Living Among Those Outside

And I'm very thankful to the Lord and for his providence that we were able to experience Brian's ministry over the past month. I'm so thankful for his resolve and ability to cover on short notice and trust.

The Lord, as always, didn't allow his word to return empty and you found that providence to be a blessing.

To your walk as well.

But now we have to return to Genesis 21. And we wanna finish out this chapter that we began over a month ago. Abraham and Sarah are now finally walking in the fulfillment of God's promise that they would receive a child, an heir from their own loins.

We can be sure you can almost picture them sitting at the door of their tent, joyfully holding up their precious Isaac, this long awaited son of promise, every day blessing God, just amazed at the wonder that this has happened.

When they hold him, when they feed him, as they teach him by the wayside, when they rise or when they lie, as he takes his naps, they are in awe at the miracle that God has brought into their lives, even in their elderly age.

And there they are in this joy and in this wonder in the midst of this town of tents. Whenever I think of Abraham, in my mind, I always think of a solitary tent and an elderly trio in the middle of a desert.

It's probably completely unrealistic. I'm sure there was all sorts of foliage surrounding them and it would have looked like a UN refuge village. It would have been a town of tents, considering they had hundreds of servants and all sorts of livestock.

But nevertheless, the center of this is this family of three, Abraham, his wife, Sarah, and the child of promise, Isaac. And so we read, beginning in verse 22. And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you in all that you do.

Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring, or with my posterity, but that according to the kindness that I've done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you've dwelt.

And Abraham said, I will swear. We read that Abimelech comes to speak with Abraham. This is already something we don't want to read past too quickly. Notice it's not the messengers of Abimelech, who's now just Abimelech, as though he and Abraham are on equal footing.

Don't forget, he's the king of Gerar. We remember him from chapter 20. He doesn't send his messengers. There's no homing pigeon that finds its way to Abraham's tent. The king himself comes to address this old sojourner living on the edge of the territory.

He doesn't send a roving unit of the Gerar border patrol with their cowboy hats and whips riding on the horseback. This is the king of Gerar himself. He's coming to address Abraham. And he likely has a whole train of servants and soldiers.

If you have the five-star general with you, he's not coming alone. There's at least some sort of security presence. But the opening words of this exchange are almost as striking as the whole retinue of the king coming to address Abraham.

God is with you in all that you do. This is like a Melchizedekian blessing to Abraham. Amen, king of Gerar. God apparently is with me in all that I do. Abimelech, of course, has seen firsthand how God is with Abraham in all that Abraham does, whether good or bad.

In Abraham's success and even in his failure, as Abimelech saw, God has been with him. God has protected him as his shield and provided for him, lest the promise come to naught. And so here the king, and this is striking, here the king is led to confess the God of Abraham.

God is with you in all that you do. Here the king comes to seek the blessing of Abraham. Swear to me by God, by this God that you serve. And so God had revealed to Abimelech, if you want healing, you must go to Abraham, for he is a prophet.

And now the king has come to the prophet. The king confesses the God of the prophet. The king seeks the blessing of the prophet. This is very instructive for how God has designed the prophetic mantle of the church to operate in the world.

He acknowledges that Abraham and his posterity are here to stay. He's addressing an elderly man. And he's saying, treat me kindly. Treat my children kindly. Be loyal to my posterity. I'm still hoping the kingdom of Gerar is here.

I hope that my great, great, great, great grandchildren are taught to be kind and that you will treat them kindly because I know you're here to stay. Yeah, you're in a town of tents, but you're here to stay.

The king's practically confessing that Abraham is indeed the heir of the land. Now we get to verses 25 to 31, and I'm just gonna pause before we address them. The bulk of the application today is gonna come from verses 25 to 31.

But so just jump down to verse 32, which is the conclusion of this episode. And I wanna try to, before we move into a certain application, just wanna show you the larger theme here. Why is this episode included?

How does this fit into the larger storyline of Genesis? So beginning in verse 32. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. So Abimelech rose with Phicol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines.

And then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba. And there he called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days, a long time. Abraham seems, at the end of this episode, to raise an Ebenezer.

