A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF PETER’S ROLE AS GENTILE MISSIONARY FROM

A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Royal L. Pakhuongte

1. INTRODUCTION
There are many who consider Paul and rightly so, as the greatest Gentile missionary among
the apostles. As Eastman states, in “Gal. 2:9, an important deal was struck in Antioch that
was to determine the shape of early Christian missionary activity. Peter focuses his efforts on
evangelizing the circumcised,”1 while Paul becomes “the apostle to everyone else.”2 We also
find this line of argument in the thoughts of Ferdinand Baur who strongly dichotomise Peter
and Paul to such an effect that the New Testament scholarship is still reeling from it.3 Baur,
using the philosophical concept of Hegel, postulate that Peter belongs to the more Mosaic
Law abiding Jewish group of Jesus’s followers whereas Paul was the harbinger of freedom
from Mosaic Law for the gentile follower of Jesus Christ.4 It will not be too farfetched to
state that many still see Apostle Peter as encapsulated in a Jewish oriented bubble.5 The
purpose of this paper is to join in a discussion on why it is unfair to treat the memory of Peter
as purely Jewish leaning apostle.6 From a cursory reading of Acts of the Apostles, clearly,
Paul is not the first one to embrace the Gentile populace. That distinction seems to belong to
Simon Peter who was the outspoken leader of the disciples of Jesus. This paper hopes to shed
some light to Peter’s role as probably the first Gentile missionary among the followers Jesus
and what happened thereafter.

1
David L. Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), xvii.
2
Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul, xvii.
3
Cf. Ferdinand C. Baur, “The Christ-party in the Corinthian Church, the Conflict Between Petrine and Pauline
Christianity in the Early Church, the Apostle Peter in Rome,” TZT 4 (1831): 61-206. It will be interesting to
know if it was also partly a reactionary move against the Roman Catholic stance by Peter.
4
Cf. Scott J. Hafemann, “Paul and his Interpreters,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F.
Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Illinois/Leicester, England: Inter Varsity
press, 1993): 667-679, particularly page 667.
5
For instance, Markus Bockmuelh believes that “with a few exceptions, many leading of 20th-Century New
Testament scholarship continued to adhere to several key presuppositions of the 19th-Century Tübingen scheme
of Christian origins” (The Remembered Peter In Ancient Receptions and Modern Debate, WUZNT 262
[Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010], 62).
6
Cf. Oscar Cullmann, Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr : A Historical and Theological Study (London: SCM
Press Limited, 1953); James D. Dunn who thinks that “Peter was probably in fact and effect the bridge-man
(pontifex maximus) who did more than any other to hold together the diversity of first-century Christianity
(Italic his)” (Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry Into the Character of Earliest Christianity
[Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977], 385); Markus N. A. Bockmuehl who also think that NT scholarships
“need a fresh approach” when it comes to investigating the lives and contributions of Peter (The Remembered
Peter, 8).

1
2. METHODOLOGY
As the title itself indicates, this paper will employ a sociological reading of Peter’s role as a
Gentile missionary. Sociological criticism as a method of biblical studies has been a regular
part of analysing biblical texts, but it has a multiple dimensions to it. While we can use it in a
general term to study collectively a text from its historical, cultural and social perspective, we
can also use a specific sociological model to study comparatively the biblical texts.7 Since the
term is quite comprehensive, John Elliot definition seems to cover well what one meant by
sociological criticism. He defined it as “that phase of the exegetical task which analyses the
social and cultural dimension of the text and of its environmental contexts through the
utilization of the perspectives, theory, models and research of the social sciences.”8 This
paper will follow the principle of sociological criticism in general as it analyse biblical texts
pertaining to Peter’s role as a Gentile missionary. It will make use of specific sociological
model such as “Table Fellowship”9 or the “Purity Rules”10 of antiquity to make the case
much more compelling.

