Peter’s example put pressure on Gentile converts to adopt Jewish customs and norms.1 The specific Greek word that he uses has the meaning to live in a Jewish way.
The Jewish historian Josephus would use this word to describe how a Roman soldier captured by the Jews during the revolt (66–70 AD) avoided execution by promising to be circumcised and live as a Jew.
14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”