Who Is Welcome At Church?

(Note: You may want to use this prayer as a guide for praying for our Asian siblings who are facing so much hate these days)

The early church had a lot of disagreements about who was “in” and who was “out.” Not that much different from today, right? There’s a great story in one of the New Testament letters about a situation that’s really instructive for us today. Paul is writing this letter and he’s remind his friends about how radically welcoming Jesus is. He’s writing about a time when he had a big showdown with Peter, the leader of the whole Christian Church (some would call him the first Pope).

Paul goes OFF on Peter for treating people differently because he wants to impress the cool crowd.

Take some time today to ready this version of the story and to ask yourself:

What is standing out to you? Why is that particular thing standing out for you? What might God be saying to you in this?

Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.

But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: “If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you’re not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem buddies?”

We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over “non-Jewish sinners.” We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ.

- Galatians 2:11-16, The Message