Acts - Lesson 17

We have read about God’s work in the lives of Stephen, Philip, and Saul but this week Luke takes us back to Peter ministering to the growing Church.

Acts 9:31-32 … So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda.

The 12 Apostles were primarily in Jerusalem but here we see that Peter – and presumably other Apostles from time to time – were out in the countryside ministering to the Jewish Christians living outside Jerusalem.

Lydda is to the west of Jerusalem about ½ way to the Mediterranean Sea. It is historically considered to be the birth and burial place (200 years later) of our brother George who was martyred by the Emperor Diocletian. George is famous for killing a crocodile that was making water gathering a sacrificial rite. The pagans were apparently tossing sheep to the crocodile in sacrifice to get water. If that didn’t work then they were tossing young women. George killed the crocodile and this preceded a revival and the pagans became Christians (I should mention that it is hard to separate fact from fiction in stories about George’s life).

Peter went to Lydda and began to minister.

Acts 9: 33-35 … There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

God was continuing to spread revival and confirm the ministry of the Apostles with signs. This area to the west of Jerusalem had a revival as the local people turned to the Lord. Peter then has a request to travel from Lydda to Joppa on the Mediterranean on behalf of a beloved disciple with a very active ministry to widows.

Acts 9:36-43 … Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

The widows were having a “wake” and crying because the one who had ministered to them by helping to clothe them was dead. They had already prepared her body for burial. In Jerusalem the rule was you got buried the day you died but out in the countryside it was common to wait three days in mourning. Jesus waited to visit Lazarus so that he would be buried according to the will of God before his being raised from the dead. Peter got some peace and quiet by moving the crowd out of the room. He called on God for direction, and then simply calls Tabitha by name and tells her to get up. Tabitha is Aramaic and Dorcas is Greek for gazelle. Once again, revival is stimulated. This time the Joppa region is moved by this miracle and Peter says to minister in Joppa with a tanner named Simon.

Tanners were ritually unclean almost all of the time. They handled dead animals frequently in their work. They were needed by the village because of the role that leather played in shoes and clothing but it was a tough job to have if you were Hebrew. The Talmud is a collection of Jewish rabbinical teaching on the Pentateuch or the Law of the Old Testament (collected mostly from 100 BC to AD 300). Jesus addressed some of the errors and distortions present in the Talmud but often it is simply offering detailed interpretations of the Law. One of those interpretations had to do with women who married smelters of copper, collectors of dog dung (needed by tanners), or tanners. These were very smelly and foul occupations. These occupations were so bad that your wife could ask for a divorce, even if you had been a tanner before she married you, by indicating that she thought she could take it but she was wrong and now realizes that she can’t take it.

Now Peter is in the house of a Jew who was routinely unclean and needed to make sacrifices in Jerusalem to atone for touching dead stuff. Joppa is far enough from Jerusalem that Peter likely became ritually unclean by association. So Peter is likely unclean in this unclean house … and he smells really bad too.

Acts 10:1-8 … At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

God (through Scripture) is stressing this conversion in a way that God didn’t stress the conversion of the Samaritans or the Ethiopian so the question you should ask is, “Why?” This is the first uncircumcised potential convert. Cornelius was devout and feared God but it is unlikely that he was observant of all the Jewish laws and in particular that he was uncircumcised.

Cornelius was north of Joppa at Caesarea and sends two servants and a trusted devout soldier to Joppa looking for Peter. God also prepares Peter to meet Cornelius.

Acts 10:9-16 … The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

At noon Peter was hungry and God gave him a vision in which He takes away the ritual laws of clean and unclean food. The shadows they represented had been replaced by the fulfillment of the law in Christ. For example, the Baptist John Bunyan (1628 to 1688) points out that we can learn from the dietary laws. He draws the analogy that animals that chew the cud show that we must feed and ruminate on the Word of God. The requirement for a divided hoof is to show we need to be separate from the sins of the world. So to chew the cud with an undivided hoof is to have knowledge of God but to lack any separation from the sins of the world, be sinful, and lack a true saving faith. On the other hand, to have a divided hoof but to not chew the cud is to have a devout religion but no saving knowledge of God’s Word. In both cases, a man or woman is unclean and unsaved. So the requirement for both chewing the cud and a divided hoof foreshadows our salvation in separation from the world by the power of God’s Word. The ritual law had purpose and still has purpose in our edification as we, who are justified in the blood of Christ, seek to obey the moral law as pleasing children of God.

