6As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message. 7On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. 8For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. 10All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
Dig Deeper
Throughout the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had a nearly impossible task. He had to somehow try to walk the middle ground between being seen as a war-mongering abolitionist by some while at the same time being seen as a compromising anti-abolitionist by others. Walking down the middle of those two sides was politically dangerous and was a job that could not have been pulled off by most men. It put Lincoln in the difficult position, though, of never being able to satisfy anyone. What he had to demonstrate was that he would fight the war if forced to but he didn’t want a war; that he desired to free the slaves but wouldn’t do so at the expense of the Union or in such a reactionary fashion that it could easily be declared illegal and overturned. All throughout the war, Lincoln worked hard to find the middle ground between the two political sides and keep the country unified.
Paul, of course, would have known nothing of the specific issues that faced Abraham Lincoln, but he would have been extremely familiar with the concept of having to try to walk a dangerous middle path and forge unity between groups on two different sides of an issue. Paul has been put in an extremely precarious position. He has been accused of being under the thumb of the true apostles in Jerusalem, having received his gospel from them before twisting it due to his own unstable and unreliable personality. So, he was put in the position of having to defend himself against that. If he doesn’t, then his opponents will be able to swoop into the Gentile churches around the world and steal away the freedom they have in Christ by convincing them that they must uphold the entire law of Moses in order to be a Christian. Yet, while he defends himself against these type of attacks, he must be very careful not to appear too independent. He certainly doesn’t want emphasize to his independence and, in the process, offend the apostles like James, Peter, and John. Even more importantly, he doesn’t want to push the case for Gentile freedom in Christ too far so it comes at the expense of unity with the Jewish Christians. The unity of the family of God is, in the end, the most important thing for Paul, just as unity of the country was the vital issue for Lincoln. Thus, Paul must carefully walk down the middle of road without slipping off the precipice on either side.
Paul begins this passage of his dangerous tightrope journey by referring to those who seemed to be important. In verse 2 he called them "those who seemed to be leaders," and in verse nine will refer to them as "those reputed to be pillars," while revealing that he is specifically talking about James, Peter, and John. Paul certainly believes in leadership in the Church, but he more believes that God is the ultimate authority and one to be reverenced. So, Paul is careful to stress that the only one whose approval he is ultimately concerned with is God’s while at the same time not appearing to be offensive to the three eminent apostles. Yet, it does appear that Paul is more acrimonious towards the three apostles than is probably the case. Why, though, has he used terms like these that seem a bit sarcastic or derogatory? It could simply be that Paul is stressing that He values God’s authority far more than man, but it seems more likely that Paul is as he often does (in his letters to the Corinthians, for example) turning around something that was used by the Judaizers and sarcastically making a point. They, very likely, had constantly referred to the apostles in Jerusalem as the truly important, the real leaders, the true pillars of the Church, while Paul was just a pretender. Understood in this way, Paul has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek as he makes clear that his critics are viewing these godly men and authority in the Church from a human point of view rather than a godly one. His issue, then, is not with the apostles but with the inappropriate way that his critics have exalted them.
Paul is clear throughout the first two chapters, that three important things came out of his meetings with the apostles. The first is that they didn’t add anything to the gospel he was preaching. It was in no way deficient; he didn’t need to add a command to get circumcised. The second is that they gladly agreed to a division of labor. Paul would go the Gentile world and they would carry the gospel to the Jewish world (it must have been a bit ironic for Peter who was the one who opened the mission to the Gentiles as a result of the vision he received in Acts 10; see also Acts 15:7). The third thing is that they extended the right hand of fellowship. In that culture the left hand was the unclean hand, but clasping right hands signified friendship and trust. This must have been quite a blow to the Judaizers. If Paul and Barnabas were accepted as friends, and Paul’s gospel was accepted, then this meant that Paul’s apostleship was being accepted and, in fact, the whole Gentile Christian world was being accepted into the family of believers. The apostles recognized that it may not have been the way they would have envisioned, but God seldom works in ways that we expect. God had undeniably given Paul His grace to carry out his mission and all they could do was recognize it. Paul’s opponents had, no doubt, hoped that the apostles in Jerusalem would reject Paul and his mission, but the reality was it was never theirs to reject or accept, for what God had commissioned they could only embrace. The apostles realized God’s grace evident in Paul’s ministry (the same grace evident in their own ministries) and realized to reject his mission would be to illegitimize their own.
Paul says that the apostles did have one request of him. That he would continue to remember the poor, the very thing he had been doing all along. Although this may include the poor in general, it is likely that they were referring more specifically to the poor in the Jerusalem church. The request from the apostles does not imply that they thought Paul might not do that, quite the contrary. It is a confirmation of what he had been doing. They were basically saying "keep up the good work." This, of course, would have been encouraging to Paul because he was eager to continue his great project of collecting money for the Christians in Jerusalem among the Gentile churches. For Paul this was not only a very effective opportunity to teach the Gentile Christians how to truly give, love, and serve their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but, in Paul’s mind, it was an important symbol that demonstrated to everyone involved the incredible fact that Jews and Gentiles really had become God’s one people when they entered into the life of Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thought
Paul and Peter worked in very different ways to carry out God’s plan yet they clearly recognized God’s grace and the fact that He was at work in the ministry of one another. Are you humble enough to recognize God’s grace in those around you who may work differently or be used by God in a different way than you do? What do you do when confronted by such a situation? Does your pride kick in or do you remain determined to recognize God's grace in the lives and work of others?
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