Paul and Jesus

According to Acts, toward the end of his career Paul arrived in Jerusalem and appeared before James and all the elders of the Jerusalem church. At issue was a “rumor” that James wanted to dispel, namely that Paul was teaching Jews that they could disregard the Torah. Acts records James addressing Paul: “You see brother how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed; they are all zealous for the Torah, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs” (Acts 21:20–21). James then proposes that, to let everyone know that this rumor is false and that Paul himself lives in observance of the Torah, he participate in a purification ceremony in the Jerusalem Temple, which would involve bringing an offering and entering the sacred areas within the Temple courtyard where only Jews were allowed to go.

What is striking about this scene in Acts is that Paul says absolutely nothing. He neither confirms nor denies the rumor, though he does go along with the purification ceremony. But we know from Paul’s own letters that he has established an operational policy that when he is among the Jews, he becomes as “one under the Torah,” and when he is with Gentiles, he lives as a Gentile (1 Corinthians 9:20–21).

That any scene like this ever took place seems doubtful, at least not in the way Acts reports it. We know that James and the rest of the Jewish followers of Jesus, like Jesus himself, were zealous for the Torah and their ancestral faith. One might also expect that the author of Acts would have Paul deny the truth of the rumor, but it seems he dare not do that, perhaps because he knows the picture of harmony he is trying to pass off here had no basis in fact and Paul was indeed teaching Jews and Gentiles that they were now under what he called the new covenant—the Torah of Christ. The main point we learn from Acts here is that the author felt he had to address this issue—and somehow dispel it. It was not something that could be ignored.

Since we know from Paul’s letters that he unquestionably taught the very thing that James, in this concocted scene, is satisfied he does not teach, we have to ask whether Peter, James, and the other apostles did in fact ever learn of Paul’s real modus operandi in dealing with both Gentiles and Jews, and the full implications of his Gospel, which we have examined in previous chapters.

FALSE APOSTLES, SERVANTS OF SATAN

We have seen previously that Paul refers to the Jerusalem leadership of James, Peter, and John in a rather sarcastic and dismissive manner when he recounts his initial appearance before the Jerusalem leaders around A.D. 50:

And from those who were reputed to be something—what they were makes no difference to me! God shows no partiality—those, I say, who were of repute added nothing to me . . . and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas, and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Galatians 2:6–9)

We can see here Paul’s approach that it does not really matter what these leaders said or might have said, since he was taking his orders and had gotten his gospel directly from Christ. Because they apparently agreed to let him be, he was content.

The first hint of a rift that we get comes at Antioch, where there was a church composed of both Jews and Gentiles that Paul had apparently used as a base of operations for his preaching in Asia Minor over the previous decade, and where he had teamed up with Barnabas, a leading Jewish member of the Antioch community. When the group gathered they apparently had separate tables, for practical reasons, at which Jews could eat with the assurance that the food served was in keeping with Jewish dietary laws, and one where Gentiles could have any sort of food, so long as it did not include meat without the blood properly drained. This arrangement was not viewed as discriminatory, but one that allowed the group to meet together harmoniously. Unfortunately we only have Paul’s side of the story, but he claims that Peter was “eating with the Gentiles” until a delegation from James showed up, then he moved to the Jewish table, thus playing the hypocrite. He says that Barnabas, Paul’s partner, stood with Peter in doing the same. Paul clearly acknowledges here that James and his representatives would have insisted on strict standards of Jewish observance, including in the matter of dietary laws.