He plants a tree. And that perhaps has symbolic significance. Here he is in the Negev, in the dry south. And he has this memorial tree, perhaps a marker of the shading protection of God. God has been his refuge.

God has brought life and vitality to his promise. And so he plants this tree as an Ebenezer, pointing to the faithfulness of all that God had promised. And certainly for Moses' audience, remember Moses is writing this, and the Israelites receive it as they look toward the conquest of the land.

Certainly this multi-generational promise of God would have been striking to them. Even the little lines like, he stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time. That would have been an encouragement to them as they prepared for the conquest of the land ahead.

As Alan Ross notes, the importance of oaths and covenant agreements would have been appreciated by Israel. And this foundational passage would have been instructive. Abraham, the founding father, made a treaty to live in peace in the land.

And so Israel would have been exhorted to make peace with the non-Canaanite groups in the land, so that these might share in the blessing of the covenant. Now theologically, this is maybe a minute of review, theologically the land takes on this context, takes on this symboletry of God's presence being restored to his people.

You cannot make sense of the promised land if you sever it from Eden, if you sever it from Genesis one through three. The sense in which Adam was cast out of the Edenic presence of God is carried through Scripture when Israel, which is as it were the Adam of God, God's son Israel, remember out of Egypt I've called my son, is then also cast out of the presence of God, sent into exile.

And so there's a major theological thread here that runs through all of Scripture, and the significance of the land is this is the place where God's people will be restored to God's presence. And so the temple of Eden guides us all the way to a new heavens and a new earth, which has no temple, and the Lamb is its light, and the whole thing is holy to the Lord.

Of course, God's promise of the land is what we might call an already not yet promise. Abraham's in the land, but he's surrounded by a whole lot of unfulfilled promise. By faith, he looks toward that which God will fulfill.

We had more time would consider this in Hebrews. I know we've done it in times past. He was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. Abraham was already in the land, but he had not yet taken possession.

The fulfillment of the promise had not yet arrived. Not yet. And so Abraham is waiting for the promised inheritance.

And in the meantime,.

As he waits for the promised inheritance, he must learn how to live among those outside. And Israel enters the land after 400 years, according to God's word. And as Israel awaits the inheritance, they too must learn how to live among those who are outside of the inheritance.

And then we, as the church, brothers and sisters, as we, like Abraham, like Israel, as the Israel of God await our inheritance, we too must learn how to live among those who are outside of our inheritance, which is ours by faith in Christ Jesus.

So this is where I think this passage is so helpful. In this passage, I think we can find some application about how to live among those outside. While we wait by faith for our inheritance. How do we live among those outside?

Outside of the promise. Outside of the inheritance. Outside of the faith. How do we live among them? And in these verses, I really find four things that I want to focus on. Four things.

I won't give you them now,.

Lest you get the four, write them in your notes, and then kind of tune out for the next 40 minutes. I know Brian has you on bad expectations.

About sermon length.

We're gonna work on that.

Integrity Toward God and Neighbor

The first point is this. Living among those outside requires integrity. Living among those outside requires integrity. This is the longest point by far. Genesis 21. We see this at the very beginning. It came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phicol spoke to Abraham, saying, God is with you in all that you do.

Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me. Remember that Abimelech has a pretty good reason to ask Abraham for an oath of honesty. Back in chapter 20, Abraham failed to trust the shielding protection of God.

He lied about his relationship to Sarah, and in the long run, that deception brought a curse upon Abimelech and his house. No wonder Abimelech's going, please stop lying to me. Can you take an oath that you'll never deceive me again?

I can't afford any more of that burden on my house. But by chapter 21, look at the difference in Abraham's life. By chapter 21, he's grown to see the fulfillment of God's promise, even when he's waited for it for decades.

It's finally come, and he's got the diaper bag around his shoulder when he's talking to the king, and the car seats on the camel in the back, maybe over the second hump.

Finally, the promise is there.

And this has shaped his character. He knows that if God could bring this life out of seeming death, what will my God not accomplish? And so now he's gone from self-preservation, I need to lie lest I fall into the hands of this king.

Now he's gone to trusting the shielding protection of God. His faith has matured, and so he desires to act with integrity. I will swear, I will swear. Everything that follows is Abraham acting with integrity, not just here, but even as we move forward to chapter 23.

