36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues[b] and praising God.
Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.
Dig Deeper
A few years back the church at which I now minister had a member of the church family who happened to be a player for the local professional NFL team in our area. That was before we moved here but many of the people who are still in our church family here knew him and his wife (he was injured and eventually retired from professional football before moving back home). I thought about that recently, though, when my youngest son asked me about going up to the stadium and maybe catching a game. He said that he would like to watch the game and then go into the locker room and meet the players. That’s a great idea, but of course I had to explain to him that we didn’t have tickets and couldn’t afford to buy any. Then he thought that perhaps we could just go up to the stadium and go into the locker room without getting tickets for the game and going to that. What he didn’t realize is that there is no way that we could ever get into that locker room. We could try and plead and beg and do everything else that came to mind but they would not let us anywhere near the locker room. We are not members of the team and you don’t get in unless you are a member.
But the brother that I mentioned was a member of the Green Bay Packers. He could go into the locker room whenever he felt like it because he belonged to the team. Of course no one else in the church at the time was a member of the Packers and so they could not go in even if they wanted to. But from time to time, this player would take a couple of disciples from the church with him into the locker room. They could go where they normally would not have been allowed simply because he told the security guards that they were with him. Because he belonged, he had the right to bring them in with him and his endorsement signified to the security people that it was okay for them to enter. Any of the normal objections would be voided by the fact that he had vouched for them.
Now that’s not a perfect analogy, analogies never are perfect, but it does start to help us understand some of the confusing aspects of this scene here. We can easily recall passages like Acts 2:38 where it is promised that all who enter into the life of Christ through repentance and baptism will receive the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But here, at first glance at least, it looks as though the Spirit is being given before baptism. That can be confusing for some folks. But first we must remember that there is an important difference between the Spirit of sonship that we receive at baptism, that subtle indwelling that guides us through the process of growing into Christ’s family and being transformed into the image of Christ, and the outpouring of the Spirit that enabled people to display the miraculous gifts of the Spirit as a verifier of the truth of their message. It is the difference between the “gift” of the Spirit and the” gifts” of the Spirit.
The reality is that what is going here is not at all confusing when we look at it from the perspective of the above analogy. The Gentiles could not previously enter into God’s family but they would be allowed now. And just so that there was no confusion and no arguments, one who belonged to the family, the Spirit of God himself, would vouch for them. The Holy Spirit would give them his special outpouring, something that for the early church usually only came through the laying on of hands by the apostles. But this was not a normative event. This was a once-and-for-all opening of the door to the Gentiles that was similar in its magnitude to the outpouring of the Spirit that came upon the apostles in Acts 2 at Pentecost. He poured himself out on them, enabling them to perform signs and speak in tongues to show that the door to God’s family really was opening and that people really could be baptized into God’s family. He was pouring himself out on these Gentiles now to vouch for them and show the Jewish Christians that God’s family door was opening to them as well. If the Spirit had vouched for them then they all they could really do was to endorse the Spirit’s call and baptize these folks into God’s family.
Throughout Peter’s speech to the household and friends of Cornelius he continues to stress that everything that has happened and everything that he was claiming about Jesus Christ was a result of God. Cornelius was not a Jew but he was a God-fearer. He was one who had been staring in through the shop window for a long time and had liked what he had seen about Judaism but he could not realistically become a member of God’s family. So Peter makes it clear to him that this was the same God. Everything that Cornelius admired and desired about this God had come to fulfillment through Jesus Christ, and what was more was that he no longer had to stand on the outside and look in admiringly. He and all other Gentiles could finally come in.
At every turn in this section, Peter brings out that the promised salvation that would make people of all nations God’s people had come through the agency of Jesus Christ but it was orchestrated through the hand of God. It becomes clear that when Peter referred to God, he was primarily referring to the Father whose role is to appoint and ordain the actions of the Son and the Spirit. God sent Jesus Christ to announce peace to the people of Israel. He, through the power of the Holy Spirit, went around showing people that he truly was the Messiah, but he was able to do all that because God was with him. He was put to death on a cross, but God raised him from the dead. This was not an event that was witnessed by all people but was witnessed by those whom God chose to serve as witnesses to his resurrection to the rest of the world. They were the ones that were appointed to preach that God had appointed Jesus Christ as the judge of the living and the dead.
Finally, said Peter, all of the prophets testified about Jesus, declaring that everyone who believes in him would receive forgiveness of sins through his name and life. The person who insists on finding a specific prophecy or passage that makes this exact statement will have some trouble. Peter was not claiming any such thing. He was not claiming that there was a specific passage in the Old Testament that made this prophecy. His point was that the whole of the Old Testament promises that came through all the prophets pointed to this exact concept. God’s people would always be built on faith and the specific expression of that faith would come through dying to self and having resurrection faith in the life of Jesus Christ (see Romans 4 where Paul expounds upon this exact idea).
It appears that verse 43 was not the end of what Peter was planning to say because he was interrupted by the Holy Spirit. We can speculate that perhaps Peter was ramping up to give a similar call to Acts 2:38 where he called his listeners to repent and be baptized in Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But God knew how challenging this was going to be for the Jewish Christians and the watching Jewish world. Many would have a hard time accepting the entrance of Gentiles into the family of God based solely on being baptized into Christ and reception of the subtle but powerful gift of the indwelling Spirit. They were so conditioned to think of things like circumcision and following the Law as one’s uniform of the people of God. It would have been easy for them to continue to question the validity of the Gentile believers and to eventually splinter God’s people into two groups of Christians. But this would have gone against the very point of God creating his one people out of the two (Eph. 2:11-22).
In fact, this was such a challenging concept that the Spirit considerately stepped in and gave a clear sign that God was accepting the Gentiles just as they were based on nothing more than their belief and baptism into the life of Christ. What God was calling clean, no man should call unclean. That this was a monumentally difficult acceptance for Jewish Christians is evidenced by much of the rest of the New Testament. Books such as Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans have the difficulty of fully accepting Gentiles into God’s family despite not being circumcised or following the Law as a primary theme. And that is after the Holy Spirit broke in upon the Gentiles and poured out the miraculous gifts upon them.
