At the end of thirty years Jesus came out to minister. At first He did not go to the holy city to minister in the holy temple. Instead, He went to the wilderness, to a “wild” man named John the Baptist, in order to be baptized by him (Matt. 3:1-4, 13). If we read the Gospels again, we will see that Jesus preferred not to be in Jerusalem. Whenever He was in Jerusalem, He received trouble, opposition, arguments, slanders, and insults. He did not have rest and enjoyment there. Instead, He spent most of His time in Galilee. It was there that He called young people to be His disciples. The Gospels record the Lord’s calling of James and John, but they do not mention that He directly called Zebedee or any of the other fathers of the disciples (4:21-22). Likewise, the disciples named in Acts 1:13 are only the young ones who had been called by the Lord, although some among the one hundred twenty must have been older women (v. 14; cf. Luke 8:2-3; 24:10).
The Lord Jesus called the young Galilean fishermen, not the religious priests, scribes, or elders. Then after the Lord Jesus called the disciples, He trained them for three and a half years. This was the Lord’s “trade school,” located not in the holy temple but in the wilderness and on the mountaintops and seashores far away from the religious things. The Lord trained His disciples to have faith, for example, by calming a storm (Matt. 8:23-27). Today the Lord is taking a similar way. We do not need to go to a seminary to be trained. Rather, we simply need to follow the Lord through troubles and storms.
In Jerusalem there was the strong center of religion according to the Old Testament, but in Galilee there was a living person. Apparently, He was only a carpenter without an academic degree, and those whom He chose were also not learned (John 7:15; Acts 4:13). Nevertheless, the Lord trained His disciples so that one day He could live in them in a practical way in order to produce the church for the fulfillment of God’s purpose and plan. Then after three and a half years of training, the Trainer went to the cross to die. Through His death and resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), and in the evening of the day of His resurrection, He breathed Himself into all these trained disciples (John 20:22). At that time the disciples had learned their “trade,” and they also had the Trainer living within them. They were not trained in how to offer the sacrifices or burn the incense, and they were not even formally trained in how to interpret the Bible. Rather, they learned the “trade,” the skill, of how to live by Christ and with Christ in a corporate way so that He might gain His church.
Day by day and month after month for three and a half years the Lord Jesus was with His disciples. His presence alone was a kind of training to them. Whatever He did, spoke, or accomplished was a training in the eyes of all the disciples. What the disciples learned was entirely different from what the priests were trained in. What the priests learned was religion, but what the disciples learned was Christ. After the Lord’s resurrection they had learned their trade, and they also had the Trainer, Christ, living within them as their life. Then after this preparation, the Lord Jesus charged them to remain in Jerusalem until He poured out the Spirit on the day of Pentecost for the producing of the first local church, the church in Jerusalem.
At this point there were two temples in Jerusalem, a physical one and a spiritual one as God’s house on the earth. One temple was in religion, and the other was Christ with the church (1 Cor. 3:16). Everyone could see the physical temple but not many could see the spiritual one. Even though God was in the spiritual temple, the physical, religious temple opposed the spiritual one. To some, it must have seemed that the physical temple was more scriptural than the spiritual one. Apparently, the Old Testament speaks of priests in the physical temple, not of apostles in the spiritual temple. Moreover, the apostles were all unlearned Galileans; not one was from the holy city. If we had been in Jerusalem at that time, we might have gone to the physical temple, not to the spiritual temple, which did not seem to be according to the letter of the Old Testament. However, at least one hundred twenty, plus three thousand more on the day of Pentecost, received the heavenly vision to be in the spiritual temple.
Nevertheless, it was not easy to stand with the heavenly vision. Peter, John, and the others were enlightened, clear, and trained, but since they were in Jerusalem, not in Galilee, they were surrounded by religion, and it became difficult for them to remain in a pure condition. When Peter went north to Antioch, far away from Jerusalem, he was put to the test. There were not only Jews but also some Gentiles in the church there, and at first Peter ate with the Gentile believers. This was proper and apart from religion. However, when certain of the Jews came from Jerusalem to Antioch, Peter withdrew from eating with the Gentiles (Gal. 2:11-14). To do this was to keep the Jewish religion.
Peter had already received a special vision in Acts 10:9-16, in which he realized that God had included the Gentiles in His economy. Not long afterward, however, Peter went against the vision that he had seen, and all the Jewish believers, including Barnabas, joined him in this hypocrisy. Peter was a bold person, but in Galatians 2 he was weak. This shows that the atmosphere and influence of religion are difficult to overcome. We may believe that we are strong, but when we are tested by religion, we may be exposed and find that we are weak. Religion is hateful in the eyes of God because religion replaces Christ, damages the church, and frustrates God’s economy. Therefore, Paul rebuked Peter and opposed him to his face. No doubt, Peter was convinced by Paul. Inwardly, he might have said, “Brother Paul, you are right. What a shame that I was so weak.”