Part 4-Social Behavior that Preaches an Unorthodox Gospel

What Peter vs. Paul Teaches Us About the Public Rebuke of Christian Leaders

Earlier this week, I began a series examining the conflict between the apostles Peter and Paul about table fellowship with Gentiles and what it might teach us about the public rebuke of Christian leaders. Read the first installment of the series here and follow along from there. 

Yesterday, in part 3, we examined the scene of Peter and Paul’s conflict. Today, we’ll examine the tone, intensity and necessity of Paul’s rebuke—the longest portion of our exploration in the series.

THE REBUKE

Because Paul saw himself as called by God and not “under” the authority of the Jerusalem apostles, he exercised freedom to rebuke Peter’s social behavior despite Peter’s “primacy” as a disciple during Jesus’ earthly ministry.¹ Augustine also rightly interpreted Paul’s rebuke as an assertion that the truth of the gospel outranks a leader’s position of influence.² The tone, manner, and content of Paul’s rebuke may offer guidance to Christians when, for the sake of the gospel, they find themselves considering public rebuke of a Christian leader. Additionally, the type of witnessing audience, along with an understanding of the risks associated with allowing Peter’s behavior to go unchecked, may prove helpful.

Tone

In no uncertain terms, Paul makes clear to the Galatians that he boldly opposed Peter: “...I opposed (antisthēmi) him to his face, because he stood condemned (kataginōskō)” (v. 11, emphasis mine). Consider two word studies that illuminate the tone of Paul’s confrontation.

Word study: Antisthēmi

• Range of meaning: to oppose, resist, stand out against, rebel, withstand.³

• New Testament usage: Antisthēmi is used fourteen times in twelve verses and typically connotes a face-off between good and evil.

Five times it is translated “resist”: the disciples’ adversaries would be unable to
“resist” the wisdom Jesus would give his disciples (Lk 21:15); the disciples shouldn’t “resist” an evil person (Mat 5:39); and believers should “resist” the devil (Jas 4:7; 1
Pet 5:9).

Once, antisthēmi is translated as “rebel”: one invites judgment when one “rebels”
against authorities God has instituted (Rom 13:2).

It’s twice translated as “stand up against”/“stand your ground”: Stephen’s
persecutors could not “stand up against” the wisdom of the Spirit speaking through
him (Acts 6:10), and Paul instructs the Ephesians to “stand [their] ground” in the
“evil day” (Eph 6:13).

In all other cases, antisthēmi is translated as “oppose/d”: a Jewish sorcerer on the
island of Paphos opposes Paul’s gospel (Acts 13:8); false teachers oppose truth (2
Tim 3:8); and Alexander the metalworker harmed Paul and opposed his message (2
Tim 4:15).

• Authorial Usage: Paul uses antisthēmi in relation to God once, human government once, the “evil day” once, and humans who oppose truth three times. What’s at stake in these contexts is weighty: judgment, salvation, and truth.

Word study: Kataginōskō

• Range of meaning: to condemn, convict; to be in the wrong, condemned; to determine against, blame, reprehend, convict.⁴

• Authorial, NT and LXX⁵ Usage: Kataginōskō is found five times in the Bible and used only once by Paul—in Galatians 2. The two instances found in 1 John, related to personal assurance of salvation, were likely written approximately twenty years after Paul’s estimated death and therefore would not have been familiar to him.⁶

Paul would, however, have been familiar with two usages in the LXX: Judges should
“condemn” the guilty in court (Deut 25:1) and a poor but discerning man is able to
see how deluded (“condemned”) the rich are because they think themselves wise
(Prov 28:11).

Dunn says Paul’s use of the kataginōskō in Galatians could indicate either that “all
right-thinking people would acknowledge Peter’s” unethical behavior, or “that
[Peter] was condemned before the bar of God’s judgment.”⁷ Either way, kataginōskō
doesn’t soften our sense of Paul’s tone and judgement. He condemns Peter’s
“wisdom” of separating from Gentiles, and like a judge declares Peter’s guilt not
only to the Antiochian Christians but also to the Galatians long after the matter is
settled in Antioch.

