Posted by
aurorawatcher on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 11:12:16 AM
One of my former pastors was a gear-head who bought a cool sports car used, fixed it up and drove it on pastoral visits. On occasion, it would be reported to members of the church that the car had been seen outside this or that bar and weren’t we concerned with the company our pastor was keeping. Of course, we all knew that PW was a very sincere man who was incapable to telling a falsehood, so when asked point-blank, “Were you drinking alcohol in the Mecca?” we could be assured that his answer of “No” was truthful. He had reasons for being there, primarily that Native churches often have members who are recovering alcoholics who, when they fall off the wagon, return to drinking and their old haunts. Sometimes their spouses would call, once in a while the bartender or a concerned patron would call, sometimes they themselves would call, but usually too deeply entangled to remove themselves from the situation. PW would go get them, get them home, take them to rehab, take their car keys, etc. Some of those people are now active and very sober members of our congregation. Understanding that sometimes ministry to challenging populations means taking some social risks, our church never “called him on the carpet” the way Peter would be called to account in Acts 11. We understood that appearances aren’t always reality.
Peter lived in a society where appearances were everything. His fellow Jews took the laws surrounding ceremonial cleanness very seriously. To violate them in even a small way meant you could not worship God (in the Temple, which was the only place “good” Jews believed you could really worship God). Even associating with someone who was ceremonially unclean could result in ceremonial uncleanness and banishment from the Temple. His fellow apostles were still very Jewish in their thinking and very concerned with worshipping God. Thus, evangelizing Gentiles (who were always considered ceremonially unclean) put Peter in hot water with his brethren.
Peter had referred to his actions as illegal, which was true if one gave weight to Jewish interpretation and application of the Old Testament laws (Acts 10:28). Peter was neck-deep in risky business accompanying Gentiles to a Gentile house then remaining as their guest for several days. Peter himself had initially refused to partake of anything “unclean”, showing the rift between Gentiles and Jews. The two could not touch one another. Peter’s change of mind and heart becomes a turning point for the church in Jerusalem in its attitudes and actions toward Gentile converts.
Throughout the Old Testament and then during Jesus’ ministry, there had been hints that the gospel message applied to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, but the Jews seem to have had difficulty with that concept. They left Jerusalem only when persecution forced them to do so. The revival in Samaria caused Peter to leave the close confines of his very Jewish church and to travel and do things he would not normally have done. As news returned to Jerusalem, perhaps in advance of Peter’s arrival, the apostles heard only partial information. Gentiles had receive the word and been saved? They were amazed at this news. Peter had stayed with them and even eaten with them? Oh, my! This sounded untoward. The apostles were shocked that one of their own would sully himself so. Didn’t Peter know how this might affect the reception of the gospel among Jews? Now that made them angry. He hadn’t discussed this course of action with them and it really did sound like he’d gone too far.
The New Jerusalem Bible aptly catches the tone of this anger and frustration with Peter:
“The apostles and the brothers in Judaea heard that the pagans too had accepted the word of God, and when Peter came up to Jerusalem the Jews criticized him and said, “So you have been visiting the uncircumcised and eating with them, have you?” Acts 11:1-3, (New Jerusalem Bible)
I found myself wondering where the rejoicing was. People were coming to the Lord. Why were the apostles angry in that circumstance? Why the strong negative reaction to the conversion of Cornelius and those Gentiles in his house?
I believe the root of the opposition rests with the opposition itself. Christians are not perfect and we do not become perfect when we accept the Lord. We bring our baggage with us. Peter had not done this in the “usual way.” The Old Testament had provided a means for a Gentile to become a Jew through the process of becoming a proselyte. There may already have been some Christians who had come to the church in this fashion. Because they were Jews before their conversion, they were not considered to be Gentiles. Peter, however, preached the gospel to the Gentiles as Gentiles. Cornelius and his household were received into the faith as Gentiles. They’d skipped Judaism altogether. Salvation suddenly didn’t seem to be just for Jews anymore.
