Wednesday, August 15, 2012

What Motivates You?

Galatians 2:11-14 discusses Paul's confrontation of Peter over Peter's refusal to eat with gentiles. I saw a great post yesterday from Dane Ortlund dealing with this passage. In it he says,
Now how does Paul handle this? Certainly, he rebukes Peter—'I opposed him to his face' (2:11). 

Yet how does Paul do this? What is his diagnosis?

Paul identifies Peter’s error as gospel error. 'I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel' (2:14). What was Peter’s mistake? Gospel leakage.
But in what way was Peter's heart leaking out gospel? How specifically was he not believing the gospel?

The text tells us: 'fearing the circumcision party' (2:12). Fear. That was what drove Peter.

To sum up: Paul says Peter feared other men, causing him to not walk in step with the gospel, causing him to introduce all kinds of dysfunction into his relationships with other people.
Click here to read the entire post, and may we all be motivated by the gospel as opposed to fear.

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