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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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Today we will continue digging into the notion of godly companionship by describing things that make up true godly companionship. So far this week we have talked about how godly companionship is present, sacrificial and uncomfortable. Today, we're going to build off of what we discussed yesterday and cover this. Godly companionship is confrontational. Godly companionship is confrontational. We're going to do that by looking at an interaction between Peter and Paul as described in Galatians 2.

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Now I love me some, peter. You know why? Because I see a lot of myself in him. Now, before you think that's me patting myself on the back and giving myself, you know, a great compliment, I mean that I see a lot of myself in the bad parts of Peter. The dude always has something to say, right, which I can appreciate, but you can tell that he rarely stops to consider. Should I say this? Is this the right time to say this thing? So, peter the rock, the man that Jesus put in charge of the church, the man that spent three years at Jesus' side during his public ministry, he bought into the concept of Gospel Plus. Now, you may not have ever heard of Gospel Plus. Maybe you're thinking that this is a new service you might be interested in. It's the gospel, but for $9.99 a month you can get access to Gospel Plus or something like that, and that's you know. Not exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, I'm talking about the fact that Peter that Peter lost the thread of the true gospel message, a message that is sweet enough on its own, a message that doesn't need any additions.

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But Peter, as many of us are, was susceptible to influence from outside parties. In the case of Galatians 2, we see that Peter had been influenced by the Judaizers, or, as they were commonly known, the Circumcision Party. This group believed that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not enough to provide propitiation for our sin debt, that we also had to keep the Jewish laws and traditions as well. This obviously caused issues for Gentile converts to Christianity, the same converts that Peter was now distancing himself from because of the influence of the Judaizers. He was essentially ostracizing the exact people that he had previously been fellowshipping with. The apostle Paul caught wind of this, and so he decided to do something about it. So Galatians 2, verses 11 through 14.

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But when Cephas that's, peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision. Party, and the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas Peter, before them all if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? So here's the thing, guys Paul doesn't convene a meeting of close friends to discuss how to approach Peter's actions. He doesn't write a softly worded letter with a little bit of pointedness to discuss how to approach Peter's actions. He doesn't write a softly worded letter with a little bit of pointedness to leave in Peter's mailbox. He doesn't even grab Peter by the elbow and, you know, pull him aside to give him a slight correction. No, paul tells us in the text I opposed him to his face and he did so publicly, in front of everyone. And we can see from the narrative of Acts 15 that Peter accepted this rebuke from Paul and changed his position by the time of the Jerusalem council. But the main point I want us to consider today is that Paul, a man, confronted Peter, a man, to his face. Now this is going to sound like a hard left turn, but please follow me.

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I think one of the worst things about modern manhood is that there are too many men that have not experienced being punched in the face. I'm serious, like you think I'm kidding. No, I am dead serious. There are too many men walking around in polite society right now having never felt the sting of a nice, straight right. They also haven't experienced the feeling of being punched in the face and then realizing well, that wasn't very fun, but I'm alive. You know, I'm not made of glass, you know, it's all good. And it's because of things like that which lead me to believe that this is partially why many men refuse to rebuke other men to their faces. Now, I've had some pretty intense confrontations with men that I love and care deeply for. But I surmised in those moments, even in my limited wisdom, that if I follow through with the rebuke, that the worst case scenario is that they're going to punch me in the face. And with that in mind, I rebuked them anyway, and in some cases I did so publicly. Now I decided to put those relational chips in the center of the table, knowing that it might go poorly for me, but I did it anyway. Why? Because that is what was best for them.

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In this situation, peter is sinning. Paul recognizes that. He sees that in his brother. Paul decided to do something about it. Paul risked backlash and a potentially kinetic, negative reaction from Peter because he knew it was what God would want him to do, risk of punch to the face notwithstanding. So here's a couple of questions for you today. Do you have men that will oppose you to your face? And here's another one Are you willing to oppose someone to their face regardless of the consequences? If not, you need to fix it. Don't miss tomorrow.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.