Verses 1-48
Chapter 10
10:1-8 There was a man
in Caesarea called Cornelius. He was a centurion in the battalion
called the Italian battalion. He was a devout man and a God-fearer with
all his household. He did many an act of charity to the people and he
was constant in prayer to God. About three o'clock in the afternoon in a
vision he clearly saw the angel of God coming to him and saying,
"Cornelius." He gazed at him and he was awe-stricken. He said, "What is
it, sir?" He said to him, "Your prayers and your works of mercy have
gone up to God for a memorial; so now, send men to Joppa, and send for a
man called Simon who is also called Peter. He is lodging with one
Simon, a tanner, whose house is on the sea-shore." When the angel who
was speaking to him went away, he called two of his servants and a
devout soldier who was one of his orderlies. He told them everything and
despatched them to Joppa.
Acts 10:1-48
tells a story that is one of the great turning points in the history of
the Church. For the first time a Gentile is to be admitted into its
fellowship. Since Cornelius is so important in church history let us
gather together what we can learn about him.
(i) Cornelius was a Roman centurion stationed at Caesarea, the
headquarters of the government of Palestine. The word which we have
translated battalion is the Greek word for a cohort. In the Roman
military set-up there was first of all the legion (see legeon, Greek #3003).
It was a force of six thousand men and therefore was roughly equal to a
division. In every legion there were ten cohorts. A cohort therefore
had six hundred men and comes near to being the equivalent of a
battalion. The cohort was divided into centuries and over each century
there was a centurion. The century is therefore roughly the equivalent
of a company. The parallel to the centurion in our military organization
is a company sergeant-major. These centurions were the backbone of the
Roman army. An ancient historian describes the qualifications of the
centurion like this, "Centurions are desired not to be overbold and
reckless so much as good leaders, of steady and prudent mind, not prone
to take the offensive to start fighting wantonly, but able when
overwhelmed and hard-pressed to stand fast and die at their posts."
Cornelius therefore was a man who first and foremost knew what courage
and loyalty were.
(ii) Cornelius was a God-fearer. In New Testament times this had
become almost a technical term for Gentiles who, weary of the gods and
the immoralities and the frustration of their ancestral faiths, had
attached themselves to the Jewish religion. They did not accept
circumcision and the Law; but they attended the synagogue and they
believed in one God and in the pure ethic of Jewish religion. Cornelius
then was a man who was seeking after God, and as he sought God, God
found him.
(iii) Cornelius was a man given to charity; he was
characteristically kind. His search for God had made him love men, and
he who loves his fellow men is not far from the kingdom.
(iv) Cornelius was a man of prayer. Perhaps as yet he did not
clearly know the God to whom he prayed; but, according to the light that
he had, he lived close to God.
10:9-16 On the next
day, when they were on the way and when they were getting near the city,
about midday Peter went up to the housetop to pray. He became hungry
and he wanted something to eat. When they were preparing the meal a
trance came upon him. He saw the heavens opened and he saw a kind of
vessel coming down. It was like a great sheet and it was let down by the
four corners to the earth. On it there were all four-footed animals,
all animals that creep on the earth and all that fly in the air. A voice
came to him, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means,
Lord, because I have never eaten anything common or unclean." And the
voice spoke again the second time, "What God has cleansed, do not you
reckon common or unclean." This happened three times; and thereupon the
sheet was taken up into heaven.
Before Cornelius could be welcomed into the Church, Peter had
to learn a lesson. Strict Jews believed that God had no use for the
Gentiles. Sometimes they even went the length of saying that help must
not be given to a Gentile woman in childbirth, because that would only
be to bring another Gentile into the world. Peter had to unlearn that
before Cornelius could get in.
There is one point which shows that Peter was already on the way
to unlearning some of the rigidness in which he had been brought up. He
was staying with a man called Simon who was a tanner (Acts 9:43; Acts 10:5). A tanner worked with the dead bodies of animals and therefore he was permanently unclean (Numbers 19:11-13).
No rigid Jew would have dreamed of accepting hospitality from a tanner.
It was his uncleanness that made it necessary for Simon to dwell on the
sea-shore outside the city. No doubt this tanner was a Christian and
Peter had begun to see that Christianity abolished these petty laws and
tabus.
At midday Peter went to the roof to pray. The house-roofs were
flat and, since the houses were small and crowded, people often went up
to the roof for privacy. There he had a vision of a great sheet being
let down. Perhaps above the flat roof there stretched an awning to ward
off the heat of the sun; and maybe the awning became in Peter's trance
the great sheet. The word for sheet is the same as for a ship's sail.
Maybe on the roof Peter was looking out on the blue waters of the
Mediterranean and saw the ships' sails in the distance and they wove
themselves into his vision.
In any event the sheet with the animals on it appeared to him
and the voice told him to kill and eat. Now the Jews had strict food
laws, recorded in Leviticus 11:1-47
. Generally speaking the Jew might eat only animals which chewed the
cud and whose hoofs were cloven. All others were unclean and forbidden.
Peter was shocked and protested that he had never eaten anything that
was unclean. The voice told him not to call what God had cleansed
unclean. This happened three times so that there could be no possible
mistake or dodging of the lesson. Once Peter would have called a Gentile
unclean; but now God has prepared him for the visitors who would come.
10:17-33 When Peter
was at a loss in his own mind to know what this vision could mean, look
you, the men who had been sent by Cornelius had asked their way to
Simon's house and stood at the door. They spoke and asked if Simon who
was also called Peter was lodging there. When Peter was still thinking
about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Look you, three men are
looking for you. Rise and go down and go with them without any
hesitation, because it is I who sent them." So Peter came down to the
men and said, "Look you, I am the man you are looking for. Why have you
come?" They said, "Cornelius, the centurion, a good man and a
God-fearer, one to whose worth the whole nation of the Jews bears
witness, was instructed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his
house and to listen to the words you would give him." So he asked them
in and gave them hospitality.
