Peter Testifies of Gentiles’ Salvation Before Christians in Jerusalem

“Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.  So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.’  But Peter began and explained it to them in order…And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’  If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way? When they heard these they fell silent.  And they glorified God saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life’”-Acts 11:1-4; 16-18 (ESV. Read Acts 11:1-18).

News travels fast at times.  And what should have been very good news was considered with disdain by the Christians in Jerusalem.  In the thinking of many, especially those of the ‘circumcision party,’  the sect that held that all believers should go through the rite of circumcision—that Christianity was for the Jews only—were angry that Peter, a good Jew, had defiled himself by eating with Gentiles.  Peter strongly defended his action and explained “in order” his own experience and why he went to Cornelius’ house.  Dr. William Barclay, Bible scholar, notes that Dr. Luke gives much attention to writing again the vision Peter had on the housetop in Joppa, of seeing the sheet descend and the many kinds of animals on it, and the voice authoritatively saying the man is not to call unclean what God has created.  With a bulky papyrus roll to write on, Luke, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, felt this was very important to the story of the early church and how those who were Christian Jews gradually overcame their prejudices to accept non-Jews into the fellowship of believers.  Dr. Barclay states:  “Luke gives us this incident in full twice over because he sees it as a notable milestone on the road along which the Church was groping its way to the conception of a world for Christ.” (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible. Acts.  Philadelphia:  Westminster, 1953, p. 90)

The Jewish Christians were having difficulty understanding the relationship between law and grace.  Having been brought up under strict legalism of Jewish law, they could not yet understand fully that persons did not first have to practice the law the Jews lived under before grace could enter in and they could be converted to the Way provided by the Lord Jesus Christ.  Peter told his story from beginning to end:  the vision, the visitors, the invitation, the salvation of Cornelius and others.  Yes, he had entered among and fellowshipped with Gentiles.  But the wonderful results were that they had come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”  In asking his fellow church members this rhetorical question, of course the answer was obvious.  Peter had no right to reject going to preach to the Gentiles, because the gospel is for anyone who will hear and believe.  For that time, at least, Peter’s accusers saw the power of Jesus to save and the inclusion of non-Jews in the master plan to spread the good news to all people.  But prejudices die hard.  Later on the question of circumcision or not will raise its head and Paul will have to make a defense before a Church Council in Jerusalem, as Peter did.

Since the time when I was a very young child, I have been fascinated with stories and reports given by returning missionaries of their work among people “not like us,” and of how Jesus loves all people of the world and wants them to come to him.  I remember hearing Miss Pearl Todd, a missionary to China, speak in my church at Choestoe when I was six or seven.  She asked me, probably wide-eyed and wondering, to come up front.  She put a Chinese garment on me to show that they did not dress as we do.  But inside they have hearts yearning for Jesus, and He clothes all children (and adults) everywhere with His grace. That was the important lesson the Jerusalem church learned.  This is the lesson we learn as we have a passion to reach out to others with the message of grace and truth. After hearing Miss Pearl Todd and her enthusiasm for telling others about Jesus, I wanted to go with her back to China!  I could tell others about Jesus, too. But  some must also stay.  In God’s plan for my life, I have been mainly one who remained in churches here, and as has been said of mission-lovers and promoters, “held the rope for others to go.”  Someone has wisely said, “The gospel came to us on its way to someone else.”  May we be faithful in keeping that line open and the good news spreading!  There are still many who need to hear about “repentance that leads to life” (v. 18).