TENSE MOMENTS IN CHURCH/STATE RELATIONS   (Number 5)
 

How much Christian Faith can I use?

  1. The scene is Antioch, a large and lovely cosmopolitan city, fifteen miles from the sea beside the river Orontes. Famous for its sport, gambling and night clubs.
    (Wm.Barklay: The Acts of the Apostles. P.92)
     
  2. Some 20 years after this person Jesus (or this God Jesus) had left as mysteriously as he (or He) had arrived among us. he was being remembered by a lively bunch of people – Christians, as the locals began calling them.
     
  3. They were sharing a full meal on the first day of the week, or resurrection morning, Holy Communion, Eucharist, Mass.  There they were Jew and Gentile, free citizen and slave, men and women joining in a celebration of unity.  This was, for Paul, the beating heart of the Christian faith.
     
  4. Here was the basis of what made true equality for all people.  It was the trust in a spiritual power given through God’s grace which renders all human distinctions void, whether racial, social or sexual.
     
  5. Then some people came from Jerusalem, and Peter withdrew,  as did Barnabas, making in effect a Hebrew group and a Gentile group.(Galatians 2:11-21)
    Paul was devastated, and challenged Peter to be true to what he had discovered  (see TM No.3)  Peter’s action is like that of the politician, dictator, partisan or so many who accept the little they are comfortable with, or what they can use of the Christian faith.

    Sometimes we are satisfied with very little indeed.

    Rev. Graydon Swain

 

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Tense Moments 5