20240121 Acts 9:32-11:18 To the Gentiles also, God granted repentance that leads to Life.
Acts 9:32-11:18 presents a huge breakthrough for the mission of the church. Acts 11:18 summarizes this development, “And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
I am skipping over Acts 9:32-43 because we have covered similar texts elsewhere. In summary, since Acts 1, the gospel is going from Jerusalem and beyond reaching first the whole Promised Land.Different kinds of people are being saved. Accompanying the gospel, there are miracles that are very similar to those Jesus performed in his ministry. They show the continuity between what Jesus did and what the apostles were doing.[i]
Outline: The biggest development in Acts 9:32-11:18 is the salvation of Gentiles. It begins with (1) meals together (Acts 10:1-24) and good news for all (Acts 10:25-43), and results in the equality of all in Christ (Acts 10:44-11:18).
I want to offer two applications, the first concerns how we interpret the Old Testament Law as whole, and the second is what meals teach us about the gospel.
First, Laws are given in context and with a purpose. Peter is a Jew who believes in Jesus. He believed Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. He probably believed that being a true Jew was to believe in Jesus. He did not see himself as going from Jew to Christian. Now, he faces an obstacle. As a Jew, he knew texts like Leviticus 11:1–47 that forbid specific foods. God is teaching Peter that he has entered into a new phase of his redemptive plan. In Lev 20:25-26, one of the purposes of the food law was that Israel would remain separate from the rest of the nations. God gave Israel instructions to keep themselves separate. Many of these regulations are not moral at all. Their purpose is to separate.
God had a purpose for this separation in time and in the context of his redemptive plan. God chose Israel to bless all the families of the earth. For this, Israel had to remain Israel. God accomplished his purposes for Israel in Jesus. Jesus is the way Israel blesses all the families of the earth. Once Jesus came and died for sins, the next phase of God’s plan was for this good news to spread to the non-Jewish world. In telling Peter he can eat all foods he teaches that it is time for Israel to spread to all places and go to all people with the good news of Jesus. This is not a license to dismiss the Old Testament and the law. It is still just as much God’s word as the NT. However, we have to read it and apply it in light of the coming of Jesus. None of the non-moral aspects that kept Israel separate from the rest of the world apply to us. God’s eternal moral law was in force before God gave Israel the law and still applicable for us today (The 10 commandments).
Now, a second application, what meals teach us about the gospel. In his vision, Peter sees what the rest of the world eats. People eat anything. We view other cultures' food as strange, and other cultures think what we eat is bizarre. God gave the Jews, who believed in Jesus, permission to eat everything. This means they can have meals with everyone.
This is so important because food divides and food unites. When the gospel is shared around meals, it creates a community of people who eat meals together, share stories, and learn to follow Jesus with support and accountability in a healthy Christian community. In allowing all foods, God removes obstacles to the gospel. He is saying go share the good news with all people and eat everything they put in front of you. (For this reason we call Bacon, new covenant delight!)
The first gospel lesson in Acts 10:34-35 is that “God shows no partiality”. No one is excluded from the kingdom of God on the basis of any past sin, origin, ethnicity, disability, or family background. The good news is that God is for all. Anyone who wants to fear God and obey God is acceptable to him. To say “someone like me” could never become a Christian shows you have not understood the Christian message! All who want to come are welcome.
The second gospel lesson in Acts 10:36, is that peace has come through Jesus. Our sin is so deep that it affects our thoughts, our reasoning, our interpretation of events and communication, our longings, and our hopes. Sin creates hostility within ourselves, between each other, and with God. Sin leads to jealousy, lies, gossip, theft, violence, and war. Now, the good news is that in Christ, God brings peace. He puts an end to the hostility and the alienation. It begins today, as God changes our hearts and brings us into a new creation family, the church. The gospel changes our emotions, our thoughts, and our desires. We will experience the peace of the gospel in its fullness when we are in the New Heavens and the New Earth. There is peace today for those who come to Jesus. We began the war, but God offers peace. As benefactors of peace, we become peace makers.
The third aspect of the gospel presentation alludes to Jesus’ ministry in Acts 10:37-38. It is important to understand with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Jesus’ ministry is part of the gospel presentation. Jesus taught good news about the kingdom and demonstrated the good news. As he went about doing good, he showed his dominion over every area affected by sin. Jesus made visible the reign of God through his good works, healings, and exorcisms. We consider the good news by considering Jesus’ life and ministry.
