Acts 11:1-18
Lesson Focus:
God sometimes shatters our notions of what or who is unclean and worthy of God’s salvation.
Lesson Outcomes:
Through this lesson students should:
Understand that it was a shocking thing for Gentiles to receive the Holy Spirit.
Understand that God has opened the doors to the Kingdom to people we would often reject.
Seek to continually discern what God has made clean.
Catching up on the story:
The movement of the good news out from its center in Jerusalem has been steadily marching forward. On the day of Pentecost many in that city came to believe in Jesus. The message has moved on to Judaea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth, courtesy of Philip’s obedience to the Holy Spirit. As the story begins to move forward, we begin to focus back in on Peter and his movements.
Peter remained in Joppa after he raised Tabitha from the dead. His host was a man named Simon, who was a tanner. Tanners, by trade, are an unclean lot. They deal with dead animals and prepare hides to be used as leather. Peter, for his part, has no problems staying with Simon and receiving his hospitality. While he was praying on Simon’s roof, Peter had a vision of all kinds of animals being lowered out of the sky on a sheet. He is told to get up, kill and eat. Three times this happens and three times Peter refuses because he has never eaten anything unclean.
At that same time men came from Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian cohort, to ask Peter to come to share with them the good news. An angel had prompted them to send men to Peter; they even were told where Peter was staying. Peter immediately gets up and goes with the men. Upon proclaiming the good news to Cornelius and his family they all believe and the Holy Spirit falls upon them. Peter baptizes the whole lot. The ministry to the Gentiles has officially begun. Only, some will want to question Peter about his behavior.
The Text:
The sheer amount of space that this narrative takes up, both Peter’s report to the church in Jerusalem (11:1-19) and the incident itself (10:1-48) testify to the importance that this story held in the life of this new faith community. Add on top of this the length of the narrative and its repetitive nature, what you get is a significant amount of stress placed on this story. The gospel, while not turning away from the Jews, will now turn toward the Gentiles.
The Concern: 11:1-3
Word of Peter’s encounter with Cornelius and his family quickly spread all the way back to the church in Jerusalem. It would have been a remarkable thing for those who were devout Jews to believe that God’s salvation could rest on Gentiles. Peter has apparently made his way back to Jerusalem from Caesarea where Cornelius lived.
In Jerusalem at the time, and in other places too, there were sects of believers who maintained that in order for people to be true followers of Jesus they must also adhere to the strict Jewish social and dietary laws, including circumcision. Luke here describes that group as the “circumcised believers.” Circumcision, of course, being the main mark of the Jewish people, it was one of the signs that set them apart.
Luke tells us that this group of believers began to “criticize” Peter. The word translated here as “criticize” carries with it more than just a notion of being critical of a person’s behavior. Today, when we often encounter this word, it is used to describe someone speaking very badly about another person’s behavior. Here, however, it carries with it the idea that those in the circumcision group wanted to examine and discern, with grater proximity, Peter’s intentions and motives in fellowshipping with these “uncircumcised men.”
At first glance, this circumcision group wants to know why Peter has eaten with Cornelius. It was forbidden to eat with a Gentile. Some believe that eating with Gentiles was just a foil for the main argument of converts accepting all of the Jewish law (Willimon, 99). They would have not had a problem with allowing Gentiles to be welcomed into this new way that follows Jesus. They would, however, had insisted that these Gentiles become circumcised first and agree to follow all of the Jewish laws, which Cornelius and his family had not done. Regardless of their motives, Peter is brought before the church in Jerusalem and questioned.
Peter’s Response: 11:4-17
Peter begins by offering a step-by-step account of his encounter with Cornelius. He explains that he was in Joppa praying when he fell into a trance and had a vision. He recounts the sheet that was filled with all kinds of animals and the voice that told him to get up, kill and eat. Peter tells them of the voice he heard each time the sheet was lowered, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
At the end of the vision, three men came to him to invite him to Caesarea. The Spirit told him to “not make a distinction between them and us.” Here, for distinction, the same root word is being used that was used to describe how the circumcision group wanted to examine Peter. The sense here is that Peter is being instructed to not make a close examination or judgment of Cornelius and his family.
The way Peter tells the story it is very clear that the whole meeting has been orchestrated by God. The vision that Peter has on the roof, coupled with the vision that Cornelius has of an angel telling him to send to Joppa to find Peter so that he might “give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.” both are a result of God’s interjection into the story. Peter and Cornelius are both passive characters in this story. No doubt, they are both obedient, yet they are being directed by God so that God’s will may be done. As we noted in the story about Saul’s conversion, repentance is not something we do on our own initiative. It is something that God brings to us, that God orchestrates for us so that we might respond and turn toward God. Cornelius will repent because God has come near to him.