Some have wondered, though, if the Spirit coming upon them meant that the Gentiles were already saved without really needing to be baptized into Christ through water baptism. In some ways this speaks more to our Western need to break everything down into its smallest parts to understand it, and usually winds up in us separating things out that don’t need to separated from one another. But this passage has led to so much confusion for some that it is probably a legitimate question to consider. The key, as mentioned above, is to understand the difference between the outpouring of the Spirit and the indwelling. Even in Old Testament times, the Spirit would occasionally come upon one person or a small group of people in a special act and enable them to partake (including someone like King Saul who was certainly not a man after God’s own heart but could be used occasionally for God’s purposes), however temporarily, in specific work of God. This practice would continue for a brief time after the coming of Christ. But this is separate to the gift of the indwelling Spirit that was received only when one entered into Christ and received a new heart through the work of God’s own Spirit (Ezek. 36:26). What the Gentiles received, then, in the outpouring of the Spirit and the ability to demonstrate the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, was not entrance into the family of God. It was a voucher from the Holy Spirit. It was a one-time, non-normative event that was showing God’s people that this group of non-Jews really did belong into God’s family. The only thing that one needs to enter into the life of Christ through baptism is faith in his life; nothing more and nothing less.
Devotional Thought
Chances are pretty good that you are a Gentile. Have you really ever spent some time thinking deeply about the great lengths that God went through to bring you into his family. Not just as a Gentile but even as an individual. Spend some time today praying through your own salvation story and how God brought you into his family. Express your deep gratitude for how much he has done to bring you into his family.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Acts 10:17-35 Commentary
17 While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three[a] men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22 The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.
Dig Deeper
Not all that many years ago a young woman that I know was born into a family many miles away from where I was born. She was, it goes without saying I guess, born into a different family than mine. Once that happened that was it. Once you’re born into family, of course, you cannot go back and be born into another family. And so there it was. She and I were part of a different family and would remain that way all while growing up. We never met while growing up, but we finally did meet almost 17 years ago now. It didn’t take too long for that beautiful young lady and I to decide that we wanted to get married and be together for the remainder of our lives. We did so and we got married and something rather interesting happened during that wedding. Based on nothing more than being married to me, my wife became a member of the Burns family. She had not been born into but she was now as much a Burns as I was. Yet, in many ways she was very different than any of the other Burns family members. She is not related by blood to any of the Burns’ and she couldn’t really change that. All of the Burns ancestors are white and my wife is black but she could not change that. She doesn’t have the same sort of characteristics and attitude that seem to be something of a hallmark of Burns women and she did not need to change that. She is a member of the family.
My wife was accepted into the family despite all of that because she was my wife and for that reason alone. Can you imagine, though, if my family had reluctantly accepted that she had become my wife but did not really accept her as part of the family? Oh, she could marry me, and that was all fine and good, but what if they still didn’t view her as part of the family? What if they began to tell her that it was nice that she had married me but to truly be part of the Burns family there were a few things that would have to be taken care of? First, she would need to go through a series of treatments to whiten her skin because Burns women have lighter skin than her and that’s just how things are. Then, they told her that she would need to change certain things about her character and personality to fit into the model of Burns women. She would have to cook like a Burns woman, keep house like a Burns woman, and follow many of the patterns and typical behaviors that Burns women had always done. Only then, could she really be part of the family. Not only would that be discouraging and unrealistic in many ways, it would certainly make her feel inferior. It would also indicate that marrying me did not accomplish all that much as far as making her a Burns. In fact, it meant virtually nothing as far as that was concerned.
For hundreds of years the family of God belonged to the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. The family had been promised to descendants of Abraham and they believed that membership into this family was quite literally their birthright. Sure, there were promises to Abraham and through subsequent promises that the whole world would be blessed through this family, but they assumed that that would all somehow happen when God had exalted the nation of Israel, dealt with and judged the pagan nations, and cleared the world of evil and oppression. Only then, in the age to come, would God somehow bring about blessing to the Gentiles. And there were a handful of Jewish converts over the centuries who became Jews but in order to join the family of God, they had to literally become Jews. They had to get circumcised and follow all of the Law of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was only in circumcision, following the food restrictions, and the other laws that people would show themselves to be part of God’s family. There just was no other way that the people of Israel could conceive of being part of God’s people.
This whole issue can be difficult for us, two thousand years later, to connect with and understand but the analogy above (although it’s not a perfect analogy) starts to give us a bit of insight. It seems outrageous for us to see how the followers of Jesus could not grasp that Gentiles could not be saved but that really wasn’t the issue. They knew that God had not promised individual salvation the way we tend to view things nowadays. God had promised a family and had promised that blessing, forgiveness of sin, and salvation would come to those in that family. Jews believed that they would always be that family and failed to understand Old Testament passages that hinted at the fact that they would one day not automatically be so but that it would be passed on to others. They grew furious when Jesus asserted that he was the fulfillment of that promised family and that only those who came to him would be part of it rather than physical descendants of Abraham (see John 8:31-41). So when Jesus told his disciples that Gentiles would come streaming into God’s family as well, they naturally assumed that God’s family was synonymous with being Jewish, with being circumcised and holding to the Law. So they assumed that to be part of God’s family one must do all of those things.
The problem with that, as Paul argues so ably in Romans is that “For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless. . . Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’” (Rom. 4:14-17). In other words, if one is shown to be in the family of God by following the law, then there is no point in faith. It must be faith in the life of Christ alone that places someone in God’s family or it is nothing at all.
This is the issue at hand that Peter and the other disciples had failed to grasp. This is what God would show Peter as he made his way to the house of Cornelius. This was a big moment in the history of God’s people which is why Luke gives so much attention to it and why the circumstances surrounding it were so non-normative. This was nearly as big a moment as the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost (and in actuality was something of a completion of that event) because this was the time when God’s people finally began to fully grasp what God was doing and that this truly would be one family of all nations, all peoples, all language, and all tribes.
When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house it became quickly apparent that Cornelius had not known exactly what would happen but he must have sensed that God was going to do something big as he had invited a large number of his family and friends. He was so excited that we can easily understand his slight breech in getting carried away and going overboard by dropping to the feet of Peter in reverence. Peter quickly corrected him, reminding him that in God’s kingdom, there was no hierarchy, just a brotherhood of believers.