3. BRIEF HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF PETER’S ROLE AS APOSTLE

Scholars alike are in general agreement to the fact that there is dearth of material that can
shed further lights on the early life or the background of the apostle Peter. Lapham, who had
studied extensively on the life and works of Peter had this to say about him, “Of Peter’s
personal life, tradition is relatively silent…Origen, who spent some time in Caesarea, testifies
that Peter had a wife and children (Commentary on Matthew).”11 From the NT canonical
book, we knew that Peter was “known by four distinct names: Simon, Peter/Petros, Cephas,
and Bar Yona.”12 We also know that “Peter was a fisherman” (Mark 1:16; Matt. 4:18).
However, it seems “aside from that passing reference to his place of birth (John 1:44), the NT
tells us nothing about Peter’s background, childhood, or youth.”13 The book of Acts reveals

7
Cf. W. Randolph Tate. Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach, 3rd ed. (Peabody, Massachusetts:
Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., [1991, 1997], 2008), 79.
8
John H. Elliot, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 7.
9
Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lukan
Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 71; Philip Francis Esler, Galatians (London and
New York: Routledge, 1998), 93-115.
10
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, rev. ed. (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, 149-166.
11
F. Lapham, Peter: The Myth, the Man and the Writings: A Study of Early Petrine Text and Tradition (London
and New York: T & T Clark International, a Continuum Imprint, 2004), 247.
12
Markus Bockmuelh, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory: The New Testament Apostle in the Early Church
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012), 21.
13
Bockmuelh, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory, 23.

2
that he was ἀγράμματος, which literally means “illiterate in the sense uneducated”14 (Acts
4:13). As such, attending school seems to be out of the picture. However, he must have had
innate leadership capabilities for soon after Jesus recruited him, he became the leader of the
other disciples. In fact, judging from the role he took in appointing someone to succeed Judas
(Acts 1:15) and becoming the main speaker during the Pentecostal event (Acts 2:14-41), “he
powerfully assumes the leadership of the Twelve.”15 The Holy Spirit also works mightily
through him, “the sick are laid on beds and pallets before him, and even his shadow was
popularly believed to transmit his healing power” (Acts 5:15).

Nevertheless, one senses that his roles and standing among the other followers of Jesus post-
resurrection seems to be diminishing over time. After Acts 12:1-19 records Peter escaping
from prison, he no longer occupy significant place in the history of early Christianity. He
made a brief return in Acts 15 when during the Jerusalem Council, like a man who stand in
the witness box, he gave his testimony to support Paul’s decision to be inclusive to the
Gentiles (Acts 15:7-11). However, the final decision was no longer his but it belongs to
James (Acts 15:13-21). We notice, in particular, Acts 15:19 where James said specifically διὸ
ἐγὼ κρίνω (wherefore I Judge) to show who is in charge of the followers of Jesus. In
addition, we see James power and influence stretching from Jerusalem to Antioch where his
intangible presence disturbed Peter very much, so much that his reaction was chastised by
Paul as hypocritical (Gal. 2:11-13). We know that Peter was not mad at Paul because later in
his own second epistle (2 Peter 3:15-16), Peter defended Paul from the accusation that his
teachings are hard to understand and that those who are ἀμαθεῖς (ignorant) and ἀστήρικτοι
(unstable or weak) distort (lit. twist) it.

However, some significant incident took place in the life of Peter that made him (if one can
say) to lose his influential leadership position. Lapham believes that “the important tradition,
given considerable space in Acts, of the waking vision at Joppa (Acts 10:1-11:18), forms the
background of that conflict within the church concerning the admission and treatment of
Gentiles, and of the disagreement between Peter and Paul at Antioch referred to in the Epistle
to the Galatians (2:11).”16 What all these implies is a paradigm shift that was brought about
by the introduction of a new Gentile mission through the apostle Peter into what once was a

14
F. Wilbur Gingrich, Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, rev. Frederick W. Danker (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), 3.
15
Lapham, Peter: The Myth, the Man and the Writings, 245.
16
Lapham, 245.

3
mainly a comfortable space of evangelism inside the Jewish circle. Thus, Peter’s decision to
obey the command to include the Gentile in their fold creates tension that ultimately cost
dearly for Peter among the Jewish leaning followers of Jesus. The leadership at Jerusalem
had to go back to the drawing board and rethink carefully of their mission policy in the light
of the vision received by Peter at Joppa.

4. ANALYSING PETER’S ROLE AS GENTILE MISSIONARY

The following sections examine the specific initiations of Peter as missionary to the Gentiles
and its subsequent effects.

