Paul Corrects Peter

"You really must not do that," scolded Paul
To Peter, aloud at the supper meal.
"Salvation by faith is now free to all,
For Gentiles and Jews; Jesus died to heal
The breech! You dine only with fellow Jews,
A man-made rule, not a part of the law!
Moses' ways are no longer any's dues;
Belief in Jesus saves men from hell's maw!
"What I have made clean, do not call unclean!"
God once told Peter, and which he'd forgot.
When Jew-Christians from the law would not wean,
They forced it on saved Gentiles; Paul said not!
God's free grace, not men's works, is the one way
For them to escape death on Judgment Day!

"When Peter came to Antioch, I [Paul] opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong. Before certain men [Jewish Christians] came from James [Jerusalem church pastor] , he used to eat with the Gentiles [members of Antioch church]. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcism group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by his hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray," (Galatians 2:11-13) [Brackets added] (Please read the remaining verses of Chapter 2 for further explanation)

What a man was Paul! He was not afraid to upbraid the chief apostle of Jesus for behaving in mistaken prejudice! What a great contribution to just-born Christianity! Had it not been for Paul, Christian churches might be a movement within Judaism, and we Christians would have to be circumcised and who knows what else!

Paul first appeared in the Bible after the ascension of Jesus to heaven as Saul, a fierce persecutor of the new faith. He was a Jew, a Pharisee; super-intelligent, he was needed to correct the shortcomings of the uneducated apostles in making sure the doctrine of Jesus Christ followed the true meaning of God's plan. He was needed especially to open the door to heaven for all races and all men, else it might have been closed to all that did not become Judaic. The first Christians were all Jews; Jesus was a Jew, but it was never God's intention to save them only. There was a large percentage of Jewish Christians who fiercely resisted admitting Gentiles unless they submitted to outdated Judaistic rules and rites. Called "Judaisers", these elements followed Paul over the Roman Empire attempting to change his teaching that salvation was free to those who had faith in Jesus; not a single "work" was required!

Judaism had developed many rules of behavior that strayed from God's law given Moses in the desert. They had tried to keep God for their exclusive benefit; therefore, they had become pompous and deemed themselves the most important tribe in all the world. Everyone else was a Gentile, unclean and contemptible, not fit people for Jews to be with. God had taught Peter earlier that he was not to consider Gentiles beneath Jews, by sending him into the house of Cornelius, a Roman, who was converted (See Acts 10). For a time Peter championed the equality of Jew and Gentile, but the outdated opinions of stubborn brothers influenced him to backslide.