Content of Rebuke

Paul does not simply chastise Peter from withdrawing from Gentile/Jew table fellowship. Peter’s error is greater than this: he is not “acting in line with truth of the gospel” (v. 14), which has ecclesiological implications for the first-century and future church. First, Paul points out Peter’s hypocrisy: Peter’s a Jew who lives like a Gentile, but his current behavior suggests he expects Gentiles to become more like Jews through adherence to Jewish law (v. 14). Second, Paul reminds Peter of their shared theological conviction that Jewish people, like Gentiles, are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, not by Jewishness.

Paul’s initial rebuke is followed by a “public lecture about freedom, equality, and new life in the gospel of Jesus Christ,” which leaves no room for argument.⁸ You can read it here. R. A. Cole offers a helpful paraphrase of part of the “lecture”: “‘If, at the very moment when we say that we ourselves are justified by faith alone, we turn out to be preaching to others that ‘faith alone’ is inadequate…does that not mean that trusting in Christ is only leading them into sin? (vv. 17-18).⁹” In other words, Peter’s behavior has the potential to relegate Gentile believers to a wilderness of soteriological contradiction (i.e. confusion about how salvation “works”).

What’s at Stake?

Because of Peter’s apostolic influence in Antioch, his behavior called into question the established truth that Jews and Gentiles find a common identity and basis for unity through the gospel of Jesus Christ. His hypocrisy may have left the Jewish Christians relatively unconflicted, but Peter’s behavior implied that the Gentile sheep of the Antiochian fold were simply “not as good as Jewish Christians.”¹⁰ If Paul did not rebuke swiftly, “there would have been ‘two communions’ in Antioch, two Christian groups existing side by side…unable to share the Lord’s Supper together.”¹¹ On into perpetuity, the world-wide church, too, could be divided along ethnic lines based on the precedence of Antioch.

We must understand that Paul’s was not a “Jesus-died-so-I- can-go-to-heaven” gospel. The gospel he preached involved “the restoration of all things” through Christ, which “included ethnic, social, and gender reconciliation” at its heart.¹² If the multiethnic nature of the church was lost, it could no longer prophetically witness to the reality that Christ holds all things together and reconciles to himself all things, chief among them Jews and Gentiles (Col 1:17, 20).

Audience

Presumably, Paul rebuked Peter “in front of” (v.14) the Jews who imitated Peter’s hypocrisy and perhaps even in front of the “circumcision group” (v. 12). It is unclear if Paul’s rebuke took place in front of Gentile Christians also, but it would be sensible for Paul to do so “since the consequences and implications of Peter’s action were so destructive to the unity and spiritual integrity of the church.”¹³ The whole church had witnessed Peter’s “social deviance” from the true gospel; to accomplish restoration, the whole church needed to witness social behavior that corrected Peter’s unorthodox theology.

Tomorrow we’ll take a little segue into the question, “But what about Matthew 18? Didn’t Jesus say to rebuke in private?” Follow me on Substack, or click the “Subscribe now” button below to have the series delivered to your email inbox.

---

Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, and author. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.

1. Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, ed. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker, vol. 41, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas, Tx: Word Books, 1990), 64.

2. Walter Hansen, Galatians, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), Gal 2:14, Logos Bible Software.

3. Stepbible.com

4. Stepbible.com

5. The LXX is an abbreviation for the Septuagint—the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (or what Christians call the Old Testament).

6. Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton, eds., NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan, 2019), 2216.

7. James D.G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, ed. Henry Chadwick (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), 117.

8. Nijay K. Gupta, Galatians, The Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2023), 73.

9. R.A. Cole, Galatians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 9, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 123.

10. Cole, Galatians, 119.

11. Ibid, 118.

12. Brett Sanner and Paul Trainor, “Mission in Tension: Paul as Ministry Advocate,” in Conflict Management and the Apostle Paul, ed. Scot McKnight and Greg Mamula (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2018), 133.

13. Hansen, Galatians.