4.1. Peter was the First Gentile Apostle

Paul claimed in Gal. 2:7, “But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the
gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.”17 This verse implies
that the specific designation of Peter was to be an apostle to the circumcised Jews or any
other Gentiles proselytes who underwent circumcisions. On the other hand, Paul seems to
understand his apostleship in opposition to Peter. Previously, we mentioned that Baur and his
Tübingen School overstated this seemingly dichotomous representation of Paul thereby
creating a fork in the history of Christianity that continues to live on as a Jewish/Gentile
divide ever since. However, from the evidence of the texts, Peter was also very much
involved in the Gentile mission. In fact, one can so far claim that it was Peter and not Paul to
whom the Holy Spirit first burdened with the task of converting the Gentile. Peter testified to
the delegates of Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:7, “Brothers, you all know that God chose me
from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good
News and believe” (NIV).

Peter was talking about the vision from Lord in connection with the task of converting
Cornelius, a devoted Gentiles and his family to Christ that he received while he was at Joppa
(Acts 11:1-48). Some may raise the question of chronology as we put emphasis on the Acts
narrative instead of Galatians, which seems to be much earlier than the book of Acts. In fact,
depending on whether one believes in the northern or southern theory of Galatians, the date
of writing can be as early as 48 AD and as late as 56 AD. On the other hand, scholars believe
that Luke probably wrote his Acts account between as early as 57 AD and as late as 135

17
All Bible verses quoted are from NASB unless otherwise noted.

4
AD.18 However, assuming that Luke narrates his history in chronological order, there is no
apprehension for anyone to consider that the incident at Joppa precedes Paul’s interest in
Gentile. What is also interesting is Luke’s narration of Paul’s dramatic encounter of the risen
Christ on his way to Damascus in Acts 9. One would think that Luke purposefully sets Paul’s
vision of the risen Christ right before Peter received his vision at Joppa. Since he was writing
past event, he had the full advantage of hindsight to see that it was Paul and not Peter who
ultimately becomes the champion of Gentiles inclusions. However, Luke must also have had
some knowledge of Peter’s role in the Gentile mission. If so, he had to be as accurate as
possible and thus positioned the vision at Joppa right at the beginning of his book. Of course,
Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles intensified the tension further leading to the Jerusalem council,
but that tension was already boiling over ever since Peter decided to answer the call of the
Lord to evangelise Cornelius and his family.

4.2 Peter’s Reluctance in his Role as Gentile Missionary

Peter was a devoted Jewish man and we know that the vision he received on the rooftop at
Joppa severely tested his loyalty to the Mosaic Law and his resolved to be obedient to it. He
saw a vision of “all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds
of the air” (Acts 10:12) lowering from the sky in a big sheet and was asked to kill it and eat it
for he was hungry (Acts 10:10-13). The voice was commanding Peter, as is evident from the
imperative θῦσον καὶ φάγε, “to kill and eat” these ceremonially unclean creatures (cf. Lev. 1-
47). However, Peter replied that “by no means” would he eat them for they are “ceremonially
impure and unclean” (Acts 10:14). These negotiations went back and forth for three times
until Peter regain his earthly senses and ponders (διηπόρει, lit. greatly perplexed) on what
was happening to him (Acts 10:16-17). Then, right after, messengers came for him from the
house of Cornelius to come and share the goodnews of Christ to them. Peter literally did not
have any more say in whether he should go or not! He was ordered by the Spirit to κατάβηθι
(imperative of καταβαίνω, “to come down”) and πορεύου (imperative of πορεύω, “to go”)
with the messenger from Cornelius and Peter was further instructed by the Spirit “not to
doubt” (μηδὲν διακρινόμενος,19) them for the Spirit sent them to him (Acts 10:20).

18
Among the scholars, “F. Blass represents the earliest dating (A.D. 57–59) and H. Koester the latest (A.D. 135)
in a list of sixty-nine scholars and their dating for Acts provided by C. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of
Hellenistic History (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1989), 367-70 (John. B. Polhill, Acts, The New American
Commentary 26 [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers 2001], 28).
19
It can also mean “to discriminate or to judge” but the middle voice is usually translated as “to doubt”
(Gingrich, “διακρίνω,” in Shorter Lexicon, 46).