First, Peter was no longer ceremonially clean, which meant that interaction with him might make the other apostles ceremonially unclean, preventing them from worshiping in the Temple. Second, however, was the very real difficulty of Jews simply not liking Gentiles. They practiced purity in a way to justify their prejudice (something that still occurs today), but what it really came down to was that Gentiles were different and they didn’t like that. Of course, the whole lesson here was that “what God cleansed, man must not regard as unclean.” This referred to the food animals, but more, it referred to salvation. If a Gentile were saved, then a Gentile was also clean. If clean, then the Jewish Christians could not refuse to fellowship with him. Salvation requires fellowship and Jews, even believing ones, did not want to fellowship with Gentiles.
Second, Peter acted independently of the apostles and did not seek their approval. In a precedent-setting move, he had obligated all of them to a course that the rest of them seem to think was wrong. To a certain extent, they were right to be consternated, because if they felt revulsion and discomfiture at interacting with Gentiles, they also knew that the unbelieving Jews, particularly the Pharisees, would experience a strong reaction to this news. Christianity was still largely a sect of Judaism. By admitting Gentiles as Gentiles, Peter was turning it to something else. This difficulty would eventually culminate in the Jerusalem Council.
Peter was asked to give an account of himself and his actions in Caesarea. His defense was “God made me do it!”
Peter described his vision while in Joppa – how he’d seen something like a sheet being lowered from the sky, how there’d been four-footed animals, wild beasts, crawling creatures and birds on it. A voice had called him by name and told him to kill and eat, but Peter had been firm, for he had never eaten anything unclean before and there were apparently unclean animals on that sheet. The voice had insisted that “what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” Three times (the number three was considered significant by Jews as an indication of God’s presence) this process occurred and then the sheet was drawn back into heaven. Just as the vision completely, three men from Cornelius arrived at Simon the tanner’s door requesting Peter to go with them and the Spirit had told him to do so without misgivings. Peter had taken others with him and had heard Cornelius’ vision concerning Peter.
“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He did upon us at the beginning. “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ “If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” Acts 11:15-17
Peter did not defend himself so much as he presented the details of his actions and placed the “blame” on God. Who was Peter to argue with God? God had determined to do this and Peter was determined to align his actions with God’s plans. God thought and acted differently from Peter and it was Peter who needed to adjust, not God. Peter focused on what God had taught him through this experience. God had worked with both Peter and Cornelius to bring about this meeting. Peter had preached the same gospel that he’d preached to Jews. The Holy Spirit dramatically bore witness to the salvation of the Gentiles, visibly baptizing them in the presence of Peter and his six Jewish companions in a way similar to Pentecost.
The events surrounding the salvation of Cornelius and his household were all of God’s doing, Peter testified. He just obeyed what God had told him to do. Peter noted that he hadn’t even finished his sermon before the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius and his household.
“If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17).
For Peter to have done anything other than what he did would have been for him to stand in God’s way. Peter did not initiate anything; he responded to the clear directives and actions of God. Peter simply conformed to God’s way, obeying that which God had clearly revealed he must both think and do.
“And when they heard this, they quieted down, and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” Acts 11:18
This one verse is vitally important, for it reveals to us what the real error was in the thinking of both the Jews and Jewish Christians. The apostles came to understand that the primary issue was the gospel and the salvation of the Gentiles, not any Jewish ceremonial law. They don’t even mention food or eating as they conclude the matter. Ceremonial cleanness would continue to be an important issue with the Jewish Christian community, but it was not the central issue. Fellowship was a secondary matter to the gospel. Our lifestyle choices are dictated by the gospel, not the other way around. Peter seems to have forgotten this by the time that Galatians was written, but in his rebuke of Peter, Paul emphasized that Peter’s error was a functional denial of the gospel. Peter fell back into old habits, forgetting the lessons he’d learned.
Now we see rejoicing as the apostles stopped complaining to give glory to God. Salvation was the Lord’s to give as He saw fit and they recognized that the Gentiles had been saved as Gentiles through God’s sovereign action.
