You're listening to the 10 Minute Bible Member podcast. It's best on the free daily Deep Minute Bible. And right now we're talking about Galatians.
SPEAKER_00These last few days we've been talking about this question. We've been wondering about whether Peter and Paul actually patched things up after the uncomfortable incident, probably in the late 40s A.D. in the Antioch Church lunchroom, where Paul was like, hey, Peter, the way you're handling your business in the lunchroom socially makes it seem like you don't actually believe in the gospel that we agree on and that we're preaching. Understandably, that is an incident. It's a whole social thing. And it was weird. And I can't probably even imagine how weird it was. I bet people in the room gasped when Paul confronted Peter. I bet that people immediately started to try to take sides. I bet there was a little bit of gossip about it. And I can just picture the whole thing. And it seems like the sort of thing that especially in a passive, aggressive, northern, midwestern, largely white society like where I live, people might have just harbored that for a very long time and just said that incident told me everything I needed to know about that person. I'm making it sound like somebody else talks like that. I have said phrases like that. So it is born out of my own relational failures that I have this curiosity and I want to get to the bottom of whether or not they were a bigger person than I am and whether they were able to truly meaningfully patch it up and partner together. Well, over the last couple days, I made the case that I think they did meaningfully patch it up coming out of the Antioch lunchroom incident because they hung out with the same crowd at the end of all things for both of them. And there's one name that I left off too. At the end of some of the last stuff that Peter writes, he acknowledges that he's hanging out with Silas. So that's just everybody that was involved in the game at one point or another. We get mention of in the all of those loose threads that were out there relationally. They all get tied up. We talked about that a bunch over the last couple days. Reason number two that I want to talk about today, that I think these guys patched it up, is because they're telling everybody the same message as they age and as they go on through life, all the way to the end. In fact, they both die violently for the same message. That would seem to support my thesis that this wasn't just some, hey, let's just get along to get along, but I secretly don't like you and I'm mad at you kind of reconciliation. It was a real reconciliation that went beyond just relationship patch up and all the way into, yeah, and we are on the same page ideologically, theologically, intellectually. Here is what I mean. Thing number one, let's say that for the sake of argument, we agree with the church fathers that Mark, the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, was influenced by Peter, and that Peter is the main source and voice behind the book of Mark. If that were the case, and if indeed the book of Mark were formulated in time that maybe Mark and Peter overlapped in Jerusalem, and then maybe as well when Mark and Peter overlapped later in life in Rome, all of that would be happening after the Antioch lunchroom showdown, or at least most of it. So you would think that we would get hints in the Gospel of Mark about the idea that salvation in Christ is about Christ. Because I mean that really is what the controversy is about in the Antioch lunchroom showdown. Is it all about Jesus, or is salvation all about stuff you do? Good works, obeying the law, whatever it might be, maximum self-discipline. And one of the things that we got to note about this is that throughout the Gospels, overwhelmingly, Jesus' message of salvation isn't as theologically complex as what we see in the rest of the New Testament. Why? Because the guy who is telling you the message is also the guy offering salvation when it comes from Jesus. So Jesus overwhelmingly is saying stuff like, You repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Or more simply, Jesus is saying stuff like follow me, which is basically it. Put your trust in me, because I'm the arbiter of salvation. The paraphrase is mine, but if you go and read through the gospels with your antenna out for that, you'll see what I'm saying. Still, there are a couple of places where we get a little bit of a hint in the Gospel of Mark as to this understanding of how actually salvation works in Mark chapter 10. In a famous passage, verses 13 through 16, a passage composed through the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit, using likely Peter as a source, it goes like this People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, Let the little children come to me, and don't hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. Well, I think what Jesus is saying there squares beautifully with what Paul is saying in Galatians chapter two, when he says, We know that a man is not justified by observing the law, doing stuff, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. Okay, it's a much bigger, fancier words that Paul is using there. He's making a robust, complex theological argument, but the point would seem to be the same. Jesus is saying nobody is going to come to me unless they're like a little child. Well, what do children do? Trust, depend. They cannot solve this thing on their own. So the idea of that trusting dependence, that guileless acceptance and surrender to the character and the authority, the power, and the goodness of Christ, is what they do. So to become a Christian is to become childlike in that regard, to depend. To me, that bit from Mark, Peter, and ultimately the Holy Spirit in the book of Mark squares very closely with what Paul is saying in correction of Peter in the Antioch lunchroom incident in Galatians chapter two. Then a little bit later on in chapter ten, Jesus is having a conversation with somebody about wealth and worldly trappings and how much that can mess with a person's ability to see the kingdom. And he says, Children, how hard is it to enter the kingdom of God? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Interpretation of this passage has been skewed for a long time by a weird late 19th century totally made up, fabricated out of whole cloth myth, that there was some gate in Jerusalem called the Eye of the Needle Gate, and that if a camel squatted down real low, it could kind of get through there. It looks like this is one of these tourist trap things for gullible Western religious pilgrimage tourists. This was a really big thing in the 19th century for Christians to go and look at these places. A lot of the hymns of the late 19th century were written by Christian tourists on Jordan's stormy banks. I stand. And so I think a few clever people in Jerusalem were like, oh, this could be something from the Bible. Look at this little door. It's uh the eye of the needle gate. As best as I can understand it, that has been 100% debunked. And Jesus' teaching here is not to be understood as it's inconvenient, but it'll work out. His teaching is to be understood as a dire warning about worldliness and loving the world and the all that the world affords, and wealth and riches and all of that stuff, to the prospects of assuming a right posture before God. That is a posture of submission and dependence before the king. But the passage goes on, verse 26. The disciples were even more amazed, and they said to each other, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Again, I think this bit from Mark, behind which Peter was likely a source, inspired by the Holy Spirit, squares really neatly with what Paul is saying in Galatians chapter two, when he's rebuking Peter. Again, these are the words of Jesus. With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Here are the words of Paul and his rebuke to Peter. We know that a man isn't justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. There are two ways. Way number one is a dead end. It's doing stuff, human effort. Way number two has life at the end of it, and it's the gift of God. To me, what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 10 with the eye of the needle stuff and what Paul is saying in Galatians 2, square, very neatly. So again, fully acknowledging that Jesus' language about salvation, uh, it's teaching the same thing, but it just sounds different in the gospels than the rest of the New Testament, because Jesus is the one doing the inviting to follow himself. It makes sense that he would say things as simple as, follow me, drop your nets, come with me. But very obviously at the heart of all of it, the message is the same. It's Christ plus nothing, whether you're in the Gospels, the Book of Acts, or the rest of the New Testament. And Mark, which would seem to have Peter's influence behind it later in Peter's life after the Antioch lunchroom incident, demonstrates an agreement between Peter and Paul, and Mark, and the Holy Spirit Christians believe as to what the message is, which serves as my second point of evidence that I believe Peter and Paul were legitimately reconciled after the Antioch lunchroom incident, not just relationally, but ideologically, philosophically, theologically. They were on the same page. That's only two passages, though, and I'm not done with this part yet. We need to go and look at what Peter himself wrote under his own name in 1st and 2 Peter, and we're gonna go see how closely what he's saying squares with what Paul rebuked him about in Galatians chapter 2 next time around. I just love these little field trips that we get to do together. Thank you so much for indulging me on things like this. Matt, this is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.
SPEAKER_01This podcast exists because many of you kick in to make it happen even though you don't have to. Learn more at thetmbh.com slash support. We're grateful because that supports our family.