Best of Bible Study & Games/BestOfBibleStudyAndGames1996isv.zip/WARN6/WARN6.WRI

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                                 Preface

For more than a century, J. C. Ryle was best known for his plain and
lively writings on practical and spiritual themes.  His great aim in all
his ministry, was to encourage strong and serious Christian living.  But
Ryle was not naive in his understanding of how this should be done.  He
recognized that, as a pastor of the flock of God, he had a responsibility
to guard Christ's sheep and to warn them whenever he saw approaching
dangers.  His penetrating comments are as wise and relevant today as they
were when he first wrote them.  His sermons and other writings have been
consistently recognized, and their usefulness and impact have continued
to the present day, even in the outdated English of the author's own day.

Why then should expositions already so successful and of such stature and
proven usefulness require adaptation, revision, rewrite or even editing?
The answer is obvious.  To increase its usefulness to today's reader, the
language in which it was originally written needs updating.

Though his sermons have served other generations well, just as they came
from the pen of the author in the nineteenth century, they still could be
lost to present and future generations, simply because, to them, the
language is neither readily nor fully understandable.

My goal, however, has not been to reduce the original writing to the
vernacular of our day.  It is designed primarily for you who desire to
read and study comfortably and at ease in the language of our time.  Only
obviously archaic terminology and passages obscured by expressions not
totally familiar in our day have been revised.  However, neither Ryle's
meaning nor intent have been tampered with.
                                                  Tony Capoccia


All Scripture references are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society, used by permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers.


                        Warning #6 to the Church

                      The Fallibility of Ministers
                                   by
                               J. C. Ryle
                               (1816-1900)


      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?"

      We who are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners" know that
      a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in
      Jesus Christ.  So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus
      that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by
      observing the law, because by observing the law no one will
      be justified.
                                             Galatians 2:11-16


Have we ever considered what the Apostle Peter did at Antioch?  It is a
question that deserves serious consideration.

What the Apostle Peter did at Rome we are often told, although we have
hardly a jot of authentic information about it.  Legends, traditions, and
fables abound on the subject.  But unhappily for these writers, Scripture
is utterly silent upon the point.  There is nothing in Scripture to show
that the Apostle Peter ever was at Rome at all!

But what did the Apostle Peter do at Antioch?  This is the point to which
I want to direct attention.  This is the subject from the passage from
the Epistle to the Galatians, which heads this paper.  On this point, at
any rate, the Scripture speaks clearly and unmistakably.

The six verses of the passages before us are striking on many accounts.
They are striking, if we consider the event which they describe: here is
one Apostle rebuking another!  They are striking, when we consider who
the two men are: Paul, the younger, rebukes Peter the elder!  They are
striking, when we remark the occasion: this was no glaring fault, no
flagrant sin, at first sight, that Peter had committed!  Yet the Apostle
Paul says, "I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the
wrong."  He does more than this--he reproves Peter publicly for his error
before all the Church at Antioch.  He goes even further--he writes an
account of the matter, which is now read in two hundred languages all
over the world.

It is my firm conviction that the Holy Spirit wants us to take particular
notice of this passage of Scripture.  If Christianity had been an
invention of man, these things would never have been recorded.  An
impostor would have hushed up the difference between two Apostles.  The
Spirit of truth has caused these verses to be written for our learning,
and we shall do well to take heed to their contents.

There are three great lessons from Antioch, which I think we ought to
learn from this passage.

I. The first lesson is, "That great ministers may make great mistakes."

II. The second is, "That to keep the truth of Christ in His Church is
even more important than to keep peace."

III. The third is, "That there is no doctrine about which we ought to be
so protective about as justification by faith without the deeds of the
law."

I. The first great lesson we learn from Antioch is, "That great ministers
may make great mistakes."

What clearer proof can we have than that which is set before us in this
place?  Peter, without doubt, was one of the greatest in the company of
the Apostles.  He was an old disciple.  He was a disciple who had had
peculiar advantages and privileges.  He had been a constant companion of
the Lord Jesus.  He had heard the Lord preach, seen the Lord work
miracles, enjoyed the benefit of the Lord's private teaching, been
numbered among the Lord's intimate friends, and gone out and come in with
Him all the time He ministered upon earth.  He was the Apostle to whom
the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given, and by whose hand those
keys were first used.  He was the first who opened the door of faith to
the Jews, by preaching to them on the day of Pentecost.  He was the first
who opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, by going to the house of
Cornelius, and receiving him into the Church.  He was the first to rise
up in the Council of the fifteenth of Acts, and say, "Why do you try to
test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we
nor our fathers have been able to bear?"  And yet here this very Peter,
this same Apostle, plainly falls into a great mistake.

The Apostle Paul tells us, "I opposed him to his face."  He tells us
"because he was clearly in the wrong."  He says "he was afraid of those
who belonged to the circumcision group."  He says of him and his
companions, that "they were not acting in line with the truth of the
gospel."  He speaks of their "hypocrisy."  He tells us that by this
hypocrisy even Barnabas, his old companion in missionary labors, "was led
astray."  What a striking fact this is.  This is Simon Peter!  This is
the third great error of his, which the Holy Spirit has thought fit to
record!  Once we find him trying to keep back our Lord, as far as he
could, from the great work of the cross, and severely rebuked Him.  Then
we find him denying the Lord three times, and with an oath.  Here again
we find him endangering the leading truth of Christ's Gospel.  Surely we
may say, "Lord, what is man?"  Let us note, that of all the Apostles
there is not one, excepting, of course, Judas Iscariot, of whom we have
so many