Peter recounts that, as he began to speak, yet before he had completed his message, the Holy Spirit fell upon his hearers. Peter also makes what would have been a shocking comparison for his inquisitors: the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his family in the same way it had fallen on the disciples at the beginning. This is not a second-thought filling of the Holy Spirit, or a cut-rate filling; it is the real, genuine deal.
As this all was happening Peter recalls the words of Jesus, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Certainly this was what was happening at this moment. Peter rounds out his defense with a simple observation. If God was going to give the same gift to the Gentiles as he had given to the Jews, then who was he to disagree with what God was doing in front of him. Peter, as he sees it, has absolutely no room to disagree with the grace of God being poured out on Gentiles. With that, Peter is finished.
The Church’s Response: 11:18
Upon hearing Peter’s report, they are all convinced, although the issue of circumcision and Gentile inclusion into the Christian faith will rise again in chapter 15. The news of this gift of God to the Gentiles is greeted with praise. God has given the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life. Praise and thanks to God is always the right response when we see that God’s grace and forgiveness has been given to others, especially when we have believed that those others should not or could not benefit from it. We recall here the indignant elder brother in Luke 15 who did not praise and give thanks when the younger brother received grace.
So What…?
What we find in this passage is a remarkable turn of the good news toward the Gentiles. The magnitude of this shift for Jewish believers is probably lost on us today. With the benefit of two thousand years of hindsight, not to mention most of us being Gentiles ourselves, we see this shift as a commonplace, perhaps even expected.
The reality for Peter, and those who wish to know his motives in Jerusalem, is that this is downright shocking. How could God offer the same salvation and redemption to outsiders? Had not Israel, even though they had been unfaithful at times, been the promised recipients of God’s love and faithfulness? And now they have to share?
The line in the story that sticks out like a sore thumb is found in verse 9, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.” It leaves the door wide open for God to declare just about anything clean, and that’s just a little bit frightening because when we know what’s clean and what isn’t, we feel safe. When the line isn’t so clear, it throws us into an existential crisis.
Perhaps the question for us today is: who has God made clean that we still see as unclean? What kind of people do we keep insisting are dirty, and by doing so, quarter off them off so that they cannot participate in the table fellowship of our community of faith? This is not a call to throw caution to the wind, accepting everything without discernment. We must still seek to guide ourselves and others in moral integrity. It is, however, a call to examine what or who we have deemed unclean and to ask this question: is there room in God’s Kingdom for them? Peter is asked this question and, thankfully, he answered yes; yes there is room in God’s Kingdom for the Gentiles.
Critical Discussion Questions:
What does God look like in this text/Who is God in this text/What is God doing in this text?
God is opening wide the doors to the Kingdom of God. He has decided that all people, even the Gentiles, get to receive his love, grace and forgiveness. It’s a bit shocking.
What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?
Holiness looks like a continual process of discerning who God has deemed clean and moving toward ensuring that those people receive full inclusion in God’s Church. Holiness is paying attention to what God is going, discerning where God is moving so that we can stay in step with him.
How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?
This story calls us to reexamine the lines of clean and unclean that we have drawn for our community. We must spend time in prayer and discernment asking our selves where and in whom God is moving. Then we must seek to get in step with God.
Specific Discussion Questions:
Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
Review Acts 10. What is the main point of that chapter?
Why would some be upset about Peter preaching to and baptizing Gentiles?
Peter, while he is praying, sees a vision of animals on a sheet and hears a voice telling him to get up, kill and eat. What is Peter’s hesitation in obeying the voice?
How would you react if you had a similar vision, where a collection of things you might deem “unclean” were offered to you? What would you do?
After Cornelius’ men come to Peter, the Spirit tells him to not “make a distinction between them and us.” What distinction is being talked about here? Why would it matter?
Peter tells us that as he was preaching the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles as it had upon the disciples at the beginning. To what beginning is Peter referring? What does this say about this round of Spirit giving?
Peter cannot deny that God has chosen to include these “unclean” Gentiles in the repentance that leads to life. Who or what types of things might we classify as “unclean” that God might not?
How do we know what God has now made clean? Do you think we ever call people that God calls clean, unclean?
Works Cited:
William H Willimon, Acts, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
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