The fourth gospel statement is in Acts 10:39-40. It is the climax of the good news message. It is Jesus' resurrection following his crucifixion. The resurrection is good news. It teaches that God’s reign is such that it even conquers death! Is there another world view that deals as adequately with the greatest fear we all have of death?
The fifth aspect of the gospel in Acts 10:41-42 is that it is shared. If we do not share good news, we are not moved enough by it. The gospel is such good news that after the resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days on the earth to teach his disciples and commission them to spread this good news. This is great news, if it was not shared, we never would have heard it!
A Sixth aspect of the gospel is that it is good news about the final judgment in Acts 10:42-43. The good news about the forgiveness of sins is good news because at the end of this age, God will judge the living and the dead. God is just and his judgment will be just. The only way to escape judgment is if God extends mercy towards us. That is what the gospel offers. It is good news concerning the forgiveness of sins. All who believe in Jesus avoid the condemnation and eternal destruction our sins deserve.
So how does all this content about the gospel connect to food? Earlier, Peter was taught he can eat with all people. Now, in his gospel presentation, he highlights what seems to be the unnecessary detail in Acts 10:41 that Jesus taught his disciples around food and drink. It is almost like Jesus was communicating, “I ate with you, now you eat with them.”
Who we eat with shows us what we believe about the gospel. The gospel is that for the forgiveness of sins, we need Jesus plus nothing. Who we have meals with communicates what we believe about the gospel deep down. Peter received the message that God shows no partiality. Later, Paul writes in Galatians, that Peter stopped eating with Gentiles. In Gal 2:14 Paul calls this separation, not in step with the truth of the gospel.
We learn that meals can be in step with the gospel and out of step with the gospel. Meals are intimate and can embody the love God has shown us. Preparing food is a service. Inviting someone into our home is an invitation into our world and kingdom. An invitation communicates you are worthy of my service, my time, and my washing up. I want you to experience something I generally only do with family.
The gospel is that God calls sinners sons and daughters. In having a meal with people, we are offering a picture of the gospel. Host those you want to share the gospel with. Welcome, feed, get to know them, love them, make sure they know you are a Christian, and go from there.
This message is consistent with the overarching story of the Bible. The promise from Gen 12:3, that all the families of the world would be blessed through Abraham and his family was coming true. Israel existed for the blessing of the world (c.f. Deut 4:6, Isa 49:6). Psalm 67 is about the salvation of all the nations. Paul writes in Gal 3:28 that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. It does not matter if you were born in a Christian home or came out of drugs, or organized crime, in Christ all are one. The same Holy Spirit fills all who repent and believe. The same way the Jewish Christians celebrated the inclusion of the Gentiles we can also celebrate diversity in the church.
Diversity includes ethnicities, male-female, socio-economic class, education, age, life experiences, temperaments, and sin patterns. The more people are different than us, the more this text invites us to celebrate. God is so great that he does not just save one kind of people but a diverse, complex, group of people. Together, we love him more fully and glorify him as we unite around his son.
Evangelism can be done through the radical practice of inviting someone to take a seat at a place generally reserved for family. Hospitality includes serving them, listening to them, loving them, and through a gospel lens, sharing about your life, your faith, your church, and how God is at work in your life.
Try this if you can. If you can think of a friend from school, university, colleague, or acquaintance that you wish could become a Christian. What if we all tried to have one meal with someone in the next three weeks? That would be revolutionary for the city of Brussels.
[i] Acts is about the spread of the gospel and the inclusion of all people. In Acts 1:8, Christ commissioned his disciples to witness in Jerusalem, Judea-Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The beginning of this mission is so successful that the High Priest accuses the apostles of filling Jerusalem with their teachings about Jesus (Acts 5:28). 3000 were converted in Acts 2. By Acts 4:4 they are up to 5000 men (c.f. Acts 5:14; 6:7). In Acts 8, the gospel spreads to Judea-Samaria. Samaritans believe (Acts 8:12-17). The Ethiopian Eunuch believes (Acts 8:29-40). Even Paul, the great persecutor of the church, has a conversion experience (Acts 9:1-31).
