The Apostle Peter was wrong - but it's a good thing!

by Mark R. Schneider

Do I have your attention? Thought so. No, I am not kidding and this is not a play on words. Peter, the great Apostle, was wrong about a very serious theological issue and yes, I do view that fact as positive. But allow me to digress.

If you’ve been a Christian long enough, as I have, you will have had to stick your head in the sand not to notice that much of what you’ve heard, read, and been taught by pastors, theologians and other devoted students of the Scriptures has been dead wrong. For instance, I cut my spiritual teeth in Southern California where Chuck Smith, the beloved and venerable pastor of Calvary Church in Costa Mesa, both believed and taught that the Second Coming would arrive in the 1980s. His convictions were based on his faulty Pre-Millennialist analysis of events in the Middle East compared against prophecies in Daniel, the book of Revelations, Matthew’s gospel and other Scriptures. And Chuck was by no means alone in this regard. There were lots of date setters during that time – all of them wrong.

We Evangelicals, especially, are prone to lord over the Catholics’ the fact that they could not see the Reformist logic of Martin Luther and Calvin. How can they still be so wrong? But wait, for the Protestant legacy is likewise pockmarked with error and myriad schisms over what constitutes the truth. Some of these differences are of arguably low import, like whether the gift of tongues is still in use. Others, however, pivot on much more serious stuff, like the doctrine of Predestination and the never ending debate concerning the veracity of Dispensationalism, Preterism, Post and Amillennialism et-al. Obviously, the adherents of these divergent beliefs cannot all be right no matter the skill of their reasoning or heartfelt passion. Either one is correct and the others or wrong, or else they are all wrong. At a personal level it is almost comical how much bad counsel I’ve received over the years from sincere Christians.

All this can be exceedingly frustrating. Doesn’t James promise that if we lack wisdom we can simply ask God and He will provide it liberally (v 1:5)? Did not Jesus Himself promise that “the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things… (John 14:26)”? So what gives? How can it be that so many sincere and learned Christians can fall so habitually and easily into serious inaccuracy? How can truth ever really be known if even Christians, infilled with the very Spirit of God, are so muddled and prone to error?

Aside from the fact that we’re finite beings with limited knowledge, the more persuasive explanation is, in a word, sin. Indeed, there was only one who knew the truth perfectly – the sinless One. The rest of us, well, we muddle through the best we can, relying on whatever grace God can trust us to manage.

I confess I tend to mentally tune out when I hear a Christian teacher summarily dismiss alternate views as naive or unlearned as he posits his own intractable opinions on issues proven to be very difficult to understand. In such matters I believe that discretion, with ample measures of humility, is the better part of valor. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” should be our guiding light. All of us are prone to error and ought, therefore, to extend grace and love to those we disagree with. Indeed, even God’s specially appointed emissaries, the Apostles, occasionally got it wrong. Take Peter. Here was a man specially chosen by God, filled with the Holy Spirit, a “pillar” among Apostles, a man who knew Jesus more intimately than perhaps any other. And yet, even after nearly two decades of active ministry he found himself needing to be publicly exhorted for getting it wrong. As told by Paul in Galatians:

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs (Gal. 2:11-14)?

Peter, the great Apostle, was either in deep theological error or, more likely, deliberatly sinning by playing the hypocrite and leading others astray.

So what’s the message? Just this: Don’t be too quick to accept what you hear, no matter who or what the source. “Test the spirits” saith the Lord (1 Jn. 4:1), for there is only One who is completely knowledgeable and trustworthy. All others, no matter how sincere and well meaning, are inherently fallible. More to the point; don’t think too highly of your own opinions. Truth is difficult to uncover. Reality is infinitely more complex than our finite minds can grasp. Deep truth must be teased out, particle by particle. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search it out” (Prov. 25:2). The knowledge that Peter was in serious error provides a strong message that humility is called for when it comes to truth claims! I love Chuck Smith, not because of his theological understanding but because of his heart. Like Peter, Chuck strikes me as a humble man, eager to admit error when shown to be wrong. We would do well to follow his example.

One day we will see things as they really are. But in the meantime we need to carefully consider what’s being proffered, testing the sprits and, like the Bereans, searching out the matter for ourselves rather than taking every truth claim at face value. Finally, our own speech should be laced with grace, giving love and greater honor to each other as we are able.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:12-13).