5
Why was Peter so reluctant for the task ahead that he was still unsure of even after three
times of negotiating back and forth with the Spirit? Analysing this passage from a
sociological perspective will help us make sense of Peter’s reluctance. Firstly, looking at his
background from where he originates it is interesting to note that he would have mingled with
plenty of Gentiles as well as their cultures and various architectural designs that would adorn
their society. Bockmuehl pointed out that “all the four Gospels”20 indicates Galilee as the
place of Peter’s origin. However, “only the Fourth Gospel (1:44) informs us that he was a
native of Bethsaida, a village at the northern shore of Lake Tiberius.”21 According to Thiede,
Bethsaida was “raised to the status of a city by the Tetrarch Philip between 4 and 2 BC”22 and
that “Philip was a Hellenizer and he furthered Graeco-Roman culture whenever he could.”23
Because of this, “the area in which Peter was brought up and set up business had been
thoroughly permeated by Greek language and culture for several centuries, and all strata of
society had been influenced by it.” We would think that Peter could have easily assimilated
himself to all the foreign things that surround him constantly as he was growing up and that it
should not be too much of a problem to share the goodnews of Christ to the god-fearing
Gentiles. However, the truth seems to be far from it.

Various sociological explanations can help us understand Peter’s reluctance. Firstly,

analysing it from the perspective of “ethnic identity” may offer some insights. Jones defines
it as “culturally ascribed identity groups, which are based on the expression of a real or
assumed shared culture and common descent.”24 What is of significance in such case is the
“group members’ perception of differences between their own cultural practice and the
cultural practices of others.”25 In connection to this, the social concept of “Primordialism”
that views “ethnic ties [as] part of the fundamental make-up of a person, as basic as gender
and as ineradicable” is very significant. Moore explains, “The reason [why] assimilation
failed is that it is so difficult for any one person to assimilate fully,” and this is because “their
primordial identity would assert itself, or they would fail to act in the manner dictated by the

20
Bockmuehl, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory, 22
21
Bockmuehl, 22.
22
Carsten P. Thiede, Simon Peter: From Galilee to Rome (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Academic Book,
Zondervan Publishing House, 1988), 19.
23
Thiede, Simon Peter: From Galilee to Rome, 20.
24
S. Jones, Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (London: Routledge,
1997), 84.
25
C. L. Crouch, The Making of Israel: Cultural Diversity in the Southern Levant and the Formation of Ethnic
Identity in Deuteronomy (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), 87.

6
primordial identity to which they were assimilating.”26 If so, then, what could be the
primordial ties that Peter had that was so difficult for him to be accommodating to other
ethnicity? From the above incident, we see that Peter had very strong primordial attachment
to Mosaic Law from which flowed out the special distinguishing markers that make the Jews
think of themselves as special or chosen such as “circumcision, kashruth,27 and the
observation of Sabbath and the holidays.”28 We can be so bold as to suggest that the Spirit
knew how strong his social ties was and the best way to effectively break Peter was to put
him into a trance where the Spirit can work to reorient Peter’s subconscious being.

Secondly, from the way Peter responses, we know that the connection between the dietary
law set forth by Mosaic Law (cf. Lev. 11) is intrinsically intertwined with obedience to the
LORD. The fact the LORD gave them this command puts additional pressures on the
Israelites to be even more obedient to this dietary Law. This notion embedded itself deeply in
the psyche of the many Israelites. Over time, it becomes the boundary of what sets them
apart, or in another words, the definition of their identity. There are certain sociological
theories floating around to explain the reason why the Mosaic Law gives such prohibitions
and restrictions to the Israelites.29 One such example is that of Smith’s theory30 that these
unclean animals “were totems of the primitive clans of Israel.”31 For example, people in
England do not eat horse’s meat in the past, “which anthropologists say is not eaten because
it was once sacred to Odin, and thus tabooed.”32 However, the sociological model of
“covenantal ethnocentrisms” seems to explain well this close connection between eating the
right food and being obedient to God and the notion that this was what sets them apart from
the other Gentiles. According to Yee,
Covenantal ethnocentricity is understood as the functioning of a certain stream of Judaism as
a ‘closed-ethnic religion’…[and it is]…‘covenantal’ in the sense that its framework is based

26
Steward Moore, Jewish Ethnic Indemnity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt: With Walls of Iron? (Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2015), 13.
27
“Kashrut is the body of Jewish law dealing with what foods we can and cannot eat and how those foods must
be prepared and eaten. ‘Kashrut’ comes from the Hebrew root Kaf-Shin-Reish, meaning fit, proper or correct”
(Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws” Judaism 101, accessed January 18, 2019, http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm).
28
Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley/ Los Ageless and London:
University of California Press, 1994), 53.
29
Cf. Emil G. Hirsch, Henry Hyvernat, and Louis Ginzberg, “Clean and Unclean Animals,” Jewish
Encyclopaedia.com, accessed January 18, 2019, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4408-clean-and-
unclean-animals.
30
Robertson Smith, “Animal Worship and Animal Tribes Among the Ancient Arabs and in the Old Testament,”
Journal of Philology 9 (1880): 75-100.
31
Hirsch, Hyvernat, and Ginzberg, “Clean and Unclean Animals.”
32
Joseph Jacobs, Studies in Biblical Archaeology (London: D. Nutt, 1894), 89.