As Peter began to address the large gathering of Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, he put the primary issue on the table, so to speak. Normally it would be against common practice for a Jew (and up to that point, a Jewish Christian) to eat with or associate with those outside of God’s family, the Gentiles. But God had shown Peter in his vision that the time for the food laws and dietary restrictions were over and he quickly realized that this meant that God would not be excluding Gentiles from his people any longer. It wasn’t that the law was bad, but the Messiah had come and the law was no longer necessary (Gal. 3:19) as it separated Jews and Gentiles in its very purpose. Now God had made the two into one and destroyed the barrier between the two (Eph. 2:14-15). Just as you might tell a child at a busy street to stop and not walk, but then tell them to go quickly once the crossing light comes on because the situation has changed, so the time to follow the Law as a necessary aspect of being God’s family had passed. The Messiah had come and that was all anyone needed to join into his family.
Thus, Cornelius recounts his encounter with the angel to Peter. The reasons for Cornelius’ re-telling of his encounter and eagerness to hear what God has to say through Peter are obvious, but the only reason that Luke would basically repeat the very details that he has already given is to stress to his readers the importance of what was going on.
Peter had already stressed that his coming into their home was in and of itself a sign that something big had happened to change his worldview and he quickly began his address to his riveted audience by getting to the heart of the matter. God had promised to Abraham that one day God would create one family of all nations and that time had truly come. There would be no special hoops to jump through to be part of God’s family. It was not required that one be physically born into this family or become like those that viewed themselves as already part of it in order to fit. Entrance into this family was based on faith in the life of Christ alone and nothing else. One could not be born into it but one could be born again into this family through Christ (Jn. 3:5) Peter had finally come to realize that “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This message is as true today as it was when Peter first uttered those words nearly two thousand years ago.
Devotional Thought
In Galatains 2:20, Paul described the moment that he died to his own life and will as being crucified so that he no longer lived for himself but for Christ alone. Have you ever had a clear moment like that in your life when you died to self and was baptized into the life of Christ alone? If you have, have you truly been living a crucified life?
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three[a] men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22 The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.
Dig Deeper
Not all that many years ago a young woman that I know was born into a family many miles away from where I was born. She was, it goes without saying I guess, born into a different family than mine. Once that happened that was it. Once you’re born into family, of course, you cannot go back and be born into another family. And so there it was. She and I were part of a different family and would remain that way all while growing up. We never met while growing up, but we finally did meet almost 17 years ago now. It didn’t take too long for that beautiful young lady and I to decide that we wanted to get married and be together for the remainder of our lives. We did so and we got married and something rather interesting happened during that wedding. Based on nothing more than being married to me, my wife became a member of the Burns family. She had not been born into but she was now as much a Burns as I was. Yet, in many ways she was very different than any of the other Burns family members. She is not related by blood to any of the Burns’ and she couldn’t really change that. All of the Burns ancestors are white and my wife is black but she could not change that. She doesn’t have the same sort of characteristics and attitude that seem to be something of a hallmark of Burns women and she did not need to change that. She is a member of the family.
My wife was accepted into the family despite all of that because she was my wife and for that reason alone. Can you imagine, though, if my family had reluctantly accepted that she had become my wife but did not really accept her as part of the family? Oh, she could marry me, and that was all fine and good, but what if they still didn’t view her as part of the family? What if they began to tell her that it was nice that she had married me but to truly be part of the Burns family there were a few things that would have to be taken care of? First, she would need to go through a series of treatments to whiten her skin because Burns women have lighter skin than her and that’s just how things are. Then, they told her that she would need to change certain things about her character and personality to fit into the model of Burns women. She would have to cook like a Burns woman, keep house like a Burns woman, and follow many of the patterns and typical behaviors that Burns women had always done. Only then, could she really be part of the family. Not only would that be discouraging and unrealistic in many ways, it would certainly make her feel inferior. It would also indicate that marrying me did not accomplish all that much as far as making her a Burns. In fact, it meant virtually nothing as far as that was concerned.
For hundreds of years the family of God belonged to the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. The family had been promised to descendants of Abraham and they believed that membership into this family was quite literally their birthright. Sure, there were promises to Abraham and through subsequent promises that the whole world would be blessed through this family, but they assumed that that would all somehow happen when God had exalted the nation of Israel, dealt with and judged the pagan nations, and cleared the world of evil and oppression. Only then, in the age to come, would God somehow bring about blessing to the Gentiles. And there were a handful of Jewish converts over the centuries who became Jews but in order to join the family of God, they had to literally become Jews. They had to get circumcised and follow all of the Law of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was only in circumcision, following the food restrictions, and the other laws that people would show themselves to be part of God’s family. There just was no other way that the people of Israel could conceive of being part of God’s people.
This whole issue can be difficult for us, two thousand years later, to connect with and understand but the analogy above (although it’s not a perfect analogy) starts to give us a bit of insight. It seems outrageous for us to see how the followers of Jesus could not grasp that Gentiles could not be saved but that really wasn’t the issue. They knew that God had not promised individual salvation the way we tend to view things nowadays. God had promised a family and had promised that blessing, forgiveness of sin, and salvation would come to those in that family. Jews believed that they would always be that family and failed to understand Old Testament passages that hinted at the fact that they would one day not automatically be so but that it would be passed on to others. They grew furious when Jesus asserted that he was the fulfillment of that promised family and that only those who came to him would be part of it rather than physical descendants of Abraham (see John 8:31-41). So when Jesus told his disciples that Gentiles would come streaming into God’s family as well, they naturally assumed that God’s family was synonymous with being Jewish, with being circumcised and holding to the Law. So they assumed that to be part of God’s family one must do all of those things.
The problem with that, as Paul argues so ably in Romans is that “For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless. . . Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’” (Rom. 4:14-17). In other words, if one is shown to be in the family of God by following the law, then there is no point in faith. It must be faith in the life of Christ alone that places someone in God’s family or it is nothing at all.
This is the issue at hand that Peter and the other disciples had failed to grasp. This is what God would show Peter as he made his way to the house of Cornelius. This was a big moment in the history of God’s people which is why Luke gives so much attention to it and why the circumstances surrounding it were so non-normative. This was nearly as big a moment as the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost (and in actuality was something of a completion of that event) because this was the time when God’s people finally began to fully grasp what God was doing and that this truly would be one family of all nations, all peoples, all language, and all tribes.
When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house it became quickly apparent that Cornelius had not known exactly what would happen but he must have sensed that God was going to do something big as he had invited a large number of his family and friends. He was so excited that we can easily understand his slight breech in getting carried away and going overboard by dropping to the feet of Peter in reverence. Peter quickly corrected him, reminding him that in God’s kingdom, there was no hierarchy, just a brotherhood of believers.