Put another way, this is the principle, it is because Abraham has learned to trust the promise of God, that he will make a trustworthy promise to Abimelech. Integrity begins in the Christian life with integrity toward God.

When we have integrity toward God, we will have integrity toward our neighbor, integrity toward our employer, integrity toward our fellow man. You will not get the reverse of that. Integrity doesn't start there and work its way up in the spiritual life, never.

And if you lack integrity in your relationship with God, look around you. You'll be lacking integrity in every relationship in your life. Abraham desires now to make up for the damage and the loss of witness, the lack of faith.

Well, what an awful thing to bring upon Abimelech. And so he wants to make up for that. Now he wants to act with integrity. He wants to be well-regarded. He wants to be seen as trustworthy. He wants to sojourn in peace.

He wants his boy to grow up and sojourn in peace among these Philistines. And so he's living out this principle that God gives us in his book of wisdom. Proverbs 22, one, a good name is to be chosen rather than great wealth.

A good name used to be that way, not in my generation, not in our age of litigation and endless footnotes and all the lawyer contracts and NDA agreements, but it used to be that you'd rather take a loss in your business than go against your word.

You know, you spit in your hand and do the handshake, and if that means you're gonna have to do that repair at a loss, you're gonna do it because your name.

Is on the line, and a good name is worth more than great treasure.

Do you care what other people think about you? I don't mean in a teenagerish way. I don't care what other people think about me. I'm like, yes, you do.

More than any other human your age group cares about what people, your whole life is ordered by what people think about you.

But I'm asking in this mature Christian way, do you care how others regard you? Do you care how you come off to those outside? Should you care? It's an interesting question. This is not easy to give a firm yes or a firm no to.

I'm gonna have to build one side of the case and then try to build the other. Do you care whether you are well regarded by those outside of the faith? Do you care? What strikes me about this passage in Genesis 21 is how it really points us to a very frequent exhortation, especially in the early church, especially from the apostles to Christians that are facing all sorts of infighting and pressure without, hostility and persecution.

And the constant exhortation is act and work.

And behave with integrity.

Be a good example to those who are outside. Don't give them any cause to mock or jeer or taunt or blaspheme. Be well regarded by them. That's just a never-ending exhortation to almost any of the churches that are addressed by letters in the New Testament.

This is what is a requirement for an elder, according to 1 Timothy 3. This is a requirement. The Apostolic Commission says, "'Churches, don't you put forth an elder "'if this isn't in place?'. 1 Timothy 3 said, then, "'He must have a good testimony among those who are outside.

"'He must. "'He must care how he is viewed "'and regarded by those who are outside.

"'He must, lest he fall into reproach,.

"'the snare of the devil.'".

Paul is saying,.

"'Timothy, when you're considering "'who seems spiritually mature, "'don't just go for the one "'that everyone in the church thinks well of. "'He must be regarded well by those outside of the faith. "'He might be the proud turkey every Sunday "'when he comes into the little house church there, "'but what do his coworkers think of him?

"'Do they roll their eyes and they say, "'He's a cheat, he's a slouch, "'he makes our lives harder?'. Listen, if the elder has a one-star Yelp review, he cannot be put forward. That's what Timothy's saying.

I thank God there's no such thing as an elder Yelp review. Oh Lord. The Apostle Paul, when he stands before Felix the governor in Acts 24, he says this, "'I myself always strive "'to have a conscience without offense "'toward God and man.'".

That is an amazing statement.

Because the last part is so easy to miss. I myself always strive to have my conscience without offense toward God.

We go, amen, and man. Well, you know, and man, you know.

Sometimes you gotta step on toes. And who really cares? And these people are sinners anyway,.

They don't understand these things.

Paul says, no, my whole I always am striving to make sure there's no needless offense that what's up to me. I live peaceably among men. And that if it's up to me, I don't remove the offense of the cross, but I seek to be well regarded.

There is a certain type of personality, it's rampant within our reformed corner of the tent. Rampant. That almost does the opposite of this. They strive to offend rather than strive not to offend. And it's one thing if we're offending in the right way, because we are gonna be offensive.