7
 on the Jews’ understanding of their privileged status in the covenant; and it is
‘ethnocentrism’…referring to the Jewish evaluation of other human groups (and their cultures
and practices), from the perspective of the Jew’s own.33

What this means is that “The Jews who perceived themselves as the people of God have, in
their attempt to preserve their ethnic and religious identity in distinction from the Gentiles,
erected eventually ethnic and religious boundaries between themselves and the Gentiles.”34
Obeying these laws is what sets them apart from the gentiles and disobedience is equivalent
to getting rid of their Jewish identity. For instance, Houston explains, “It is not just that being
a Jew entails not eating a pork, but that eating pork in a certain sense entails ceasing to be a
Jew.”35 That is why it was so difficult for Peter to grasp what the Spirit was actually saying
and the implication thereof.36 He was not the one who initiates a breakaway from his
ethnocentrism; the Spirit was the one who initiates the move for him and ordered him to
break out of the purity rules that had encapsulated the Jews for so long.

Thirdly, from the sociological model of “purity rules” we can also get a clear picture of
Peter’s reluctance. According to Malina, “purity rules deal with system and order, with
definitions of general boundaries and of exclusivity, with the anomalies that simply defy
classification or that are positively abominations.”37 For the Jews, the Mosaic Law
encapsulated the purity law, and while it serves to protect them from outside anomalies or
abominations, at the same time it seriously impedes their freedom even costing them their
very lives. For instance, we read of the martyrdom of Eleazar and the “seven brothers in 2
Macc. 6:18-31 and 7:1-42” respectively. Gerontes the Athenian and his army sent by King
Antiochus forced Eleazar to open his mouth and eat pork, but he chose to die because he
thinks that he was disobeying the Law of God.38 Therefore, one can only imagine the tension
that the Spirit’s command was creating in Peter’s mind. If it was not for the Spirit who pushes
him, it is hardly thinkable that he would have gone to the Gentiles to preach the goodnews.
As it were, he even confessed to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man
who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I

33
Tet-Lim N. Yee, Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Paul’s Jewish Identity and Ephesians
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 71-72.
34
Yee, Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation, 72.
35
Walter Houston, Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law, JSOTSS 140
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 14.
36
Houston, Purity and Monotheism, 14
37
Malina, The New Testament World, 157.
38
Houston, Purity and Monotheism, 14.

8
should not call any man unholy or unclean” (Acts 10:28). However, we all know how his
reluctance evaporates once the Holy Spirit descend on the household of Cornelius who all
started to speak in tongues (Acts 10:44).

4.3 Peter Bows Down to the Negative Impact of “Peer Pressure”

According to Song and Siegel, “Popular culture has coined terms like peer pressure to
describe the influence of peers on child development.”39 However, the socio-psychological
model does not only conform to the behaviour of a child. We can also use this model to
gauge or understand the actions of adults as well. Barbara and Philip Newman describe “Peer
pressure” as the “demands for conformity to group norms and a demonstration of
commitment and loyalty to group members.” They also pointed out, “The term peer pressure
is often used with a negative connotation, suggesting that…people behave in ways that go
against their beliefs or values because of a fear of peer rejection.”40 To put it simply, “peer
pressure is what causes people to do things that are popular in order to fit in. This pressure
can be simple things, such as the way you dress, the music you listen to”41 and even the way
you think or behave. However, we should be clear here that “peer pressure is not always
bad.”42 Peer pressure can positively motivates us to achieve higher, dress more appropriately
or even improve the way we behave.