Acts 9:32-11:18 continues this trajectory. The gospel spread to more regions and to more people. The gospel spreads to Lydda, Sharon, Joppa, and Caesarea. These locations are not random. These are coastal towns in Western Judea. God promised these regions to Abraham. God is claiming his reign through the new creation work of the Holy Spirit. As people submit to God in their hearts, God is restoring Israel in the whole Promised Land. In Acts 9:32-43, the gospel spreads and healings accompany the message in Lydda and Joppa. The miracles testify to the truth of the message and show continuity with the earthly ministry of Jesus. In Lydda, Peter heals a paralyzed person who gets up and walks. Jesus did this in Luke 5:23-25. In Joppa, Peter calls a dead person to rise and they do. Jesus also did this. (Compare Jesus’s words to Jairus’s dead daughter, “Talitha qumi” (Mark 5:41, c.f. Luke 7:14) to Peter’s words “Tabitha qumi.”) The miracles testify to the power of God and confirm the message of salvation. Many believe in these regions (Acts 9:35, 42).
[ii] Earlier in Acts both the Samaritans were baptized; they had to wait for witnesses from Jerusalem to arrive before they received the Holy Spirit.In this case, there were witnesses so they received the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit became grounds for baptism.
I am skipping over Acts 9:32-43 because we have covered similar texts elsewhere. In summary, since Acts 1, the gospel is going from Jerusalem and beyond reaching first the whole Promised Land.Different kinds of people are being saved. Accompanying the gospel, there are miracles that are very similar to those Jesus performed in his ministry. They show the continuity between what Jesus did and what the apostles were doing.[i]
Outline: The biggest development in Acts 9:32-11:18 is the salvation of Gentiles. It begins with (1) meals together (Acts 10:1-24) and good news for all (Acts 10:25-43), and results in the equality of all in Christ (Acts 10:44-11:18).
First, through Peter’s Vision we see the importance of meals together in Acts 10:1-24.
This is the content of Acts 10:1-24. In Acts 10:1-8, a gentile, Cornelius has a vision in which an angel tells him to meet the apostle, Peter. In Acts 10:9-15, when Cornelius’ men are on their way to get Peter, Peter has a vision as well. Peter sees a great sheet descending from heaven with all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds. A voice tells Peter to kill the animals and eat them. Peter has kept the Jewish food law his whole life. Today, it would be like asking him to drive through a red light. This happened three times (Acts 10:16). The message that accompanied the vision was, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” The vision only makes sense to Peter in Acts 10:16-24, when Gentiles came knocking on his door. Peter tells Cornelius that he “should not call any person unclean” (Acts 10:28).I want to offer two applications, the first concerns how we interpret the Old Testament Law as whole, and the second is what meals teach us about the gospel.
First, Laws are given in context and with a purpose. Peter is a Jew who believes in Jesus. He believed Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. He probably believed that being a true Jew was to believe in Jesus. He did not see himself as going from Jew to Christian. Now, he faces an obstacle. As a Jew, he knew texts like Leviticus 11:1–47 that forbid specific foods. God is teaching Peter that he has entered into a new phase of his redemptive plan. In Lev 20:25-26, one of the purposes of the food law was that Israel would remain separate from the rest of the nations. God gave Israel instructions to keep themselves separate. Many of these regulations are not moral at all. Their purpose is to separate.
God had a purpose for this separation in time and in the context of his redemptive plan. God chose Israel to bless all the families of the earth. For this, Israel had to remain Israel. God accomplished his purposes for Israel in Jesus. Jesus is the way Israel blesses all the families of the earth. Once Jesus came and died for sins, the next phase of God’s plan was for this good news to spread to the non-Jewish world. In telling Peter he can eat all foods he teaches that it is time for Israel to spread to all places and go to all people with the good news of Jesus. This is not a license to dismiss the Old Testament and the law. It is still just as much God’s word as the NT. However, we have to read it and apply it in light of the coming of Jesus. None of the non-moral aspects that kept Israel separate from the rest of the world apply to us. God’s eternal moral law was in force before God gave Israel the law and still applicable for us today (The 10 commandments).
Now, a second application, what meals teach us about the gospel. In his vision, Peter sees what the rest of the world eats. People eat anything. We view other cultures' food as strange, and other cultures think what we eat is bizarre. God gave the Jews, who believed in Jesus, permission to eat everything. This means they can have meals with everyone.