As Peter began to address the large gathering of Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, he put the primary issue on the table, so to speak. Normally it would be against common practice for a Jew (and up to that point, a Jewish Christian) to eat with or associate with those outside of God’s family, the Gentiles. But God had shown Peter in his vision that the time for the food laws and dietary restrictions were over and he quickly realized that this meant that God would not be excluding Gentiles from his people any longer. It wasn’t that the law was bad, but the Messiah had come and the law was no longer necessary (Gal. 3:19) as it separated Jews and Gentiles in its very purpose. Now God had made the two into one and destroyed the barrier between the two (Eph. 2:14-15). Just as you might tell a child at a busy street to stop and not walk, but then tell them to go quickly once the crossing light comes on because the situation has changed, so the time to follow the Law as a necessary aspect of being God’s family had passed. The Messiah had come and that was all anyone needed to join into his family.
Thus, Cornelius recounts his encounter with the angel to Peter. The reasons for Cornelius’ re-telling of his encounter and eagerness to hear what God has to say through Peter are obvious, but the only reason that Luke would basically repeat the very details that he has already given is to stress to his readers the importance of what was going on.
Peter had already stressed that his coming into their home was in and of itself a sign that something big had happened to change his worldview and he quickly began his address to his riveted audience by getting to the heart of the matter. God had promised to Abraham that one day God would create one family of all nations and that time had truly come. There would be no special hoops to jump through to be part of God’s family. It was not required that one be physically born into this family or become like those that viewed themselves as already part of it in order to fit. Entrance into this family was based on faith in the life of Christ alone and nothing else. One could not be born into it but one could be born again into this family through Christ (Jn. 3:5) Peter had finally come to realize that “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This message is as true today as it was when Peter first uttered those words nearly two thousand years ago.
Devotional Thought
In Galatains 2:20, Paul described the moment that he died to his own life and will as being crucified so that he no longer lived for himself but for Christ alone. Have you ever had a clear moment like that in your life when you died to self and was baptized into the life of Christ alone? If you have, have you truly been living a crucified life?
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Acts 10:1-16
1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!”
4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.
The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.
Peter’s Vision
9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
Dig Deeper
I seem to get a lot of questions wherever I go about what my plans for the future are. People are constantly interested in whether we plan to stay in the ministry where we are at or if we would hope to move somewhere else one day. Or they want to know what is in store as far as the teaching ministry goes. Usually I tell them that it is all up to God. I say that because it is true. We don’t have any plans to go anywhere and I pray constantly that the teaching ministry will go exactly where God wants to take it. At the same time, we are always open to God’s call upon our life. Every now and then, though, someone will ask me quite specifically if I would ever be open to moving to one place or another to serve in the ministry in that place or even to plant one where there is a gap. Sometimes the places that people mention are actually quite attractive and I just tell them that if we ever felt God calling, we would be happy to go (usually those places involve somewhere with rather consistently warm weather, at least those are the places that sound most attractive to my wife and oldest son). On occasion, though, someone will bring up a place that I just don’t want to go and ask me if I might ever consider going there, like my hometown for instance. In those cases, I usually joke that I would be more than happy to go once the actual hand of God appeared and wrote specific instructions on the wall for us to go. Anything short of that, I jest, and I would not go. I usually say this jokingly, but the point is real. There are some things that are so challenging to our way of thinking that it would take something out-of-the-norm, something monumental, in order for us to be willing to do it.
Throughout his ministry Jesus had hinted that the time was coming when the physical Israel would no longer automatically be the children of God, God’s people. Jesus had said that a time was soon coming when the people of Israel would say “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But, Jesus responded that he would reply, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus went on to promise that there would “be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” (Lk. 13:26-29). This was nothing new. After all, the prophets had declared that God’s intention was to bring all nations into the kingdom of God (see Isa. 56:1-7 for instance).
This was no easy concept, however. It wasn’t something that Jews, even Jewish Christians could easily understand or accept (in fact it would take them the first entire generation of Christianity to start to sort it all out), even though Jesus had clearly told them that their mission was to involve going to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). If one held so tightly to a certain definition and understanding of what it meant to be part of God’s people, it would be easy to miss what God was going to do with the Gentiles. After all, the Jews had kept themselves apart from the nations for hundreds of years, at God’s behest, by not intermingling with Gentiles. They circumcised themselves to demonstrate their covenant with God and to show themselves separate from the pagans. They kept the food and dietary laws as a powerful separator between the people of God and all of the other nations. Jews had been persecuted and killed upholding these laws and the honor of God’s people. Changing that mindset would not come easily. Perhaps Jesus had called them to include all people but weren’t these markers like circumcision and the food laws the very things that God had given his people to show them and the world that they were his people? Surely, if anyone wanted to join the Messiah’s family they would have to realize that it was still the family of God. They would still need to follow all of the laws and standards of being part of God’s people in order to number themselves among God’s family that was being formed in the Messiah.
It would take something big and something rather clear to help the apostles, and the entire Christian community, to accept the Gentiles fully into the family of God. If for no other reason, that is exactly why Luke will spend so much time on these dual visions of Cornelius and Peter. This was big. It was the final door that needed to be opened as God’s family became open once-and-forever to people of all nations. This would be difficult for the Jewish Christians to accept, but it would be equally big and encouraging news for Luke’s presumed audience of Theophilus and the other Romans around him.
Cornelius wasn’t just a Gentile. He was a Roman. He wasn’t just a Roman, he was a Roman soldier. He wasn’t just a Roman soldier, he was a centurion that was in charge of a hundred men. He didn’t live in just any city. He lived in Caesarea, a city that the Jews hated and called “the daughter of Edom”; it was a city within Israel but it served as the administration center for Rome in Palestine and boasted more Gentiles than Jews. There was much that was going against Cornelius in the minds of Jews and Jewish Christians alike. But there was also some things that would make him favorable in the eyes of those groups. He was a God-fearer, meaning he greatly respected much about the Jewish religion and observed certain aspects of it, but had not become a full proselyte or been circumcised and would still have been considered an unclean Gentile by most Jews and certainly not part of God’s family. But Cornelius was still a devout man who observed regular Jewish prayer and the consistent giving of alms.
During the regular Jewish afternoon prayer time Cornelius was visited by a divine messenger. Cornelius had been noticed by God as an authentic believer and had been chosen for a great task. The thrust of the message was that Cornelius should find Peter and bring him to Caesarea. What would happen once Peter got there would be directly from God. Of that Cornelius need not worry.
