Even so, ‘fourteen years’ after his conversion, the Spirit led Paul into two confrontations with the guardian powers of his Judean-Jerusalem home culture: first in Jerusalem and then back in Antioch. In Jerusalem he had to stand his grounds against some ‘fake (Judean) brothers’ who wanted his young Greek companion, Titus, to submit to circumcision. Yet at the same time he showed respect and accountability: by placing his intercultural gospel on the table, for feedback from the apostles Peter and John and the senior elder, James. As a result, these ‘pillars’ ended up supporting Paul; and Titus was accepted without having to undergo circumcision. As adult daughters and sons we may not need permission from human leaders to do what the Father shows us to do, but we still need to maintain mutual accountability as ‘co-heirs’ in Christ.

This would also apply to Peter (‘Cephas’), the most senior apostle, in a second confrontation that took place a year or two after the first one. When he visited Antioch, he fit right in with their practice of multi-ethnic fellowship. But when some prominent Judean believers arrived, representing their senior ‘elder’, Peter abruptly changed his behavior to avoid conflict with the traditionalist ‘Circumcision’ group in Jerusalem. The other Antioch leaders, for whom the Jerusalem church was a kind of ‘mother church’, also caved in to the pressure. Fear is a major barrier to growing in maturity as adult sons and daughters (Med.#50). But ‘hypocrisy’ is even worse. The personal freedom in the Spirit of Peter, Barnabas and the other Judeans was not threatened by occasionally acquiescing to the sensitivities of their traditionalist brothers and sisters. But they were oblivious to how their withdrawal from table fellowship with brothers and sisters from other ethnic groups would affect them. These disciples, in order to be accepted by members of the dominant Judean culture in the church, would ultimately feel ‘compelled’ to also ‘live like Judeans’. Because the Spirit had kept Paul out of his home Judean culture for so long, and out of the church there, he was able to see more clearly what was happening, and what the long-term negative effects would be on the Father's multi-ethnic family kingdom.

For Paul, the first confrontation resulted in him beginning his intercultural ministry travels westward, first with Barnabas to the nations in Pamphylia and southern Galatia (Acts 13-14). After the second confrontation, he wrote his first letter (to the Galatians)—which became a kind of ‘Magna Carta’ for disciples of all nations to stand in the freedom of their new adult relationship with their Father (Med.#30). Similarly, our two decades of service among Muslim people groups was also preceded by an important confrontation. During a time of prayer, I sensed that my Father wanted to give me the gift of speaking in tongues. My first inclination was to say: No thanks, I don't need that. But I suddenly realized that I was treating the theology of my childhood guardians as more important than my heavenly Father's purposes for me. After repenting and receiving his gift, I began to experience a new freedom from the need for human approval.

How about you? Are you still too easily influenced by the guardian powers of family, home denomination or ethnic group—like Peter, Barnabas and the others? Or have you fully come of age in the Spirit like Paul?

Father, you called me and have been pleased to reveal your Son in me. (Gal.1:4,16)

Glorify your Son in me so that your son(daughter) might glorify you. You granted Him authority over all people. Now strengthen me with power through your Spirit, so that Christ may really dwell in my heart through faith..., (Jn.17:1-2; Eph.3:16-17)

...that I may stop responding to things like a child, but in my thinking be an adult: by making judgments about all things and not being subject to human judgment, and so stand firm in Your will—mature and fully assured.  (1 Cor.14:20; 2:15; Col.4:12)

[i] As in most of the opening sentences of the New Testament letters (that follow the Gospels and Acts), the first references to the Father in this letter (1:1,3,4) are not to God as ‘the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’, but rather to him as either ‘our Father’ or as ‘Father God (see Med.#9).

[ii] When Paul uses the Greek noun or verb forms of euangelion in his letters in relation to ‘the’ (true) ‘Gospel’ of Christ, I render it with a capital ‘G’ or refer to it as ‘the Good News’ (1:7,11a; 2:5,14). I use ‘good news’ or 'gospel' without capitals when Paul refers to his proclamation of it (1:8b,11b,16; 2:2). When he speaks of a false version of it, I use a small ‘g’ and add quotation marks—“gospel” (1:8a).

[iii] The Greek word, ioudaioi,, can be translated as either ‘Jews’ or ‘Judeans’. I use ‘Judeans’ here to indicate the believers who had come to Antioch from Judea and Jerusalem (Acts 11:19,22); and I use another form of the word twice in v.14 to underscore the social power that this central region and city exert over Jewish culture and Jewish religious practice. See also Jn.6: 6:41,52 & 7:1, Med.#62.

[iv] Though born in Tarsus, Paul was probably only around three-years-old when his parents took him to Jerusalem. Members can learn more about this: in the detailed version of this mediation, in my article, ‘Saul of Tarsus: his Cultural Background and Ethnic Identities’, and in my ‘Chronology of Jesus' Life and the Early Part of Paul's life’.  The map is adapted from: John Drane, Introducing the New Testament. Oxford, Lion Publishing, 1986. p.276.