Just as “individual group members can change their opinions on the basis of real or perceived
pressure,”43 without a doubt Peter changes his position or at least compromise to the truth that
the Spirit laid out to him in a vision while at Joppa.44 The first clear instance of peer pressure
that Peter encountered was when he went up to Jerusalem right after he shared the goodnews
of Cornelius and baptise them (Acts 11:2-3). Luke told us that Peter’s peer belongs to the
“circumcised believers” (Acts 11:2). It seems premature that RSV and ESV translators would

39
Samuel Y. Song and Natalie M. Siegel, “Peer Influences,” in Encyclopaedia of Educational Psychology, eds.
Neil J. Salkind and Kristin Rasmussen (Los Angeles/ London/ New Delhi and Singapore: SAGE Publications,
2008): 768.
40
Barbara M. Newman and Philip R. Newman, Development Through Life: A Psychosocial Approach,
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009), 355.
41
Robyn M. Feller, Everything you Need to Know about Peer Pressure (New York: The Rosen Publishing
Group, Inc., 2001), 10-11.
42
Feller, Everything you Need to Know about Peer Pressure, 11.
43
Friedrich Gentner, Neuromarketing in the B-to-B Sector: Importance, Potential and Its Implication for Brand
Management (Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag GmbH, 2012), 31.
44
Cf. One can read further Ahen Liang and Jeremy Seligman, “The Dynamics of Peer Pressure,” in Logic,
Rationality, and Interaction: Third International Workshop, LORI 2011 Guangzhou, China, October 10-13,
2011, eds. Hans van Ditmarsch, Jerome Lang, and Shier Ju (Heidelberg/ Dordrecht/ London and New York:
Springer, 2011).

9
translate διεκρίνοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν οἱ ἐκ περιτομῆς as “the circumcision party criticized him.”
This verse simply points out that those who criticized Peter were from the circumcised
(believers). In fact, Marshall took issue with this translation stating, “there is no suggesting
that there was a specific ‘party’ in the church at his stage, especially before the issue of
circumcision had arisen in such a way as to lead to people taking sides on it.”45 However, to
be fair to the translators, circumcision is already a dividing factor when it comes to
ascertaining ethnic identity, and it is not surprising that Luke would choose to characterize
these critics by something that marks their ethnicity. Moreover, since this is the first direct
contact with the Gentiles to convert them, it is understandable that the socio-cultural division
will be the first thing on their minds. If we carefully observe Acts 11:3, their criticism read,
“You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” These people were angry with Peter
not because he evangelize or baptize them, but that he had the guts to go inside a Gentile
house and even sat down to eat with them.46

The second clear instances of Peter facing peer pressure is in Gal. 2:11-14, where Paul tells
the reader that when Peter first came to Antioch, he was very much open to the idea of eating
and mingling together with the Gentiles. However, certain men sent by James the leader from
Jerusalem came to assess the situation or in another word, the behaviour of Peter and the rest
of the Jewish believers, the pressure becomes too much for Peter. As Paul clearly says, “he
was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision” (Gal. 2:12, NET). Peter then “withdraws and
separates himself” from eating with them. In both instances, his peers were pressurizing him
not to be negligence in obeying the purity law particularly that involves the “table-
fellowships.” We can assume that this pro-circumcision group knew very well the
ramification of what Peter was doing with the Gentiles. Since Peter was an influential
disciple of Jesus, they must have feared that his liberal attitude towards the Gentile would
cause them to lose their special status as a nation whom the LORD choses among many
others.

45
I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary, TNC (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1980), 195. Darrell L. Bock, Acts, BECNT (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007), 406
also supports this assessment.
46
Cf. Jack J. Gibson, Peter Between Jerusalem and Antioch: Peter, James, and the Gentiles, WUZNT 2 Reihe
(Tübingen: Morh Siebeck, 2013), 127.

10
According to Smith, “more often than not the central social activity that served to exemplify
group identity and solidarity was the communal meal.”47 This is because “the act of eating
was the primary activity in which all members of the [ancient] household participated.”48 For
instance, Plutarch states, “A guest comes to share not only meat, wine, and dessert, but
conversation, fun, and the amiability that leads to friendship” (Quaest. Con. 612D).49
Therefore, Peter mingling and eating with them produces a far greater threats to their social
and ethnical identity, which they all seem to understand50 (except for Paul who at this point
does not seems to care a hoot about his ethnic boundaries).

