Daily Devotion for November 21, 2025
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
For our “Classical Friday”, a special treat: This gorgeous, haunting Orthodox anthem (Agni Parthene meaning “Holy Mary”) is sung here by the group Eikona. I have included a translation, although after 1:40 it is sung in English.
Rejoice, O song of Cherubim.
Rejoice, O hymn of angels.
Rejoice, O ode of Seraphim,
the joy of the archangels.
Rejoice, O peace and happiness
the harbor of salvation.
O sacred chamber of the Word
flower of incorruption,
Rejoice, delightful paradise
of blessed life eternal.
Rejoice, O wood and tree of life
the fount of immortality.
Make Me Your Servant
O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before Thy throne of grace.
O Lord—this morning—
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning—
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
And now, O Lord, this child of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning—
Shadow me in the hollow of Thy hand,
And keep me out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take me, Lord—this morning—
Wash me with hyssop inside and out,
Hang me up and drain me dry of sin.
Pin my ear to the wisdom-post,
And make my words sledge hammers of truth—
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning—
Put my eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let me look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine my imagination,
Put perpetual motion in my arms,
Fill me full of the dynamite of Thy power,
Anoint me all over with the oil of Thy salvation,
And set my tongue on fire.
Patience
My Father, I pray that I may have patience to live through the difficulties of life. May I correct my faults, that they may not destroy my peace and take from me my strength; help me to center my life in brightness and hope.
Meditation
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
A Prayer After Reading Scripture
May the word I have read, Lord, be planted deeply in my mind and heart. Help me not to walk away and forget it, but to meditate on it and obey it and so build my life on the rock of your truth.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Titus 1:1-2 (ESV)
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.
Galatians 2:11-14 (DP Bible)
y next meeting with Peter, when he came to Antioch, did not go quite so smoothly. When he first arrived, he showed no reluctance to eat with the Gentile believers in our community.
But when a group sent by James arrived, Peter distanced himself from our Gentile members, lest he offend the Jews from Jerusalem. All the Jews then started eating separately -- even Barnabas. This is outright hypocrisy, an act condemned by the Gospel, and I had no choice but to confront Peter directly.
DP Parallel Bible (3-Column) - Galatians 2
Notes on the Scripture
Paul Chastises Peter (Galatians #14)
In the preceding verses, we saw Paul being approved and even sanctioned by Peter, John, and James, when he traveled to Jerusalem to present his gospel to them. We could see, even then, that with a vigilant eye Paul guarded his position as their equal. His credibility to the Galatian churches, and his argument that they were following false teachings rather than the Word of God, hinged largely on their acceptance of his claim to be an actual apostle of Christ. For Paul claimed that his teaching was given to him by Christ, directly, in a revelation.
In this famous passage, Paul dispels any notion that he is subordinate to Peter. Paul never claimed to be the leader of Christianity; but many people then and now — people who tend see the church in hierarchical terms — considered Peter the head of the church. Considerable evidence bolstered the concept. Christ had designated him the rock upon which the church would be built, and had given him the “keys to heaven.” (E.g. Matthew 16:18-19) I have to note, though, that in Acts 15, if we are looking for a hierarchy, James appears to be senior even to Peter.
The Greek in direct translation creates a slightly harsher tone than the passage intends. In verse 11, Paul states that he confronted Peter “because he was (or stood) condemned.” Peter was not condemned in the sense we use the word; he was not destined for hell or sentenced to die by a judge. What Paul conveys is that no judge was needed; the wrongfulness of Peter’s action spoke for itself.
Trying to meld Jews and Greeks into a homogeneous church was like making salad dressing, for they were as compatible as oil and vinegar. Peter, James, Barnabas, and all of the original apostles, had grown up as God-fearing Jews, whose path to God was strict compliance with the Law of Moses. Old habits die hard. Dietary laws were an ingrained habit. The Jewish Christians, despite their convictions, must have felt great discomfort at eating with Gentiles. Peter, we know, was strongly conflicted; it was only his obedience to God that brought him to baptize Cornelius. (Acts 10)
Moreover, the Council of Jerusalem — when the church officially required acceptance of Gentiles without circumcision — lay several years in the future. Unofficially, Peter understood the innate hypocrisy of practicing Judaism while preaching Christ, at least when it caused a division in the church.
James the Just
16th century Russian icon
One might infer that James was slow to accept it — and it was not an issue that arose in Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, to the degree it did in Antioch, a Greek city. (Antioch is and was then in Syria, a long way from Greece; but Greek culture so dominated the civilized Western world in the years after Alexander the Great that much of the world was “Greek,” from Spain to Persia and North Africa. Latin was spoken only in central Italy.)
James lived in a world where all Christians were Jews. Lacking modern communications, he simply never considered the problems of Gentile converts, or the problems that would need to be worked out where Gentile and Jewish Christians lived together. This was much ameliorated when he was brought to understand it, at the Council of Jerusalem. (Acts 15) He strove to keep the church unified and was known as “James the Just.”
There is no indication that Peter protested Paul’s correction. While it is easy to view the goings-on of the early church in a framework of secular politics, power, and pride, we must always remember that Peter and Paul (and James) were profoundly convicted Christians who sought humility with utter sincerity and welcomed correction. (And how happy we would be, if all subsequent church leaders emulated this trait.)
