Galatians 2:14

OLBGrk;

Uprightly, here, is opposed to halting. Peter halted between two opinions, (as Elijah sometime told the Israelites), when he was with the Gentiles alone, he did as they did, using the liberty of the gospel; but when the Jews came from Jerusalem, he left the Gentile church, and joined with the Jews; this was not according to that plainness and sincerity which the gospel required; he did not (according to the precept he held, Hebrews 12:13) make straight paths to his feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. Paul not hearing this from the report of others, but being an eye-witness to it, doth not defer the reproof, lest the scandal should grow: nor doth he reprove him privately, because the offence was public, and such a plaster would not have fitted the sore; but he speaketh unto Peter before them all, rebuking him openly, because he sinned openly; and by this action had not offended a private person, but the church in the place where he was, who were all eyewitnesses of his halting and prevarication, 1 Timothy 5:20. If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews; if thou, who art a Jew, not by religion only, but by birth and education, hast formerly lived, eat, and drank, and had communion with the Gentiles, in the omission of the observance of circumcision, and other Jewish rites, generally observed by those of their synagogues; (as Peter had done before the Jews came from from Jerusalem to Antioch); why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Why dost thou, by thy example, compel the members of a Gentile church to observe the Jewish rites? For compelling here doth not signify any act of violence, (Peter used none such), but the example of leaders in the church, who are persons of reputation and authority, is a kind of compulsion to those that are inferiors, and who have a great veneration for such leaders. So the word here used, anagkazeiv, is used in 2 Corinthians 12:2, as also to express the force of exhortations and arguments. Of such a compulsion the word is used, Luke 14:23. Peter, by his example, and possibly by some words and arguments he used, potently moved those proselyted Jews, who were in communion with the churches of Galatia, to observe the Jewish rites: so that by this fact he did not only contradict himself, who by his former walking with the Gentile church had practically asserted the gospel liberty; but he also scandalized those Christians in these churches who stood fast in the liberty which Christ had purchased for them, and Paul had taught them; and also drew others away from the truth they had owned and practised. This was the cause of Paul's so open and public reproof of him.