Can we try to understand further on why Peter sharing the meal with the Gentiles was so
threatening to his peers? Aside from the threats to the Jewish socio-cultural identity, the
intricate web also reveals the arguments of tradition as well as the divine rule concept. Esler
had pointed out that “as a general rule Jews did refrain from eating with gentiles.”51
“Diodorus of Siculus” recorded this tradition of not eating together way back in “60-30
BCE.”52 Once a particular practice sets itself into a traditional observance, one can hardly
break off from such traditional practices. We can say the same thing about this prohibition of
sharing meals together. Another dimension to this prohibition is the specific instruction or
rather, a dire warning given to the Israelites for the failure to follow Mosaic purity Laws. For
instance, “the Tosefta ‘Abodah Zarah, 4.6’” strictly states, “Israelites who dined in a gentile’s
house committed idolatry, even if they ate their own food and wine and their own servants
served it to them.” Likewise, according to “Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar…a person caused exile
to befall his children if he ate with Gentiles at table (b. Sanhedrin, 104a).”53 Then there is the
quotation “from chapter 22 of the Book of Jubilees,” which reads, “Separate thyself from the
nations, and eat not with them…for their works are unclean, and all their ways are a pollution
and an abomination and uncleanness.”54

47
Dennis E. Smith, “Table Fellowship as Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke,” JBL 106 (1987): 614-616.
48
David W. Poa, “Family and Table Fellowship in the Writings of Luke,” in This Side of Heaven: Race,
Ethnicity, and Christian Faith, eds. Robert J. Priest and Alvaro L. Nievers (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 186.
49
Quoted by Gibson, in Peter Between Jerusalem and Antioch, 120.
50
Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke–Acts, 93.
51
Esler, Galatians, 95.
52
Esler, Galatians, 95.
53
Esler, Galatians, 107.
54
Esler, Galatians, 110.

11
In sum, we find that by employing sociological criticism, Peter encountered an existential
tension from which he could not entirely escape. On one hand, he knew that the Spirit of God
was choosing him and sending him to be the one to convert the gentile. On the other hand, he
could not escape the timeless traditional conditioning of obedience to the Mosaic Law that
has rather brainwashed his very core. In this, his peers were not much of a help either;
instead, they hounded him to come back to the fold of Jewish-centric Christianity. Ultimately,
Peter seems to follow his own path that is neither James-centric nor Paul-centric Christianity.
He seems to be advocating what Lapham suggests, a “third race” which according to him is
“the central and most distinctive feature of Petrine theology.”55 According to Peter, “the elect
are a people set apart, a new and a holy race, neither Jew nor Greek, chosen and sanctified by
God for a purpose” (1 Peter. 2:9-10).56

5. Implications
There can be multiple implications but the following sections will briefly deal with the
Missiological implications in particular.

5.1 The Need for In-depth Understanding of a given Socio-Cultural Context

The socio-cultural barriers that shackles Peter from actually fulfilling his potential possessed
a real threat even to the Indian Christians community in their attempts to evangelise the non-
Christians. The intrinsic relationship that intertwined between the Indian Christians socio-
cultural identifies and the religious practices make the task of converting someone much
harder. This is because Indian Christianity is often criticised for being a “potted plant” from
Western Christianity. For instance, according to Elwood, “Christianity in Asia…is like a
‘potted plant’ which has been transported without being transplanted.”57 Much of the earlier
missionary explosions in India came with the colonial expansions, and the problem with this
was the formation of Indian Christian cultures that is markedly different from the original
cultures.58 The implication is that we inherited the same problem that Peter and his
circumcised believers struggled to overcome. This is evident in the missionary strategy of

55
Lapham, Peter, 252. He was inspired by “Aune’s use of the concet of a tertium quid to describe what he
called that ‘creative combination of Jewish and Hellenistic traditions’ (David E. Aune, New Testament in Its
Literary Environment [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1987], 12).
56
Paul is right all along to point out that there is such thing as Cephas Party in Corinth (1 Cor. 3:22).
57
Douglas J. Elwood, Asian Christian Theology: Emerging Themes (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster Press,
1980), 27. He was interpreting the words of D. T. Niles who commented, “The missionary from another country
can bring only the pot plant, but the pot must be broken and the plant put into the soil of the country to which he
comes” (D. T. Niles, “Christianity in a Non-Christian Environment,” The Student World 47 (1954): 263.
58
To introspect, we are more like the “third race” Christians propagated by Peter.

12
Christians everywhere they evangelised. The hardest part is to have a mindset or the faith that
is unshackled from the traditional markers that binds or identifies us as Christians (e.g. some
of the markers being architectures of church buildings, doctrines, dress, food, liturgies).