This is so important because food divides and food unites. When the gospel is shared around meals, it creates a community of people who eat meals together, share stories, and learn to follow Jesus with support and accountability in a healthy Christian community. In allowing all foods, God removes obstacles to the gospel. He is saying go share the good news with all people and eat everything they put in front of you. (For this reason we call Bacon, new covenant delight!)
Second, Peter shares the good news about Jesus for all people in Acts 10:24-43
Following his vision, Cornelius gathered his relatives and close friends (Acts 10:24). He tells Peter, “We are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord” (Acts 10:33). In Acts 10:34-43, Peter shares the Christian good news. These are six lessons.The first gospel lesson in Acts 10:34-35 is that “God shows no partiality”. No one is excluded from the kingdom of God on the basis of any past sin, origin, ethnicity, disability, or family background. The good news is that God is for all. Anyone who wants to fear God and obey God is acceptable to him. To say “someone like me” could never become a Christian shows you have not understood the Christian message! All who want to come are welcome.
The second gospel lesson in Acts 10:36, is that peace has come through Jesus. Our sin is so deep that it affects our thoughts, our reasoning, our interpretation of events and communication, our longings, and our hopes. Sin creates hostility within ourselves, between each other, and with God. Sin leads to jealousy, lies, gossip, theft, violence, and war. Now, the good news is that in Christ, God brings peace. He puts an end to the hostility and the alienation. It begins today, as God changes our hearts and brings us into a new creation family, the church. The gospel changes our emotions, our thoughts, and our desires. We will experience the peace of the gospel in its fullness when we are in the New Heavens and the New Earth. There is peace today for those who come to Jesus. We began the war, but God offers peace. As benefactors of peace, we become peace makers.
The third aspect of the gospel presentation alludes to Jesus’ ministry in Acts 10:37-38. It is important to understand with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Jesus’ ministry is part of the gospel presentation. Jesus taught good news about the kingdom and demonstrated the good news. As he went about doing good, he showed his dominion over every area affected by sin. Jesus made visible the reign of God through his good works, healings, and exorcisms. We consider the good news by considering Jesus’ life and ministry.
The fourth gospel statement is in Acts 10:39-40. It is the climax of the good news message. It is Jesus' resurrection following his crucifixion. The resurrection is good news. It teaches that God’s reign is such that it even conquers death! Is there another world view that deals as adequately with the greatest fear we all have of death?
The fifth aspect of the gospel in Acts 10:41-42 is that it is shared. If we do not share good news, we are not moved enough by it. The gospel is such good news that after the resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days on the earth to teach his disciples and commission them to spread this good news. This is great news, if it was not shared, we never would have heard it!
A Sixth aspect of the gospel is that it is good news about the final judgment in Acts 10:42-43. The good news about the forgiveness of sins is good news because at the end of this age, God will judge the living and the dead. God is just and his judgment will be just. The only way to escape judgment is if God extends mercy towards us. That is what the gospel offers. It is good news concerning the forgiveness of sins. All who believe in Jesus avoid the condemnation and eternal destruction our sins deserve.
So how does all this content about the gospel connect to food? Earlier, Peter was taught he can eat with all people. Now, in his gospel presentation, he highlights what seems to be the unnecessary detail in Acts 10:41 that Jesus taught his disciples around food and drink. It is almost like Jesus was communicating, “I ate with you, now you eat with them.”
Who we eat with shows us what we believe about the gospel. The gospel is that for the forgiveness of sins, we need Jesus plus nothing. Who we have meals with communicates what we believe about the gospel deep down. Peter received the message that God shows no partiality. Later, Paul writes in Galatians, that Peter stopped eating with Gentiles. In Gal 2:14 Paul calls this separation, not in step with the truth of the gospel.
We learn that meals can be in step with the gospel and out of step with the gospel. Meals are intimate and can embody the love God has shown us. Preparing food is a service. Inviting someone into our home is an invitation into our world and kingdom. An invitation communicates you are worthy of my service, my time, and my washing up. I want you to experience something I generally only do with family.
The gospel is that God calls sinners sons and daughters. In having a meal with people, we are offering a picture of the gospel. Host those you want to share the gospel with. Welcome, feed, get to know them, love them, make sure they know you are a Christian, and go from there.
