Breaking Ground
What’s the silliest thing you’ve ever gotten into a fight over (with a friend, significant other, parent, etc)? What happened & how did it get resolved?
The Dig
This Sunday, we continued our series on the New Testament Book of Galatians.
Begin by reading Galatians 2:11-21. Here, Paul shares about a time when he confronted the Apostle Peter (one of Jesus’ 12 disciples & an incredibly famous/powerful figure in the early Church). Specifically, Paul confronted Peter because he was no longer associating with non-Jewish/Gentile Christians after being pressured by Jewish Christians who were insisting that they were spiritually unclean because they had not adopted circumcision & other key Jewish cultural identity markers. To make matters worse, Peter had started doing this after the meeting we explored last week where the early Church leaders (including Peter!) ruled against imposing such non-essential cultural customs onto Gentile believers. As such, Paul rightly views Peter as abandoning his convictions in the face of social pressure & challenges him on behalf of the Gentile believers.
Why does Paul react so strongly to Peter’s actions? How does it represent a rejection of Jesus’ story & healthy Christian spirituality?
How does Paul confront Peter? What ideas & strategies does he deploy when making his argument against these actions? Why do you think he does so?
How might watching Paul confront this powerful, respected leader of the Christ movement on their behalf have impacted these Gentile believers? What did it reveal to them about Jesus’ values & what it means to follow him?
Close by reflecting on your own experiences with conflict.
Identify a time when someone rightly confronted you over a harmful or un-Christlike decision that you’d made in a way that ultimately helped you grow. Who was it? How did they confront you? What strategies did they employ that made the confrontation productive, instead of ineffective or harmful?
How did you positively change on the other side of it? What lessons can you take away from it concerning the need for healthy confrontation & conflict resolution?
Identify a conflict that you’ve been avoiding in this season. Why have you been avoiding it? What’s been the cost of doing so? How might Paul’s story & your own previous experience help you address that conflict in a healthier, more Christliek way moving forward?
Getting Out of the Hole
Take time each week to reflect upon the Sunday sermon.
- Read Galatians 2:11-21. Highlight & make of any language, images, or ideas that stand out to you from the passage.
- What leads to the conflict in these texts? Who is involved & what do each of them want?
- How does Paul go about confronting Peter? What lessons can we learn from that when it comes to conflict in the Church?
- Where do you need to speak up or address a conflict in your relational world presently? How might Paul’s example offer you insight into doing so in a Christlike manner?
Additional Resources*
Centered Set Church by Mark D. Baker
Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer
TheBibleProject.com
Coming Up This Week:*
February 8th: Join us as we continue working through the New Testament Book of Galatians!
* Please see mye3.org for details.
