Acts of the Apostles 10:34-43
These verses from chapter 10 of the Book of Acts feature a great deal in the coming weeks. They do so because a great truth is revealed in them. God’s intention was for all humanity to be saved, not just, as had previously been the case, his chosen people, the Israelites.
Peter is challenged to unlearn (clumsy word, I know) everything he has learnt as a child and a young man about God’s people keeping a barrier between themselves and the “unclean” – non-believers. Think how frightening that must have been for him? He was being led by God to break the very taboos that had until that point given him his identity, enabled him to belong to the community, and governed his everyday living. In this story, Luke is telling us, Peter reached out to non-Jews (Cornelius the Roman centurion and his household) and in that encounter the power of the Holy Spirit came to the Gentiles.
It is the fulfilment of the words from chapter one where Jesus says to his disciples, after the Resurrection, “ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”
These verses from chapter 10 of the Book of Acts feature a great deal in the coming weeks. They do so because a great truth is revealed in them. God’s intention was for all humanity to be saved, not just, as had previously been the case, his chosen people, the Israelites.
Peter is challenged to unlearn (clumsy word, I know) everything he has learnt as a child and a young man about God’s people keeping a barrier between themselves and the “unclean” – non-believers. Think how frightening that must have been for him? He was being led by God to break the very taboos that had until that point given him his identity, enabled him to belong to the community, and governed his everyday living. In this story, Luke is telling us, Peter reached out to non-Jews (Cornelius the Roman centurion and his household) and in that encounter the power of the Holy Spirit came to the Gentiles.
It is the fulfilment of the words from chapter one where Jesus says to his disciples, after the Resurrection, “ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”