The next day we are told that Peter went up to the roof to pray, at the same time as trusted servants of Cornelius and a fellow devout soldier went to Joppa to find Peter. As Peter was praying, he had a vision. This vision was particularly appropriate because he was hungry and his vision involved food. In his heavenly vision, Peter saw something like a large sheet open up that contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean. The voice in the vision told Peter to eat but Peter was immediately horrified. As a devout member of the people of God he would never agree to eat such things. This would be unthinkable in Peter’s mind because in the very act of eating such things, he would be showing that he was not a member of God’s people. Following the Law, including the dietary restrictions was the uniform of the Jewish people that showed the pagan world that they were indeed God’s people. It was, in other words, the sign of their justification, a term that referred, at least in part, to being part of God’s people.
Peter did what Peter seemingly tended to do and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, for better or worse. He would not eat unclean food, divine voice or no divine voice, in a protest that bore similarities to Ezekiel’s in Ezekiel 4:14. How could God be commanding him to eat such things? Just to make it clear, the voice rebuked Peter for his objection and urged him not to call anything impure that God has made clean. The obvious implication was not that these things were always clean but that God had now made them clean.
The great issue of this vision that has been disagreed upon by Christians down through the centuries is whether the vision referred to the declaration that all foods were now clean for eating or whether the vision was allegorical and was referring to the coming inclusion of the Gentile people in the kingdom of God. The arguments generally seem to focus on the belief that it must refer to one or the other. It is true that Peter had heard Jesus basically declare all foods clean (Mk. 7:14-19) but it was perhaps not until this vision that he truly grasped the shocking point that Jesus had made (it is quite possible that this vision helped Peter come to the clear conclusion that Mark declared in Mk. 7:19). But there was an inextricable link between the dietary restrictions and the barrier between Jews and Gentiles (see Lev. 20:24-26). The food restrictions were designed to teach God’s people of the deep dangers of taking sin into their lives and binding themselves with sin. They would continue to learn that important lesson by remaining separate from the pagans and the food restrictions were one of the primary means of doing that.
Now that Christ had come, the Law, including the dietary restrictions were no longer necessary. The lesson had been taught and God’s family was now open to people of all nations, just as God had promised all along. In being told to accept all foods as permissible, Peter would inevitably realize that he was also being prepared to accept all human beings. One was connected with the other as Peter will soon learn. God had promised Abraham that he would one day have a family of all nations and one thing is for sure, God always keeps his promises.
Devotional Thought
The vision that Peter received was certainly jarring news for him but Peter was constantly seeking God’s will for the life of the believers so when he received it he was immediately willing to change lifelong practices. Are you equally in constant search of God’s will and open to new ground and new adventures? What might God be calling you to do today?
4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.
The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.
Peter’s Vision
9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
Dig Deeper
I seem to get a lot of questions wherever I go about what my plans for the future are. People are constantly interested in whether we plan to stay in the ministry where we are at or if we would hope to move somewhere else one day. Or they want to know what is in store as far as the teaching ministry goes. Usually I tell them that it is all up to God. I say that because it is true. We don’t have any plans to go anywhere and I pray constantly that the teaching ministry will go exactly where God wants to take it. At the same time, we are always open to God’s call upon our life. Every now and then, though, someone will ask me quite specifically if I would ever be open to moving to one place or another to serve in the ministry in that place or even to plant one where there is a gap. Sometimes the places that people mention are actually quite attractive and I just tell them that if we ever felt God calling, we would be happy to go (usually those places involve somewhere with rather consistently warm weather, at least those are the places that sound most attractive to my wife and oldest son). On occasion, though, someone will bring up a place that I just don’t want to go and ask me if I might ever consider going there, like my hometown for instance. In those cases, I usually joke that I would be more than happy to go once the actual hand of God appeared and wrote specific instructions on the wall for us to go. Anything short of that, I jest, and I would not go. I usually say this jokingly, but the point is real. There are some things that are so challenging to our way of thinking that it would take something out-of-the-norm, something monumental, in order for us to be willing to do it.
Throughout his ministry Jesus had hinted that the time was coming when the physical Israel would no longer automatically be the children of God, God’s people. Jesus had said that a time was soon coming when the people of Israel would say “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But, Jesus responded that he would reply, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus went on to promise that there would “be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” (Lk. 13:26-29). This was nothing new. After all, the prophets had declared that God’s intention was to bring all nations into the kingdom of God (see Isa. 56:1-7 for instance).
This was no easy concept, however. It wasn’t something that Jews, even Jewish Christians could easily understand or accept (in fact it would take them the first entire generation of Christianity to start to sort it all out), even though Jesus had clearly told them that their mission was to involve going to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). If one held so tightly to a certain definition and understanding of what it meant to be part of God’s people, it would be easy to miss what God was going to do with the Gentiles. After all, the Jews had kept themselves apart from the nations for hundreds of years, at God’s behest, by not intermingling with Gentiles. They circumcised themselves to demonstrate their covenant with God and to show themselves separate from the pagans. They kept the food and dietary laws as a powerful separator between the people of God and all of the other nations. Jews had been persecuted and killed upholding these laws and the honor of God’s people. Changing that mindset would not come easily. Perhaps Jesus had called them to include all people but weren’t these markers like circumcision and the food laws the very things that God had given his people to show them and the world that they were his people? Surely, if anyone wanted to join the Messiah’s family they would have to realize that it was still the family of God. They would still need to follow all of the laws and standards of being part of God’s people in order to number themselves among God’s family that was being formed in the Messiah.
It would take something big and something rather clear to help the apostles, and the entire Christian community, to accept the Gentiles fully into the family of God. If for no other reason, that is exactly why Luke will spend so much time on these dual visions of Cornelius and Peter. This was big. It was the final door that needed to be opened as God’s family became open once-and-forever to people of all nations. This would be difficult for the Jewish Christians to accept, but it would be equally big and encouraging news for Luke’s presumed audience of Theophilus and the other Romans around him.
Cornelius wasn’t just a Gentile. He was a Roman. He wasn’t just a Roman, he was a Roman soldier. He wasn’t just a Roman soldier, he was a centurion that was in charge of a hundred men. He didn’t live in just any city. He lived in Caesarea, a city that the Jews hated and called “the daughter of Edom”; it was a city within Israel but it served as the administration center for Rome in Palestine and boasted more Gentiles than Jews. There was much that was going against Cornelius in the minds of Jews and Jewish Christians alike. But there was also some things that would make him favorable in the eyes of those groups. He was a God-fearer, meaning he greatly respected much about the Jewish religion and observed certain aspects of it, but had not become a full proselyte or been circumcised and would still have been considered an unclean Gentile by most Jews and certainly not part of God’s family. But Cornelius was still a devout man who observed regular Jewish prayer and the consistent giving of alms.