If you're a Christian, you're offensive. In our culture, if you're a Christian, that actually means what he says. That actually believes what he confesses. You're offensive de facto by virtue of being a Christian, you're offensive.

But what I'm trying to distinguish is this. There is an unavoidable offense of the cross, and we may never remove it. God forbid we remove it. Because when you remove the offense of the cross, you remove the gospel.

If it's going to be a witness, there must be the offense of the cross. That's what Paul does when he comes to Corinth. You wanted me to pander to you and get up on a soapbox and show all of my Hellenistic oratory prowess?

I won't do it. When I came to you, I desired to know nothing among you, but Christ and Him crucified. I dare not remove the offense of the cross. Is that cross a stumbling block for the Jews and a foolishness to the Greeks?

Yes, and I dare not remove that offense. And let me say, I would much rather labor alongside men and women that because they're so zealous for the truth, they occasionally, unwittingly, maybe intentionally, stomp on people's toes, and they have rather rough edges toward those who are outside.

I'd still much rather, a hundred times over, labor alongside people that are zealous for the truth and have collateral damage than to labor alongside those who are constrained by their desire for the approval of the world, that they risk offending God rather than man.

I don't want to labor among those people. But can we say, like Paul, that we always strive to have a conscience without offense toward man? In 2021, can we say we always strive to have a conscience without offense toward man?

What lengths have we gone to to ensure this? In other words, what we need is integrity. Do we recognize that the church is not meant to be a sealed-up city on a hill, barring entrance to those outside?

We're a city on a hill that we might be seen, that the light might be shared, that there would be a draw. Oh, that looks like a place of refuge. That looks like a place of security. I must go toward this city and leave this desolate wilderness.

In Acts 13, we read, for David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell asleep. And this is what the great Puritan John Owen had to say about that verse. God has work to do in this world.

And to desert it because it's difficult, because of the entanglements, it's to cast off His authority. It's not enough that we be just and that we be righteous and that we walk with God in holiness we must also serve our generation as David did before he fell asleep.

God has a work to do and not to help Him is to oppose Him. Are you tempted in the way that I am?

Let's seal up the city,.

Focus on our righteousness and holiness. Isn't that enough? What more does God require? God has a work to do in this world. You must serve your generation. And of course, as we understand God has a work to do, we understand God has given us works to do.

In fact, He's ordained works beforehand for us to walk in. Jesus in Matthew 5 says that the blessed people of the beatitudes are those who are going to be insulted and persecuted and lied about, have false witness born of them.

And in fact, these ones, these persecuted sufferers are the light and the salt and the city on the hill. And that light by verse 16 in Matthew 5 is said to be good works that shine before men so that they might glorify our Father in heaven.

The light is good works.

The light is not me and my private piety. The light is not, well, just take a look at my Instagram and see the kind of things I read and how I am. The light is my good works in service to the generation, to those outside.

It always has been. 1 Peter 2 is drawn on Matthew 5, if not dependent upon Matthew 5. Uses a lot of the same language, probably alluding to it in a way that Peter's hearers would have understood, yes, you're saying take Jesus' teaching and apply it in this way.

The setting seems to be that those outside were rather hostile to those inside. This Christian community became an irritating thorn in the side of the city. Of course, these Christians have been converted.

They used to take part in the public.

And social aspects of pagan syncretism. They used to be present when the idols were being prayed to and having incense and meat slain in their honor at the pagan festivities. But now these annoying Christians are refusing to bend.

They're refusing to compromise. They're threatening our peace and security, our business, our way of life. And so the reaction is to revile the Christians, to say that they're criminals, wrongdoers. That's what Peter 2 says.

And so verbal abuse, defamation, chalked up charges, persecution is coming to the church. They're antisocial, they're atheists. That was one of the charges against Christians in the ancient world. They're anti-imperial.

And Peter has to address this. And what does he do? How does Peter address this? Well, the first thing to say is there is something to say about that justice and that righteousness and that holiness. That's not like you can choose between it if you don't have that, if you don't have integrity there.