On the next day he
rose and went with them and some of the brethren from Joppa came with
him. On the next day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them
and had invited along his kinsmen and his closest friends. When Peter
was going to come in Cornelius met him and fell at his feet and
worshipped him. Peter raised him up and said, "Rise; I, too, am a man."
So he went in, talking with him as he went. He found many who had
assembled there and he said, "You know that it is against the law for a
man who is a Jew to have contact with or to visit one of another race.
But God has shown me not to call any man common or unclean. So I came
without any objection when you sent for me." So Cornelius said, "Four
days ago from this time, I was praying in my house at three o'clock in
the afternoon, and, look you, a man stood before me in shining clothes
and said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your deeds of
charity have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and
send for Simon who is also called Peter. He is lodging in the house of
Simon, a tanner, on the sea-shore.' Immediately I sent to you; and I am
most grateful that you have come. Now then we are all present before God
to hear all that God has enjoined you to tell."
In this passage the most surprising things are happening. Once
again let us remember that the Jews believed that other nations were
quite outside the mercy of God. The really strict Jew would have no
contact with a Gentile or even with a Jew who did not observe the Law.
In particular he would never have as a guest nor ever be the guest of a
man who did not observe the Law. Remembering that, see what Peter did.
When the emissaries of Cornelius were at the door--and knowing the
Jewish outlook, they came no farther than the door--Peter asked them in
and gave them hospitality (Acts 10:23).
When Peter arrived at Caesarea, Cornelius met him at the door, no doubt
wondering if Peter would cross his threshold at all, and Peter came in (Acts 10:27). In the most amazing way the barriers are beginning to go down.
That is typical of the work of Christ. A missionary tells how
once he officiated at a communion service in Africa. Beside him as an
elder sat an old chief of the Ngoni called Manly-heart. The old chief
could remember the days when the young warriors of the Ngoni had left
behind them a trail of burned and devastated towns and come home with
their spears red with blood and with the women of their enemies as
booty. And what were the tribes which in those days they had ravaged?
They were the Senga and the Tumbuka. And who were sitting at that
communion service now? Ngoni, Senga and Tumbuka were sitting side by
side, their enmities forgotten in the love of Jesus Christ. In the first
days it was characteristic of Christianity that it broke the barriers
down; and it can still do that when given the chance.
10:34-43 So Peter
opened his mouth and said, "In truth I have come to understand that God
has no favourites; but that in every nation he who fears him and acts
righteously is acceptable to him. As for the word which God sent to the
sons of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus
Christ--this is he who is Lord of all you all know the affair that
happened all over Judaea, after the baptism which John preached--you
know about Jesus of Nazareth, about how God anointed him with the Spirit
and with power, about how he went about healing all who were under the
sway of the devil because God was with him; we are witnesses of all he
did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And they took him and
hanged him on a tree. It was he whom God raised up on the third day and
made him evident, not to all the people but to the witnesses elected
beforehand by God, to us who were with him and who ate with him and
drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he gave us orders to
preach to the people and to testify that this is he who was set apart by
God, to be the judge of the living and the dead. To him all the
prophets testify that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness
of sins through his name."
It is clear that we have here but the barest summary of what
Peter said to Cornelius which makes it all the more important because it
gives us the very essence of the first preaching about Jesus.
(i) Jesus was sent by God and equipped by him with the Spirit
and with power. Jesus therefore is God's gift to men. Often we make the
mistake of thinking in terms of an angry God who had to be pacified by
something a gentle Jesus did. The early preachers never preached that.
To them the very coming of Jesus was due to the love of God.
(ii) Jesus exercised a ministry of healing. It was his great desire to banish pain and sorrow from the world.
(iii) They crucified him. Once again there is stressed for him
who can read between the lines the sheer horror in the crucifixion. That
is what human sin can do.
(iv) He rose again. The power which was in Jesus was not to be
defeated. It could conquer the worst that men could do and in the end it
could conquer death.
(v) The Christian preacher and teacher is a witness of the
resurrection. To him Jesus is not a figure in a book or about whom he
has heard. He is a living presence whom he has met.
(vi) The result of all this is forgiveness of sins and a new
relationship with God. Through Jesus the friendship which should always
have existed between man and God, but which sin interrupted, has dawned
upon mankind.
10:44-48 When Peter
was still saying these things the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were
listening to his word. All the Jewish believers who had come with Peter
were amazed that the gift of the Spirit had been poured out on the
Gentiles too, for they heard them speaking with tongues and magnifying
God. Then Peter said, "Can anyone stop water being brought? Can anyone
stop those who have received the Holy Spirit, as we too received him,
from being baptized?" And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of
Jesus. Then they asked him to wait with them for some days.
Even as Peter was speaking things began to happen against which
even the Jewish Christians could not argue; the Spirit came upon
Cornelius and his friends. They were lifted out of themselves in an
ecstasy and began to speak with tongues. This to the Jews was the final
proof of the astonishing fact that God had given his Spirit to the
Gentiles too.
There are two interesting sidelights in this passage.
(i) These Gentile converts, as always in Acts, were baptized
there and then. In Acts there is no trace of one set of people only
being able to administer baptism. The great truth was that it was the
Christian Church which was receiving these converts. We would do well to
remember that in baptism today it is not the minister who is receiving a
child; it is the Church which is receiving the child on behalf of Jesus
Christ and accepting responsibility for him.
(ii) The very last phrase is significant. They asked Peter to
wait with them for some days. Why? Surely in order that he might teach
them more. The taking upon ourselves of church membership is not so much
the end of the road as the beginning.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)