During the regular Jewish afternoon prayer time Cornelius was visited by a divine messenger. Cornelius had been noticed by God as an authentic believer and had been chosen for a great task. The thrust of the message was that Cornelius should find Peter and bring him to Caesarea. What would happen once Peter got there would be directly from God. Of that Cornelius need not worry.
The next day we are told that Peter went up to the roof to pray, at the same time as trusted servants of Cornelius and a fellow devout soldier went to Joppa to find Peter. As Peter was praying, he had a vision. This vision was particularly appropriate because he was hungry and his vision involved food. In his heavenly vision, Peter saw something like a large sheet open up that contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean. The voice in the vision told Peter to eat but Peter was immediately horrified. As a devout member of the people of God he would never agree to eat such things. This would be unthinkable in Peter’s mind because in the very act of eating such things, he would be showing that he was not a member of God’s people. Following the Law, including the dietary restrictions was the uniform of the Jewish people that showed the pagan world that they were indeed God’s people. It was, in other words, the sign of their justification, a term that referred, at least in part, to being part of God’s people.
Peter did what Peter seemingly tended to do and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, for better or worse. He would not eat unclean food, divine voice or no divine voice, in a protest that bore similarities to Ezekiel’s in Ezekiel 4:14. How could God be commanding him to eat such things? Just to make it clear, the voice rebuked Peter for his objection and urged him not to call anything impure that God has made clean. The obvious implication was not that these things were always clean but that God had now made them clean.
The great issue of this vision that has been disagreed upon by Christians down through the centuries is whether the vision referred to the declaration that all foods were now clean for eating or whether the vision was allegorical and was referring to the coming inclusion of the Gentile people in the kingdom of God. The arguments generally seem to focus on the belief that it must refer to one or the other. It is true that Peter had heard Jesus basically declare all foods clean (Mk. 7:14-19) but it was perhaps not until this vision that he truly grasped the shocking point that Jesus had made (it is quite possible that this vision helped Peter come to the clear conclusion that Mark declared in Mk. 7:19). But there was an inextricable link between the dietary restrictions and the barrier between Jews and Gentiles (see Lev. 20:24-26). The food restrictions were designed to teach God’s people of the deep dangers of taking sin into their lives and binding themselves with sin. They would continue to learn that important lesson by remaining separate from the pagans and the food restrictions were one of the primary means of doing that.
Now that Christ had come, the Law, including the dietary restrictions were no longer necessary. The lesson had been taught and God’s family was now open to people of all nations, just as God had promised all along. In being told to accept all foods as permissible, Peter would inevitably realize that he was also being prepared to accept all human beings. One was connected with the other as Peter will soon learn. God had promised Abraham that he would one day have a family of all nations and one thing is for sure, God always keeps his promises.
Devotional Thought
The vision that Peter received was certainly jarring news for him but Peter was constantly seeking God’s will for the life of the believers so when he received it he was immediately willing to change lifelong practices. Are you equally in constant search of God’s will and open to new ground and new adventures? What might God be calling you to do today?
Monday, February 07, 2011
Acts 9:32-43
32 As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord’s people who lived in Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. 34 “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up. 35 All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”
39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. 41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. 42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite all-time television shows is the Andy Griffith show. Even though that show came on the air and was gone before I was even born I have always loved it. I have watched it ever since I can remember and, in fact, it happens to be on the television as I write this right now. I dare say that I have seen every single episode of that show that was ever made. One of the most memorable episodes for me when was when Sheriff Andy Taylor, the main character, was asked to be the sole judge of the town’s beauty contest at their founder’s day celebration. The week before the contest was full of young ladies trying to woo the sheriff and impress him with their considerable talents and attributes. They all desperately tried to demonstrate for the sheriff just how important they were and how foolish it would be to not pick them. To make matters worse, the parents and those close to the different young ladies try to use their influence to convince the sheriff to choose their loved one during the contest. The sheriff was almost overwhelmed by all of this but managed to get through the week and get everything prepared for the big day thanks to the tireless efforts of a very kind and quiet older woman, Ms. Bishop, who took care of almost everything for the event. On the day of the celebration the sheriff didn’t know what to do. He was simply torn as to who he should vote for. As the moment came where he had to crown “Miss Mayberry,” he had a brilliant thought. Everyone was so worried about the “important” girls in town that they failed to even notice this quiet but infinitely helpful servant, Ms. Bishop. So, even though she wasn’t an official contestant, Andy named Ms. Bishop the winner of the contest for being the one who displayed true beauty and grace all week.
It is easy to pay attention to the flashy and important folks around us, even within our church families and not notice the Ms. Bishops very often. They are the quiet humble workers that maybe don’t have the gifts that put them up front in the eyes of others but they are the real heart and soul of the church. They are the ones that make it go, but they very rarely get any credit, not that they would usually want any, and they certainly don’t get noticed much. It’s a good thing for us that Luke wasn’t as unaware of those invaluable people as we often can be. Without his careful preservation of people like those mentioned in this section, we would never know about people like Tabitha and Aeneas. Although Luke is giving the large sweep of the most important events in the development of God’s people, he takes the time to record some of the regular folks who were truly the lifeblood of that family.
We aren’t told exactly why Peter was traveling around the country and visiting the Lord’s people, but it was presumably to encourage and build up the communities there. These communities had likely been formed as Christians that fled the persecution in Jerusalem spread throughout the area (Acts 8:1, 4). Although it is also true that Philip had passed through this area as he preached to gospel as he was going from Azotus to Caesarea (Acts 8:40). Lydda was about twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and Joppa was thirty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem.
As he traveled, Peter met with the Lord’s people in Lydda. The word rendered “Lord’s people” in the NIV is literally “saints.” The meaning of “saints” were those who were set apart for God. Thus, the translation “Lord’s people” is quite appropriate. It is important to note that this word “saints” is always used in the New Testament for a group rather than individual people. Saints are not specific people who have attained some higher spiritual standing than most. It is a collective term that refers to God’s people as a whole. Christians are not saints in and of ourselves, we are all part of the saints, the special collection of God’s family.