If you don't have the integrity of a close walk with God and holiness, anything else that's said, you're just not gonna be able to reach it. Beloved, he says, 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 11, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, personal holiness first, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

And if you have that integrity, now you can put it outward, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your light, by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

If you wanted to give a message translation of 1 Peter 2, 11 and 12, it would be this. Brothers and sisters, as you face this trial, have integrity, have integrity. Do good, walk closely with God, be honorable in everything you do.

Have integrity, don't give them an inch. Let all of their false charges be transparently false. When they say you're an evildoer, overcome that evil with good, don't give them an inch, have integrity.

Peter's been using this language of Israel as a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a treasured possession of God. It's all the vocabulary that belongs to the nation of Israel, and Peter's saying, you're that nation, church, you're the Israel of God.

And so, as he's addressing the church in this way, he speaks of the outsiders as the Gentiles, when those Gentiles, most of the church is Gentiles in a sense, and yet he's saying, you're the Israel, you're the royal priesthood, you're the treasured possession, and when these Gentiles revile you, don't forget your vocation before God.

You were meant to be a light to the nations, so have integrity, have integrity. At the end of the first century, 1 Peter was likely written late, so maybe within 40 years, we have a sermon written by Clement of Rome.

Clement of Rome is some of the earliest writings that we have outside of the New Testament. In Clement of Rome, 2 Clement is a sermon, and in 2 Clement 13, he's applying this again to the church, and he says, brothers, let us repent, let us be serious about what is good, for we are full of so much folly and wickedness.

Let us blot out our former sins from us. Let us not become men-pleasers. That's one thing we have to talk about. But also, let us not desire to please only each other, only those inside, only other Christians, but also the ones that are outside, by our righteousness, so that the name will not be blasphemed.

He's saying, you're the Israel of God. For the Lord also says, my name is continuously blasphemed among all of the Gentiles. How is it blasphemed? Well, the Gentiles marvel at our words. They say they're beautiful and great when they hear from our mouths the oracles of God, but afterward, when they've learned that our works are not worthy of the words we speak, they blaspheme, they say it's a fable, a delusion.

For example, when they hear from us that God says, what good is it to you if you love those that love you? Do not the tax collectors do the same? But thanks is due to you if you love your enemies and bless those that hate you.

When they hear these things, they marvel at the excellence of the kindness, but then they see that not only do we not love those that hate us, we don't even love those who love us. And so the name is blasphemed.

See, Clement's saying, we need integrity. We need integrity. How are we gonna learn to love our enemies if we can't even love our friends? We can't even love those that love us within the church? The idea of integrity is wholeness, stability.

You think of integrity on a suspension bridge, right? There's something structurally solid about it. And how we're viewed by those outside runs right through the early church's concern, no matter how rough the outside gets.

This is a constant exhortation. When times of persecution and hostility run hot, don't give them an inch, have integrity, be honorable, be humble. And so the whole church, this is from Titus 3, remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be ready for every good work.

This is a faithful saying. And these things I want to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good, profitable to all men. Do you care about what people think about you as a Christian?

Do you care about how the far left regards you?

Do you care?

Isn't it a little bit too easy to say I could care less? You hate me, good. Let me give a little more fuel to your fire. There's this attitude of flippancy. We're completely disobeying what the Bible is calling us to in times of hostility and persecution.

God has a work to do. It's what Owen says, right? God has a work to do. And if we don't help him in this work, we oppose him in it. So how do we carry out this work? I want to touch on this point. Clement rightly said, we don't do this as men pleasers.

That's always a danger, right? I could see how all of the things I'm saying would be amened by certain sectors of evangelicalism, and I want to be quick to tear that away from them because they're not actually having integrity.

They're having a sort of man-pleasing attitude, a way of courting and curtsying worldly approval. We're not to be, to put it in Jesus' words, reeds swaying in the wind. So we don't host revoice conferences.

We don't begin to kowtow or take seriously the most insane spouting of transgender rhetoric, right? This is not what we're talking about. What we mean when we say we don't want to be men-pleasers or reeds swaying in the wind is we want to be not just hearers only, but hearers and doers.

Integrity is at the heart of that. That is integrity, not just to hear and not do, but to hear and do, that's integrity. Otherwise, all of our attempts to be salt and light, and we have many examples of this in the evangelical world, but all of our attempts to be salt and light are actually just driven by the flesh.