Here God is using the clean and unclean animals to show that He will call those who He determines by His sovereign will to call clean and make part of the Church. Peter doesn’t fully understand at first.

Acts 10:17-23 … Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him.

The irony here is pretty extreme. Peter is in the house of a Jew whose job involves handling dead animal parts and using dog dung to process the hides into leather. I would have been scared to eat in that house. However, the ethnically gentile are outside and can’t come into the house because it is ethnically Jewish and they would make it unclean. I would have been happy to yell from the gate and stay outside all night but the first barrier is crossed as the gentiles are allowed to spend the night. After all, it isn’t like Peter and everyone in the house aren’t ritually unclean to start with. In Joppa, it was probably the ethic gentiles who had a problem with crossing the threshold. The devout soldier in particular was probably wondering if Cornelius had made a mistake. They all headed for Caesarea the next day and it is a two day trip from Joppa (one night on the road).

Acts 10:24-29 … And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

Cornelius is not sure why God sent Peter but he falls down in worship. When he saw the angel he called him “Lord” and it likely was an angel as Luke indicates. Then Cornelius inappropriately offers worship to Peter. Cornelius clearly needs discipling but of course as an uncircumcised gentile he wouldn’t be discipled.

The amazing thing is that Peter doesn’t know why he is there. He makes the point that he stepped across the threshold because God told him not to call any person common or unclean and then says, “I ask you then why you sent for me.” It is difficult for us to understand the paradigm shift required in the minds of the Jewish Christians at this point. God chose the Jews. He didn’t choose them because they were better. His choice was an undeserved blessing, unmerited blessing, or simply grace. But the promises go back to the beginning and God kept His remnant through all time and was faithful even in those times of great apostasy to keep his remnant of Jews. So the natural and logical way of thinking for Peter and other Jewish Christians was that God was going to save a remnant of the Jewish nation while the majority perished in their sins. We have read Isaiah and we know what it says but they had read it with blinders on up to this point. Jesus foreshadowed the salvation of the gentiles too but all that was opaque until the Holy Spirit began to make it clear that Israel was who God chose to make Israel.

Cornelius responds in the only way he can by telling Peter the events that led him to send for Peter but without knowing the purpose of sending for him.

Acts 10:30-33 …And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

Cornelius is smart. He has figured out that the angel wasn’t the Lord but he calls him a man. Peter has told Cornelius not to worship him and Cornelius recognizes the presence of God. Then Cornelius simply asks Peter to tell him everything that he has been commanded by the Lord.

I think Peter is working this out as he goes along and he really starts with a slightly divided Gospel assuming the devout ethic Gentiles would be blessed on the outside and the devout ethnic Jews would be blessed on the inside. Before he starts to preach he knows God wants to do something in these Gentiles but he isn’t exactly sure what that something is.

Acts 10:34-43 … So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Peter says that God shows no partiality but then immediately tells what God is doing in Israel. Cornelius used the word “Lord” and Peter says that Jesus is the Lord of all. I wonder if he hesitated when he said that. Peter does a little synopsis of current events as a witness of Christ’s resurrection. He states that God had commanded us to preach and testify to “the people” but of course until perhaps the middle of this speech he hadn’t thought that “the people” included the gentiles or he would have been preaching to them or getting somebody to do it. Finally he ends with the Gospel probably wondering what is next. These are two different cultures meeting. He does say, “Everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” I wish I could have seen his face. Somewhere in there he had to be wondering why they hadn’t preached to the gentiles if that was the Gospel.

Acts 10:44-48 … While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

Well everyone was surprised. The ethic Gentiles never saw it coming. The ethically Jewish never saw it coming even when they had been saying it. Peter realized that He can’t argue with God who had just saved the uncircumcised. Peter then ordered them to give the new Christians the testimony of baptism for what Christ had done for them. They were formerly gentiles but now they were the Children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). Peter saw that ethically gentile believers were saved just as He had see salvation for those who were ethically Jewish. Just as Peter said, Christ is the one appointed by God to judge the living and the dead and the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Christ receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Even today!