Galatians 18-Day Reading PlanSample

To a modern reader like you and me, we probably can’t understand the intense controversy of today’s reading, but for the Christians at the time, it was scandalous. Imagine magazine covers in the grocery store or links on social media with the headline, “Paul calls Peter out to his face!” The question is, why was Paul so upset? And upset enough to “oppose Peter to his face?” (v.11)

The most controversial debate at the time was whether new (non-Jewish) Christians had to follow the Jewish requirements God gave Moses. The Old Testament instituted “clean laws,” a complicated series of regulations to follow to be “ceremonially clean” and acceptable to God. People could not come to God if they ate certain “unclean” foods, touched dead things, had a disease, or touched someone who did (Leviticus 11-20). For thousands of years, this was the only way someone could have a relationship with God. But Jesus changed everything!

Because Jesus came, the requirement of the laws had passed (Mark 7:14-23). Jesus taught that your behavior doesn’t make you clean or unclean. If you want a relationship with God, there was only one requirement–faith in Jesus.

You can imagine how hard this must have been for the Jewish Christians like Peter. His whole life, he was taught to follow the rules, but then Jesus came and said, I want you to believe in me, not behave for me. Peter’s struggle is common for many of us raised in religious homes–sometimes, tradition makes it harder to embrace the truth.

Peter knew that Jesus didn’t consider any food or people to be unclean (Acts 10) so he gladly ate with the Gentile Christians until his Jewish friends came to town, then he acted differently.

The great challenge for a Christian is lining up our beliefs and our behavior. It’s one thing, in the safety and comfort of a church building, to believe you are saved by grace, and not by your moral effort, but it’s another to live every day convinced you’re loved and don’t have to earn something from God.

This is one of the reasons why we need to hear the Gospel message over and over again, not just when we are first saved. Like Peter, we’re hypocritical because we forget the Gospel.

When we forget that we are saved by grace alone, we become legalistic, prideful, insecure, and hypocritical. We condemn ourselves and others for certain behaviors. When we forget how much we’re loved, we abuse grace and live in a way that dishonors God. 

A Christian who has been changed by the Gospel doesn’t want to refuse it or abuse it. 

Question

What is something you say you believe but still struggle to live out day-to-day?