This is a crucial event in the development of Acts because it shows that God had purposed the salvation of the Gentiles. The saints had been slow of heart to move beyond the “salvation is for the Jew only” mode, but God had made it clear that He was having none of that. The prejudice of the Jerusalem “circumcised saints” with regard to the Gentiles goes a long ways in explaining the refusal of other Jerusalem saints to preach the good news to Gentiles (Acts 11:19). Conversely, the precedent of Peter and Cornelius does much to explain the response of the church at Jerusalem to news of the salvation of many in Antioch (11:22).
It should be noted that Peter relied on the Holy Spirit here, but that the Holy Spirit does not immediately produce instant maturity, doctrinal accuracy or spirituality in individual Christians or the churches they attend. The Book of Acts strongly testifies against such an idea. We see the Holy Spirit working in the apostles at Pentecost when they were empowered to proclaim the gospel, but they were not immediately delivered from their prejudice toward Gentiles nor were they immediately tuned in to God’s purpose and command that the gospel be preached to all men of every nation. Their slowness of heart shows that God does not instantly perfect His saints. Sanctification remains necessary. The Spirit of God works through processes as well as through immediate changes. We do well to remember that and cut ourselves and our fellow Christians some slack. God’s not finished with us yet.
The passage points us to the essence of the gospel and its necessary expressions. The central issue in the salvation of Cornelius was the gospel. The gospel is God’s promise and God’s possession; it is therefore His to give to whomever He chooses. The gospel is for sinners, Jew or Gentile. The gospel is God’s means of providing salvation for the whole world, and not just for the Jews. It was for them to accept then to proclaim to the nations. Salvation came through the Jews, because Jesus was a Jew, a “seed of Abraham” (Genesis 12:1-3; Galatians 3:16), and it was through Him that salvation was made available for all mankind. Those who are saved have nothing to boast about, other than in what Christ did to save us. Those who obtain salvation are to think of themselves as stewards of the gospel, with the responsibility and duty of sharing it with others. The grace of God is the grace which should characterize those who have obtained salvation through it. Thus, the saint should rejoice in the salvation of any sinner.
The reluctance of the Jewish Christians to preach the gospel to the Gentiles is strikingly similar to the reticence of today’s saints to carry the gospel to “sinners.” We are as selective in our evangelism as the Jewish saints were. The Jewish saints didn’t like Gentiles, so avoided contact and intimacy with them. We today are afraid if we share the gospel with a heathen, we might have to accept that person into our fellowship or, gulp, invite them home to dinner. Think about it! How many of us would willingly invite a drug addict, homosexual, etc., to our home? Yeah, we might do so after they’ve accepted Christ and spent a few years cleaning themselves up, but would we do it if they were fresh from their sin? Those we want to keep away from are often those who need the gospel most and would, surprisingly, be the most receptive. Why is it that we, like the disciples, are quick to tell our relative and friends about Jesus, and so slow to share Christ with those whose lifestyles we disdain?
Because the scope of the gospel is universal, there is no Biblical basis for categorically excluding any group. I know of groups within Christianity who dogmatically believe that homosexuals, as a group, are excluded from the gospel because they have already fallen under God’s wrath. Yet Paul referred to this group of sinners as those among other groups of sinners, all of which had had some plucked from their sin by faith in Jesus Christ (1Corinthians 6:9-11).
The church was never intended to be a club of homogeneity. There was never supposed to be a Jewish church or a Gentile church and there should not be black churches and white churches today. Yes, there may be some ethnic, language-based missions, but churches should recognize that often language-based ethnic congregations come with English-speaking spouses and children who require an English-based church in order to fellowship and grow. Perhaps instead of creating stand-alone missions that only meet the needs of one or two members of a family, churches should promote side missions that allow all members of a church to attend on the same campus, just in collateral congregations. Sadly, most successful churches today subscribe to the “birds of a feather flock together” scenario. I think it is to their detriment, because even churches that establish mission churches still fail to reach the English-speaking members of their congregant families. This is why my church has remained an odd patchwork quilt church that provides both language-based missions and English services. We did it by accident, but kept it on purpose. Diversity within a congregation is a good thing. God can bring diverse people groups together for their spiritual health.
If we will only allow it.