We are called hypocrites by the enemy. They look and see division, arguments, disunity. And they tell us we should be one. There should not be anything but unity. Paul himself taught that we should be one, and that circumcision matters not.

But there are divisions, and there is politics. There are times to fit in. Paul wanted to preach in the synagogues as he traveled as well as to the gentlies. Timothy has a Jewish mother but had not been circumcised.

SO Paul Circumcises him, so he fits into the synagogue. When this is not needed, and he tells Gentiles that if they trust on this they are condemning themselves.

So many would call him a hypocrite because of what appears to be tactics.

	And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

	Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

(Acts 15:36-16:5 ESV)

In this world we are fallen. We are flawed. Although we wake up each day and attempt to be righteous and holy and good and great, we fail. If we do not lust, we snark. And if we are gentle, we are gourmands, or think about material things too much.

But you say, this is not me: I am righteous. Yet this is how the advertising agencies work: making us desire what we do not need because of our basic sinful desires.

Paul and Barnabas fell out. This is not a myth where the companions are perfect: it is a history of the early church. And there were disagreements, there were compromises, and one can suggest that Paul should have done differently.

But this we know. Paul left a legacy of Churches that existed until Ataturk killed all the Greeks in the 1920s (He warmed up by slaughtering the Armenians, then tried to kill all the other Orthodox communities, so that Turkey was completely Turkish). Paul was not perfect. He was effective.