Across the socio-cultural divide, we also observe rapid development among the Hindus when
it comes to entrenching themselves (their identities) by intricately intertwining their socio-
cultural and religious practices just like the Jews. For instance, in “Savarkar’s criteria of
Hindu identity” we see “three interrelated attributes.”59 The first criterion is geography in
which anyone born in India or foreigners who became a citizen of India is “entitled to be
treated as a countryman”60 not necessarily a Hindu. The second criterion is the “common
blood” or “jati.”61 In this case, “A Hindu is a descendant of Hindu parents and shares with
other Hindus a common blood traceable to the Vedic fathers or Sindhus.”62 So far so good,
but the third criterion is where things started to get problematic. The third criterion is the
notion of “Sanskriti” where in order to be a Hindu one should be Sanskritised for “Sanskrit is
the language that expresses and preserves all that is worthy in the history of the Hindus. It
includes a shared history, literature, art, law festivals, rites, rituals and heroes.”63

According to Savakar, all these criteria intertwined together to produce the sons and
daughters of India. If a person happens not to fulfil these, then they are not Indian but
foreigners and possibly traitors.64 This assumption is the basic ideology that guided Hindutva,
which was “brought to the fore prominently by Savarkar in 1924.”65 From this, “He also
conceptualized Hindu Rashtra (territory, state, nation), as the goal of Hindutva ideology
[that]…was picked up by RSS from 1925.”66 How then can the Indian Christians evangelise
the Hindus? The truth is whichever way we want to analyse it, there can hardly be a non-
polarising outcome given our present situations where it seems to be either this or that. This
brings us to the next implications.

59
Anantanand Rambachan, “Hinduism, Hindutva and the Contest for the Meaning of Hindu Identity: Swami
Vivekananda and V.D. Savarkar,” last modified June 2009, http://www.irenees.net/bdf_fiche-analyse-
878_en.html.
60
Rambachan, “Hinduism.”
61
Rambachan, “Hinduism.”
62
Rambachan, “Hinduism.”
63
Rambachan, “Hinduism.”
64
Rambachan, “Hinduism.”
65
Although the term was coined by Chandranath Basu (Nicolas F. Gier, The Origin of Religious Violence: An
Asian Perspective (Lanham/Boulder/New York/London: Lexington Books, 2014), 29.
66
Ram Puniyani, “Is ‘Hindu’ Our National Identity?,” The Citizen, last modified 14th August, 2014,
https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/117/.

13
5.2 Reliance on the Holy Spirit of God
Amidst all the countless resources we spent, the countless lives we sacrificed, and the state of
the art mission strategy that we come up with in our attempts at conversion, what seems to be
the only viable options then and now is the work of the Holy Spirit. Even in the case of the
conversion of Cornelius and his household, Peter clearly told us in his defence that it the
Spirit who told him to go (Acts 11:12). Gibson best summarised it when he states,
In the middle of his recitation of the Gospel message, the Spirit interrupts Peter, coming upon
these Gentiles in a manner very similar to what occurred with the apostles in Acts 2. The
Spirit’s action is both spontaneous and unexpected by Peter and his Jewish companions. No
human, Peter included, is necessary to bring about the coming of the Spirit; Peter’s presence
is not required for Cornelius, but rather for Peter himself.67

In other places, Peter’s reliance on the Spirit of God is also unequivocally evident. For
instance, in Acts 2, Peter with the help of the Holy Spirit managed to convert 3000 new
believers in a single day (Acts 2:41). Moreover, in connection to the healing of the lame
beggar, Peter confessed, “People of Israel…why stare at us as though we had made this man
walk by our own power or godliness? For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the
God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this” (Acts
3:12-13, NIV). This realisation on the need to depend upon the Spirit of God for conversion
is the significant takeaway from this paper. The recent publication of The Holy Spirit and
Christian Mission in a Pluralistic Context by SAIACS68 is very much in the right direction of
how evangelism should be approach, especially in the Indian context. There are times when
with fond memories I recollect when our ancestors first heard the goodnews of Christ.
Village after village and scores of family decided to follow Jesus Christ by obeying the
simple call to convert, “Isu lo ring ve ta ro le khai!” (From now on, Believe in Jesus!). An
absence of intricate mission strategies and no eloquence of the missionaries, but just a simple
call to convert and a huge dose of the Holy Spirit was all it takes to convert so many of the
people living in Mizoram and the southern parts of Manipur.

67
Gibson, Peter Between Jerusalem and Antioch, 124.
68
Rogi George, ed., The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission in a pluralistic Context (Kothanur, Bangalore, India:
SAIACS Press, 2017).

14
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