Skip to main content

Acts 11:12-17: Walk This Way

Peter, who is not only a good synagogue-going person but also a devout follower of Jesus, has a dream. One day he dreams of all these foods he is not supposed to eat - now I am not talking about chocolate or cake or things that were bad for his diet. I am talking about things that in his day good people who followed God wouldn't touch because they were good, God-following people.

Peter has this vision: the Lord asks him three times to eat this food. Now Peter isn't daft and he, not long ago, has already been caught denying Jesus three times and so he is not going racing to any rash decisions; he shows the Lord that he is faithful to his Jewish covenant and declines the invitation three times. This is not what is wanted here though and this is not what the dream, it turns out, is even about.

This passage is not about dietary laws and what foods a good follower of Jesus will or will not eat and Peter should know this because he was there when Jesus fulfilled/abolished the dietary laws by declaring all foods clean (Mark 7:19). Peter knows this is true that he should not call anything impure that God has made. He catches on that there is something else here.

What the resurrected Jesus is talking about is something much more profound than diets. Jesus is discussing the salvation and role of Gentiles. Jews had not thought to this point that Gentiles, as they were, could be saved. They knew that salvation was possible for Gentiles; Ancient Israel always had proselytes. There were always people converting to YHWH-worship but here in Cornelius' household, we have God-fearing people who are not like the regular synagogue-goers. They are different.

Up to this point, Gentiles who converted to worship YHWH, all started to dress like Jews, pray like Jews, talk like Jews, eat like Jews and the men were even circumcised like Jews - they joined in the worship of YHWH by becoming Jews.

Now something is different. There are people who do not eat like them, do not look like them, do not act like them and who are already in a relationship with God. How can this be? They don't dress like Jews, pray like Jews, talk like Jews, eat like Jews, and the men aren't even circumcised like Jews and yet they have already received the gift of repentance through the Holy Spirit. God saved the Gentiles without the Gentiles having to become like the good synagogue/ church-going people.

My question for us today: who are these 'Gentiles' in our society that don't dress like us, pray like us, talk like us, eat like us, and otherwise act like us and do we accept them? How do we ensure that we are following God's Spirit in extending His mission to everyone as is commanded in Peter's dream?
More articles, sermons, and papers at
---
www.sheepspeak.com[1] Based on the devotional by Captain Michael Ramsay, Acts 10-11: Chocolate Cake.  Presented to TSA Nipawin Leadership Team and Tisdale Corps Council meetings on the week of September 2,2007. On-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2007/09/acts-10-chocolate-cake-devotional.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beware: Christian Junk Food

THIS IS AN INTERESTING ARTICLE WE STUMBLED ACROSS BY ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ Why the average believer is starving for something more. By Anne Graham Lotz I love junk food—McDonald's french fries, Auntie Anne's pretzels, and almost any kind of pizza! If I'm not careful, though, I will gain unwanted pounds while getting zero nutrition. Many Christians seem to eat spiritually the way I am tempted to eat physically. They fill up on "junk food"—Christian books, CDs, TV programs, seminars, and all sorts of church activities—none of these are bad, really, but they lead to a sickly spiritual state if consumed apart from the true Bread of Life. We need the real nutritional "food" that will be served one day at the Wedding Supper referred to in Revelation 19:9, food that we can partake of right now as we dig into God's Living Word. For the past 17 years, as I have crisscrossed America, speaking at various conferences and churches, I have become convinced of
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lourdes' Lessons (John 7, 4 & 5)

John 7:37-38: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” We went to  Sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes . They have healing water in a spring there under the church that you can walk right up to. The story of the healing spring and the cathedral goes a little like this: Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, on 11 February 1858 saw a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus and was told to go and drink water from a spring which was to appear inside the grotto and wash herself with it. She did and she kept going there and by mid-July had seen Mary 18 times. She was also told to tell the priests to build a chapel at the grotto site. They did. The Cathedral was built over the spring and people – like us - still visit today.  God is a God of miracles even today. There is a whole community built up
Post a Comment
Read more

Ephesians 5:8-20: Jet Lag

The other day the whole family flew from Toronto to Victoria. Flying can be an adventure – especially when you are travelling with young children. This most recent trip was probably the first one from which we all experienced Jet Lag. Jet Lag is an awful feeling. It wastes your whole day. We have only one week’s holiday and during that time I have some work to do as well and the whole first day or even two are wasted. Jet Lag is when you feel so tired you can’t really enjoy your day or be productive. It is only when you get over this that you can do what you need to do and experience life. Are there times we suffer from Spiritual Jet Lag? We want to pray and read our Scriptures and associate with other Christians in a Christian context, we want to even sing praises to the Lord and thank Him for everything but we just seem to be lethargic instead. God really will get us where we are going a lot faster than any jet but sometimes our strength will lag behind us. This is why t
Post a Comment
Read more