Third, the gospel teaches that all are equal in Christ in Acts 10:44-11:18.
In Acts 10:44-48, following Peter’s gospel presentation, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. The stress is that God accepts Gentiles like he accepts Jews. According to Acts 11:6, Peter brought 6 witnesses with him. This is twice the number required by the law of Moses (Deut 19:15). This is to insist that these events took place. The Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles (Acts 10:45) and they were speaking in tongues and extolling God (Acts 10:64//Acts 2:11).[ii] The gift of the Holy Spirit shows that God accepts Gentiles equally. When the rest of the Jewish Christians heard that the Gentiles received the same gift of the Spirit (Acts 11:1-17), “they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’” (Acts 11:18)This message is consistent with the overarching story of the Bible. The promise from Gen 12:3, that all the families of the world would be blessed through Abraham and his family was coming true. Israel existed for the blessing of the world (c.f. Deut 4:6, Isa 49:6). Psalm 67 is about the salvation of all the nations. Paul writes in Gal 3:28 that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. It does not matter if you were born in a Christian home or came out of drugs, or organized crime, in Christ all are one. The same Holy Spirit fills all who repent and believe. The same way the Jewish Christians celebrated the inclusion of the Gentiles we can also celebrate diversity in the church.
Diversity includes ethnicities, male-female, socio-economic class, education, age, life experiences, temperaments, and sin patterns. The more people are different than us, the more this text invites us to celebrate. God is so great that he does not just save one kind of people but a diverse, complex, group of people. Together, we love him more fully and glorify him as we unite around his son.
Conclusion
We first saw in Acts 2:41-47 that God intends meals to be part of growing his church. Meals and hospitality are God’s plan for evangelism, discipleship, and counseling. We must have meals with people within the church and outside. Evangelism can be an event where you go out in the streets and offer a presentation of what God has done in Christ for the forgiveness of sins for all who believe.Evangelism can be done through the radical practice of inviting someone to take a seat at a place generally reserved for family. Hospitality includes serving them, listening to them, loving them, and through a gospel lens, sharing about your life, your faith, your church, and how God is at work in your life.
Try this if you can. If you can think of a friend from school, university, colleague, or acquaintance that you wish could become a Christian. What if we all tried to have one meal with someone in the next three weeks? That would be revolutionary for the city of Brussels.
[i] Acts is about the spread of the gospel and the inclusion of all people. In Acts 1:8, Christ commissioned his disciples to witness in Jerusalem, Judea-Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The beginning of this mission is so successful that the High Priest accuses the apostles of filling Jerusalem with their teachings about Jesus (Acts 5:28). 3000 were converted in Acts 2. By Acts 4:4 they are up to 5000 men (c.f. Acts 5:14; 6:7). In Acts 8, the gospel spreads to Judea-Samaria. Samaritans believe (Acts 8:12-17). The Ethiopian Eunuch believes (Acts 8:29-40). Even Paul, the great persecutor of the church, has a conversion experience (Acts 9:1-31).
Acts 9:32-11:18 continues this trajectory. The gospel spread to more regions and to more people. The gospel spreads to Lydda, Sharon, Joppa, and Caesarea. These locations are not random. These are coastal towns in Western Judea. God promised these regions to Abraham. God is claiming his reign through the new creation work of the Holy Spirit. As people submit to God in their hearts, God is restoring Israel in the whole Promised Land. In Acts 9:32-43, the gospel spreads and healings accompany the message in Lydda and Joppa. The miracles testify to the truth of the message and show continuity with the earthly ministry of Jesus. In Lydda, Peter heals a paralyzed person who gets up and walks. Jesus did this in Luke 5:23-25. In Joppa, Peter calls a dead person to rise and they do. Jesus also did this. (Compare Jesus’s words to Jairus’s dead daughter, “Talitha qumi” (Mark 5:41, c.f. Luke 7:14) to Peter’s words “Tabitha qumi.”) The miracles testify to the power of God and confirm the message of salvation. Many believe in these regions (Acts 9:35, 42).
[ii] Earlier in Acts both the Samaritans were baptized; they had to wait for witnesses from Jerusalem to arrive before they received the Holy Spirit.In this case, there were witnesses so they received the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit became grounds for baptism.
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