While in Lydda, Peter came across a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years (although the Greek could also be taken to say that he was bedridden since he was eight). Luke never explicitly tells us whether Aeneas was himself a Christian or not at the time of his encounter with Peter, but the specific use of his name probably indicates that he either was one at the time or became one after this incident. As Peter encountered this man he made it clear that it was Jesus Christ who was supplying the healing power, not Peter. Aeneas had just experienced the verifying power of the Holy Spirit as he confirmed that this group of the Lord’s people really were just that. People need not see them as a group of blasphemers or God rejecters. They really were God’s people. As a result, then of his healing, more people to come to the truth of the gospel.
As Peter moved on to Joppa he quickly joined up with the family of disciples there as they were caring for a disciple named Tabitha. Tabitha was not someone that we would normally hear about. She apparently did nothing spectacular or specifically important as far as spreading the gospel goes. She seemingly held no big title and had no defined leadership role within the Christian community. Yet, as Luke makes clear, she was just as important as any other disciple, evangelist, or apostle, for in Christ there are no distinctions (see Gal. 3:26-29) that make one person any more valuable than another. Tabitha was extremely important, though, because she was a disciple of Jesus Christ. She lived what she claimed to believe. She was always, Luke tells us, doing good and helping the poor. She was one of those people that is easy to not notice but she was dearly loved because she understood that being a Christian meant a life of devotion and service to God’s people and to those who were on the bottom of society.
During Peter’s stay with the disciples, Tabitha herself became ill and died. The family of believers immediately took on the role of family within that culture by caring for her body because they knew that she was their true family. This is in stark contrast to most Christians today who might think fondly of other Christians and even spend a fair amount of time with them, but would hardly consider them as their true family in the areas of being their true identity, the true source and object of their loyalty and affection, and the ones who they would consider more important than their blood families. It was the disciples who would care for Tabitha’s body and bury her if necessary. But they seemed to have something else in mind. Rather than immediately burying her, they sent for Peter.
Tabitha’s constant labor and service within the family of believers had won her many friends. This was exactly what Jesus had urged his people to do with their worldly resources (see Lk. 16:9 where Jesus urged his people to use their resources to gain friends rather than just on themselves). Rather than hoarding our resources and using them for ourselves, we are called to give, serve, and love other people and in doing so, create a community of believers where all achieve sufficiency and none lack because surplus is also rejected. This woman had spent her life helping those who were seemingly insignificant to the world, especially the widows, and would probably have become rather insignificant in the eyes of the world around her at the time, but she was not insignificant within the people of God or to Peter. He immediately went to see her.
As Peter arrived we can almost imagine the touching scene as those that she had shared her life with, showed Peter the clothes that she made for them and surely shared with him all of the ways that she let the words of Jesus inhabit her life and become who she was. They wanted Peter to know how loved Tabitha was and how much she had loved them not because they were poor but because they were part of God’s family. It was the Tabithas who made up the very fabric of the Christian community and who continue to make it up today. They are the tireless and quite servants who never cease in serving and loving others because they know that that is how they demonstrate their true love and loyalty to God (see 1 Jn. 4:19-21). Tabitha didn’t go around helping poor people and becoming involved in causes because she wanted to fulfill some duty or ease her own guilt. She had joined a community of God’s people that had pledged to live their lives in mutual submission to one another (Eph. 5:21) and live with the interests of one another as their key priority (see 2 Cor. 5:15 and Phil. 2:3-4).
As Peter entered into the room where Tabitha was lying, it is hard to imagine that his mind didn’t drift back to the room of Jairus’ daughter that he had entered with Jesus not too many years before (Mk. 5:37-43). He sent everyone out of the room just as Jesus had done and then he turned in prayer to the one who could raise people from the dead. After he prayed, Peter’s mind probably recalled Jesus turning to that little girl and resolutely saying “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up.” Perhaps Peter remembered those words fondly as her turned confidently in the power of the Lord and said “Tabitha Koum,” or “Tabitha, get up.”
Peter, no doubt, took great joy in taking Tabitha, now raised from the dead, and presenting her to those who loved her so dearly. Her life had been about the benefit of others. And now her death and the subsequent miracle of being raised from the dead would also continue to benefit others as word of her raising would cause many more to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and enter into God’s family.
Before Peter left Joppa, though, he stayed with Simon the Tanner. This is one more important detail given to us by Luke as he continues to describe the social barriers that were quickly disintegrating in the family of God. Tanners were looked down upon and often ostracized in the Jewish culture because they were constantly handling dead animals and were continually ceremonially unclean. This would have been rather shocking, but then Luke was making clear that Jesus meant what he said when he quoted from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). At every turn this passage reminds us that the people that are most forgettable to the world are not forgettable to God, nor should they be amongst his people.
Devotional Thought
When you die what will the believers say about you? Will they be able to fill a room with the evidence and the tales of all that you did in the service and love of others? Are you truly using what God has given you to gain friends and prepare for his eternal kingdom?
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”
39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. 41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. 42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite all-time television shows is the Andy Griffith show. Even though that show came on the air and was gone before I was even born I have always loved it. I have watched it ever since I can remember and, in fact, it happens to be on the television as I write this right now. I dare say that I have seen every single episode of that show that was ever made. One of the most memorable episodes for me when was when Sheriff Andy Taylor, the main character, was asked to be the sole judge of the town’s beauty contest at their founder’s day celebration. The week before the contest was full of young ladies trying to woo the sheriff and impress him with their considerable talents and attributes. They all desperately tried to demonstrate for the sheriff just how important they were and how foolish it would be to not pick them. To make matters worse, the parents and those close to the different young ladies try to use their influence to convince the sheriff to choose their loved one during the contest. The sheriff was almost overwhelmed by all of this but managed to get through the week and get everything prepared for the big day thanks to the tireless efforts of a very kind and quiet older woman, Ms. Bishop, who took care of almost everything for the event. On the day of the celebration the sheriff didn’t know what to do. He was simply torn as to who he should vote for. As the moment came where he had to crown “Miss Mayberry,” he had a brilliant thought. Everyone was so worried about the “important” girls in town that they failed to even notice this quiet but infinitely helpful servant, Ms. Bishop. So, even though she wasn’t an official contestant, Andy named Ms. Bishop the winner of the contest for being the one who displayed true beauty and grace all week.
