How do you respond when you see another believer in Jesus Christ sinning? If you find yourself in this situation, it can be hard! Well, this is exactly where Paul found himself in the city of Antioch. We pick up the story in Galatians 2:11-14:
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?
Remember Cephas (Peter) was the head apostle. You can look at any list in the Gospels of the apostle’s names, and Peter’s name always comes first. As we learned last week, people considered Peter a pillar of the church. But we can see in this passage that even Peter made bad choices! At one time, he was eating freely with the Gentile believers, but Peter became afraid of the Jewish leaders (maybe he remembers what they did to Jesus!). Not only did Peter do wrong, but his decision was leading others’ astray: “The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy…even Barnabas.” Paul sees this travesty and instantly knows it is not right. Paul communicates later in Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Simply put, Peter was sinning! How does Paul respond? Before I answer that question, let me ask you the following question again “How do you respond when you see another believer in Jesus Christ sinning?” Do you gossip about it? Do you go to another friend and say “We need to pray for ___________ because he is doing _____________.” Do you go to your pastor or a leader in the church and tattletale? What does Jesus want us to do? Thankfully, Jesus left us some great instruction about this very topic. Look at Matthew 18:15-17:
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
What should we do? Well, Jesus said we should go in private and show our brother his fault. If he listens, all things are good! If he doesn’t listen and continues to sin, you should take one or two people with you who know about the sin, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. Now, if he still doesn’t listen and continues to sin, tell it to the church! Unfortunately, sometimes people will still not repent. So if he or she doesn’t repent, treat him like an unbeliever. Wow! This is Jesus’ own words on how we should respond when we see a believer sinning. I am convinced that a high percentage of church issues would go away if believers followed this principle!
Back to Galatians, how does Paul respond to Peter? He “opposed him to his face”! He didn’t talk to someone else about Peter. He talked to Peter face to face. However, it wasn’t just Peter who was at fault: “But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all.” So, what did Paul do? He talked to them all about what they were doing wrong! Paul was not afraid about what was going to happen to him because he was standing on God’s truth. A person sinning is like a person who jumps out of an airplane, and their parachute doesn’t activate. If you are jumping out the same airplane and you see your friend’s parachute not opening, will you go after your friend to try to save him or her? If your friend is sinning, you can possibly save him or her from many consequences if you use the principle that Jesus taught us and Paul lived out! See you next week.