paul had a confrontation at Antioch described in Galatians, Chapter 2.

11Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; 12for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

Paul by some's view shouldn't have confronted Peter in the way that he did--in the open, in front of people. In Matthew 18, Jesus says:

15"Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Didn't Jesus make Peter the leader of His disciples? What was so important going down at Antioch that Paul felt it necessary to "correct" Peter and to correct him in public?

Would you say that Peter understood what he did was wrong and would have made up with Paul if he had been offended.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

This could be a referral to when Paul was a sinner. Paul was once a persecutor of the Christians (Gk:the brothers); he confronted many people like this, and newly formed Christian groups such as those of Bensamech and Barnabas. Paul didn't agree with born Jews who conversed with goyim - or the other nations. He defended the Jewish faith as a sinner. Paul later explains: "For the people rejoice and said 'This man now glorifies those he once persecuted."
In otherwords - before Paul's repentance and conversion.

[Jac3510]

A couple of things:

First, we should never "heroize" the characterize the biblical characters. Too often we read their actions as prescriptive rather than descriptive. Peter clearly needed correcting. That's the point of the text. The method of correction shouldn't be derived from the way Paul did it, but rather from other prescriptive texts on the issue elsewhere in the Bible (i.e., Galatians 6:1-5).

Second, no where in the text does it say that Paul did this in public, but only "to his face." Further, if we insist that he did (which we can't, based only on the text), we definitely can't say that he hadn't talked to Peter about it in the past privately. In fact, that is likely, given how strongly Paul felt about the subject. In other words, it's just not good interpretation to read this and assume that Paul marched in unannounced, called a crowd together, and went about rebuking Peter in public.

Third, there is no one in the Church above another, but the greatest is he who serves the least. Peter needed rebuking. It didn't matter who did it. Besides that, Paul doesn't say how he rebuked Peter . . . he could have been very graceful about it. Doing something with gentleness doesn't mean lacking firmness!

Finally, I'm not too sure about the last part of your post. Paul and Peter did "make up." If nothing else, we know that they met on future occasions, and that Peter later calls him "our beloved brother" (2 Peter 3:15).

Hope that helps,

God bless

[Christian2]

You have taught me another lesson--read Scriptures carefully and put everything into context. I don't know where I got the idea that Paul corrected Peter in public.

Thank you again. I am grateful to this site as I always get excellent help.

God Bless