Acts 10:9-23 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them. ”Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come? ”The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
This story indicates how intricately God plans our lives that are under his direction. We have Peter, a man of God, given orders by Jesus to go and preach the Good News. We also have Cornelius, a good man who has placed his life under the authority of God. Both are men of prayer and meditation; both experienced a supernatural event in prayer. While in a trance, Cornelius sees a brilliant figure, asking him to send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. (vs. 5) Peter sees a large sheet with a menagerie of living things on it, dropping down from heaven three times. The three men that Cornelius sends are on their way while Peter is experiencing his vision from God. The details of this story reveal God's involvement in these men’s lives. Everything is coordinated in this story. Peter just finished with this vision about eating everything that God has created. He was mulling over what this vision meant when the three men knocked on his door where he was staying in Joppa. The Holy Spirit informs Peter, Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them. Peter knows already before he goes downstairs to open the door who is waiting for him. He is not to hesitate in his decision of whether to go with them. He is to go with these three Gentiles to a centurion in Caesarea. Peter is not only willing to go with these three gentlemen, he invites them into the house to stay for the night. A violation of the Oral Torah, or the rabbi’s interpretation of the written Torah, implied by Joshua’s farewell speech to the Israelites; Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. (Joshua 23:7) Tradition held that the Jews were not to fellowship with the Gentiles even though there was no direct commandment in Moses’ law against associating with Gentiles. However, the scribe Ezra is very vexed by the mingling of the former exiled Jews with the Gentiles in Jerusalem. He knows this mingling has caused the Jews to contaminate themselves with the ideas of the wicked Gentiles. For we have forsaken the commands you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time. (Joshua 9: 10-12) However, we now see Peter being exposed to the idea that all people who call on the name of the Lord are holy, not just the chosen Jews. This is a difficult idea for Peter to internalize because for hundreds of years the tradition held that Jews were not to gather with the outsiders, the dogs.
Because of the trance and the voice of the Lord revealing to Peter that all creatures are to be considered equal or able to be eaten, Peter realizes his conception about Gentiles being dogs should be altered. Do not call anything impure that God has made clean. Later on we see Peter still struggling with this concept when he chooses to eat only with the Jerusalem Jews in Antioch. Paul confronts him about this hypocrisy, reminding Peter that to be right with God requires only faith in Jesus’ works. Holiness does not come from the works of men such as circumcision, but directly from the works of God: the cross and subsequent resurrection. We see later on in Paul’s writing to the Philippians that the term dog refers to anyone who is opposed to the message of redemption through Jesus Christ. Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence. (Philippians 3:1-4) Paul is now saying those who wish to circumcise you to be right with God are those who are outsiders to the grace of God. As we see Peter leaving with the three men to Cornelius’ house, we see a man who recently believed that associating with Gentiles was not a good thing. He is going there only because the voice of the Spirit told him to go to Cornelius, and that this journey would produce good things, something beyond what Peter ever thought could happen, the purification of the Gentiles. When Peter greets Cornelius, he tells Cornelius what a big transition this is for him to associate with a Roman. You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. (Acts 10:28) But Peter, a man of prayer, knew the voice of the Lord and he knew Jesus had commanded him to feed his sheep, and in this incident, Cornelius is a sheep that God wants to call to him. These outsiders to the chosen people were now to be brought into the fold of God, now they too will be called THE CHOSEN. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:6) All who are renewed in Christ are one, put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (Colossians 3:10-11) As Peter approaches Cornelius, we find Cornelius worshipping Peter out of respect and humbleness, but Peter tells him to get up, for I am but human as you are. Peter recognizes that he a Jew has no more favor with God than Cornelius, the Gentile, both are but human, both come before God in humbleness and devotion to him.
Paul is especially called to the Gentiles: people that he, as a devout Pharisee, would have called scum, but now he views them as being very precious to God. As he talks to the people of Ephesus, he reminds them of what the Jews thought about them. Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. (Ephesians 2:11) The Jews considered them as unworthy to be God’s own. For the Jews the act of circumcision marked them as God’s children, the cherished ones, God’s own people. But now Paul is moving through the Gentile world, explaining to them that salvation is open to all people. He is calling them to Jesus Christ, the Jew, who died on the cross for their redemption, died so that they too might be right with God and receive eternal life. This message of inclusion brought him hatred from the Jews, for they thought of themselves as the only chosen people, the only people who could be right with God. Of course for them being right with God meant the laws and regulations given on Mount Sinai must be followed. To the Jew the avenue to God comes through obedience to the law; no other way can one be accepted by God. But the Jewish history reveals clearly their failure to follow the demands of the law. Of course, their obvious failure to be obedient to the law reveals clearly the difficulty of being right with God through laws and regulations. As Paul said, there is something inside of him that rebels against God’s righteous law. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:14-20) In our focus for today, we see Peter journeying to Caesarea with the Good News that there is a better way to be right with God than the law or the efforts of being good and not bad. Cornelius was a good man, but not perfect. His goodness was recognized by God, that is why he was told by an angel to send for Peter. God wanted him not only good, but perfect, to be a child of God, to pass from the human state to his eternal child. This message of eternal life with God was on Peter’s lips, and now he would expose the way to be right with God to the Gentiles. God orchestrated this whole story. The Gentile’s world would be opened to the Good News. Paul carried this message of hope to the Gentile world, You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20-22). We praise God today for his glorious plan to bring the Good News to the world that Jesus saves and because He lives we live also!
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