Galatians 2:13

And the other Jews dissembled.

Barnabas was carried away

It is not difficult to trace here the characteristic temperament of Barnabas on its weak side. He was just that kind of disposition which makes it easy to become a partisan, to flow on with the general current, to take the complexion of surrounding opinion, and to sanction by acquiescence many things which ought to be resisted. It is not pleasant for a warm-hearted and generous man to tell his neighbours that they are all wrong. Where there is ready facility for giving and receiving confidence, and for securing co-operation, there must also be the danger of easy yielding, in order to please. But we may carry this trustful and inquiring acquiescence so far that it becomes unfaithfulness; and then harm results instead of good. The desire to make everything smooth with everybody is to be most resolutely resisted. If our end is to save souls we shall often find resistance a duty; and certainly the tolerating of erroneous human admixtures with revealed truth is not the way to save souls. (Dean Howson.)

The influence of pernicious example

As it sometimes happens on the snow slopes of the Alps that one man’s slip will involve the overthrow and destruction of all his fellow-travellers, so it is in the spiritual life. Peter drags Barnabas and the rest of the Jews with him; and in our own day men too often exercise the same fatal spell on those within the region of their influence. (S. Pearson, M. A.)

Dissimulation

This is hypocrisy--not simply for a man to deceive others, knowing all the while that he is deceiving them, but to deceive himself and others at the same time; to aim at their praise by a religious profession, without perceiving that he loves their praise more than the praise of God. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)

The hypocrite sets his watch not by the sun, i.e., the Bible, but by the town clock; what most do he will do. (Gurnall.)

Influence of unfaithful leaders

When a number of ships are moored, or anchored, or buoyed in the river, all have an interest in the safety of each. If some of those that lie farther seaward break off from their moorings, and drift up with wind and tide, they will run foul of us as we lie secure in the channel farther up. The drifting ships may sink, but they will drag others down. (D. Guthrie.)

Dissimulation is

I. Sinful.

II. Infectious.

III. Totally inconsistent with Christian character, (J. Lyth.)