And they're maneuvering the way that the world might react rather than having integrity before God, and from that toward man. That's the key. We can never forget, as Paul exclaimed, that we are the stench of death to those that are perishing.

That's what we are.

One of the things that I hated about COVID was losing my sense of taste. I was gonna say smell. Actually, I don't mind losing smell. It's kind of nice, actually, in some way, except you can't check yourself.

You're like, oh boy, I have no idea.

If my breath is horrible, you know? That's the unfortunate thing about it. But other than that, I'll take it. But losing taste, that was really rough. But Paul says, whether you can smell yourself or not, you are a stench to the world.

And a lot of sectors of evangelicalism get industrial-sized cans of Axe body spray, and they try to hide the offense of the cross. Or, it's not so bad. Can't we come a little bit closer? We'll use your preferred pronouns.

Paul says, no, you're a stench. If they're perishing, you're a stench, you're odious. But have integrity, because you're the fragrance of life.

If they're being saved.

You're the city on the hill, you're salt. To please the world, to lose integrity, is to remove the offense of the cross, to remove the gospel itself. But when we're not seeking to have integrity, have regard for those outside, by maneuvering to things that might be provocative, or to dance to their tune and think somehow we can just welcome them into the church by using their categories and worldview, and by numbing, indulging, and marginalizing.

The claims of God.

When we actually do the opposite, when we seek integrity before God, our attempts, as feeble as they seem, are driven by the spirit of God, for the sake of man's salvation. And so, in light of that, we can, as Paul practiced, strive always to have a conscience without offense toward those who are outside.

Integrity is not something rigid, inhospitable. That's not integrity. That's a straw man of integrity. That's reformed false integrity. Oh yeah, I have integrity, I'm a Calvinist. I don't give quarter to anyone.

I won't look an Arminian in the eyes. That's not integrity, you're a buffoon. Integrity is not rigid, inhospitality. Integrity is not inflexible harshness. I've been thinking about this statement. I have to be careful with it.

I haven't really thought about this enough, but I think I'm on square ground here,.

So I'm gonna go with it.

I've been thinking about this statement. I think it was from Martin Lloyd-Jones. He said, one hasn't truly preached the gospel of God's free grace without at least being accused of preaching lawlessness.

Okay, do you understand the point? Right, he's basically looking at Romans 6 and the fact that when Paul is showing the grace of God that is at the very beating heart of his gospel presentation, he has to then defend himself against charges that he's just preaching lawlessness.

And so that bridges Romans 6 to Romans 7. And Martin Lloyd-Jones picks up on that and he says, you know, it must be the same with us. Have we really preached God's free grace and salvation if we couldn't be accused of preaching lawlessness.

Like Paul was?

So I've been thinking about that and I'm trying to extrapolate a little bit. Because Paul the apostle wasn't just accused of preaching lawlessness by his opponents, he was also accused of being a man pleaser.

So for instance, in Galatians 1, he defends himself against this charge. Do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I still pleased men, I would not be a slave of Christ. Saying he's defending himself, I'm not a man pleaser.

The accusation here by the opponent is Paul has no integrity. He sways in the wind. If he thinks Gentiles might be more responsive in this way, he's gonna sway. If he thinks Jews are gonna be more responsive in this way, he's gonna sway, he's a man pleaser.

That's the accusation. Paul has no integrity, he's simply a man pleaser. And in 1 Corinthians 9, he gives a defense. For though I am free from all men, I've made myself a slave to all, that I might win them all.

And so to the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews. And to those who were under the law, I came under the law. That I might win those who are under the law, and to those who are without law, I became as one without law.

Not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ, that I might win those who are without law. And to the weak, I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men that by all means, I might save some.

Paul's saying, you wanna call that man pleasing, fine. Is it for the Jews' sake? Is it for the sake of those under the law? Is it for the weak's sake? Is Paul just a peddler? Is he just a pleaser?

Has he lost his integrity?

Has he no backbone? How dare he be so accommodating, so flexible? He's a man pleaser, he has no integrity. He's not like us, stiff upper lip Calvinists.

But what does he say?

Why does he do it? Was it for any of their sake? Verse 23, I do this for the sake of the gospel.