Conforming

Gal 2:11-21 (ESV)
 
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
 
When we were kids, our teachers and parents would talk with us about the dangers of peer pressure; that is to say, they were warning us about giving in to the pressure to follow others into bad behaviors, attitudes, and practices that would harm us or others.  The adult word for “peer pressure” is conformity and it’s something that we all experience every day.  Actually, there are loads of studies that demonstrate that our brains are hardwired to conform to social pressures which is something that social media algorithms take advantage of constantly.
 
But it’s nothing new. The apostle Peter experienced the same thing and gave into the pressure to conform, and in this passage, Paul is calling Peter to account for it because he is clearly out of step with the Gospel.
Peter knows that God has created one family of faith consisting of Jews and Gentiles alike who are one in Christ and that there is no dividing line between them.  In fact, Peter was the one who testified to the apostles and the Christians in Jerusalem that the Gentiles had received the word of God (Acts 11). 
 
However now, because of the pressure of the Judaizers, Peter is giving in.  He is conforming to their demands that these Gentile Christians must first become fully Jewish first in order to be considered a “true Christian.”  In the process, Peter is pulling away from the Gentile Christians, going back to only associating with Jewish Christians, and, as Paul notes, Peter has even led Barnabas astray.
In other words, Peter is abandoning the Gospel of grace and returning to a gospel that is no gospel at all.  This is why Paul is calling Peter to account.
 
But we can’t judge Peter too harshly because we all face pressure to conform every day, whether it’s to go along with the crowd, tell a half-truth to make us look good, or be silent when we should speak up. There are loads of ways that we’re tempted to conform and compromise, including in our faith. 
But that’s not what we’re called to do.  We’re called to live for Christ which will at times lead us into conflict with the culture around us.  That’s not to say that we are to seek conflict and take the opposite stance on every aspect of our culture and automatically assume that everything in our culture is bad.
 
As N.T. Wright notes in his commentary on this passage, “We must be ready to challenge those parts [of our culture] where the present age shouts, or perhaps whispers seductively, that it would be easier and better to do things that way, while the age to come, already begun in Jesus, insists that belonging to the new creation means that we must live this way instead.”[1]
 
Add to that a great thought from Geri Scazzero, “God calls us to walk in truth and follow Jesus who is the truth.  In fact, the degree to which we live in the truth is the degree to which we are free to have authentic relationships that reflect heaven itself.”[2]
 
Here’s the thing, we will always experience that pressure to conform.  There will always be that voice whispering and even shouting at us that we need to fall in step with what everyone else is doing.  But we’re called to follow a different voice, the voice of Jesus, and if we center our hearts and minds on Him, everything else will find its right place, and our relationships with others will reflect God’s love and grace in the world. 
 
Exactly what the world longs for.
 
God bless you and know that you are constantly in my prayers.
Scott