It is easy to pay attention to the flashy and important folks around us, even within our church families and not notice the Ms. Bishops very often. They are the quiet humble workers that maybe don’t have the gifts that put them up front in the eyes of others but they are the real heart and soul of the church. They are the ones that make it go, but they very rarely get any credit, not that they would usually want any, and they certainly don’t get noticed much. It’s a good thing for us that Luke wasn’t as unaware of those invaluable people as we often can be. Without his careful preservation of people like those mentioned in this section, we would never know about people like Tabitha and Aeneas. Although Luke is giving the large sweep of the most important events in the development of God’s people, he takes the time to record some of the regular folks who were truly the lifeblood of that family.
We aren’t told exactly why Peter was traveling around the country and visiting the Lord’s people, but it was presumably to encourage and build up the communities there. These communities had likely been formed as Christians that fled the persecution in Jerusalem spread throughout the area (Acts 8:1, 4). Although it is also true that Philip had passed through this area as he preached to gospel as he was going from Azotus to Caesarea (Acts 8:40). Lydda was about twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and Joppa was thirty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem.
As he traveled, Peter met with the Lord’s people in Lydda. The word rendered “Lord’s people” in the NIV is literally “saints.” The meaning of “saints” were those who were set apart for God. Thus, the translation “Lord’s people” is quite appropriate. It is important to note that this word “saints” is always used in the New Testament for a group rather than individual people. Saints are not specific people who have attained some higher spiritual standing than most. It is a collective term that refers to God’s people as a whole. Christians are not saints in and of ourselves, we are all part of the saints, the special collection of God’s family.
While in Lydda, Peter came across a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years (although the Greek could also be taken to say that he was bedridden since he was eight). Luke never explicitly tells us whether Aeneas was himself a Christian or not at the time of his encounter with Peter, but the specific use of his name probably indicates that he either was one at the time or became one after this incident. As Peter encountered this man he made it clear that it was Jesus Christ who was supplying the healing power, not Peter. Aeneas had just experienced the verifying power of the Holy Spirit as he confirmed that this group of the Lord’s people really were just that. People need not see them as a group of blasphemers or God rejecters. They really were God’s people. As a result, then of his healing, more people to come to the truth of the gospel.
As Peter moved on to Joppa he quickly joined up with the family of disciples there as they were caring for a disciple named Tabitha. Tabitha was not someone that we would normally hear about. She apparently did nothing spectacular or specifically important as far as spreading the gospel goes. She seemingly held no big title and had no defined leadership role within the Christian community. Yet, as Luke makes clear, she was just as important as any other disciple, evangelist, or apostle, for in Christ there are no distinctions (see Gal. 3:26-29) that make one person any more valuable than another. Tabitha was extremely important, though, because she was a disciple of Jesus Christ. She lived what she claimed to believe. She was always, Luke tells us, doing good and helping the poor. She was one of those people that is easy to not notice but she was dearly loved because she understood that being a Christian meant a life of devotion and service to God’s people and to those who were on the bottom of society.
During Peter’s stay with the disciples, Tabitha herself became ill and died. The family of believers immediately took on the role of family within that culture by caring for her body because they knew that she was their true family. This is in stark contrast to most Christians today who might think fondly of other Christians and even spend a fair amount of time with them, but would hardly consider them as their true family in the areas of being their true identity, the true source and object of their loyalty and affection, and the ones who they would consider more important than their blood families. It was the disciples who would care for Tabitha’s body and bury her if necessary. But they seemed to have something else in mind. Rather than immediately burying her, they sent for Peter.
Tabitha’s constant labor and service within the family of believers had won her many friends. This was exactly what Jesus had urged his people to do with their worldly resources (see Lk. 16:9 where Jesus urged his people to use their resources to gain friends rather than just on themselves). Rather than hoarding our resources and using them for ourselves, we are called to give, serve, and love other people and in doing so, create a community of believers where all achieve sufficiency and none lack because surplus is also rejected. This woman had spent her life helping those who were seemingly insignificant to the world, especially the widows, and would probably have become rather insignificant in the eyes of the world around her at the time, but she was not insignificant within the people of God or to Peter. He immediately went to see her.
As Peter arrived we can almost imagine the touching scene as those that she had shared her life with, showed Peter the clothes that she made for them and surely shared with him all of the ways that she let the words of Jesus inhabit her life and become who she was. They wanted Peter to know how loved Tabitha was and how much she had loved them not because they were poor but because they were part of God’s family. It was the Tabithas who made up the very fabric of the Christian community and who continue to make it up today. They are the tireless and quite servants who never cease in serving and loving others because they know that that is how they demonstrate their true love and loyalty to God (see 1 Jn. 4:19-21). Tabitha didn’t go around helping poor people and becoming involved in causes because she wanted to fulfill some duty or ease her own guilt. She had joined a community of God’s people that had pledged to live their lives in mutual submission to one another (Eph. 5:21) and live with the interests of one another as their key priority (see 2 Cor. 5:15 and Phil. 2:3-4).
As Peter entered into the room where Tabitha was lying, it is hard to imagine that his mind didn’t drift back to the room of Jairus’ daughter that he had entered with Jesus not too many years before (Mk. 5:37-43). He sent everyone out of the room just as Jesus had done and then he turned in prayer to the one who could raise people from the dead. After he prayed, Peter’s mind probably recalled Jesus turning to that little girl and resolutely saying “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up.” Perhaps Peter remembered those words fondly as her turned confidently in the power of the Lord and said “Tabitha Koum,” or “Tabitha, get up.”
Peter, no doubt, took great joy in taking Tabitha, now raised from the dead, and presenting her to those who loved her so dearly. Her life had been about the benefit of others. And now her death and the subsequent miracle of being raised from the dead would also continue to benefit others as word of her raising would cause many more to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and enter into God’s family.
Before Peter left Joppa, though, he stayed with Simon the Tanner. This is one more important detail given to us by Luke as he continues to describe the social barriers that were quickly disintegrating in the family of God. Tanners were looked down upon and often ostracized in the Jewish culture because they were constantly handling dead animals and were continually ceremonially unclean. This would have been rather shocking, but then Luke was making clear that Jesus meant what he said when he quoted from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). At every turn this passage reminds us that the people that are most forgettable to the world are not forgettable to God, nor should they be amongst his people.
Devotional Thought
When you die what will the believers say about you? Will they be able to fill a room with the evidence and the tales of all that you did in the service and love of others? Are you truly using what God has given you to gain friends and prepare for his eternal kingdom?
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