Acts 15.11
We believe that we will be saved through the grace of
the Lord Jesus, just as the Gentiles will.”
There are only two occasions
recorded when Peter and Paul met. In Acts 15, Paul seeks support for his mission
among the Gentiles, who did not keep the food laws and were not circumcised as
Jewish men were. The argument wasn’t whether they could become “followers of
the way” of Jesus, but whether they had to observe Jewish rules and be
circumcised in order to do so. Peter and the other apostles decide that the
Gentiles need not be circumcised, and should be accepted as they are. As Peter
says, it is the grace of Jesus – his free gift of love – not keeping a set rules,
which has enabled them all to find forgiveness and freedom. Paul, in his letter
to the Galatians (2.11) describes a further meeting in Antioch, when Peter
seems to waver in this, but it eventually became accepted throughout the
church. Peter, the apostle who so often got it wrong, finally came to trust in
the indestructible and spacious love of God for all.
·
What do you think of the figure of Peter whom you have
met in these readings? What would you want to say to him if you met him?
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