Acts 11:1-18
Luke opens this chapter with Peter on trial for his visit to a gentile home. Based on the opening text in this chapter it appears that someone brought the news to Jerusalem, but only told enough to condemn Peter for breaking the Mosaic Law.
The word in verse 11:2 that the NKJV translates as “contend” means “to separate oneself from, or to contend with.” The idea here is that the Jewish Christians pulled back from Peter and accused him. Under the Mosaic Law Peter was ceremonially unclean since he had eaten unclean foods and entered an unclean home with unclean people. Furthermore anyone that associated with him would also be unclean. Since he was now unclean, he could not enter the temple until he had gone through the rituals and sacrifices needed to become clean again. To the Jewish culture, this was a very big deal. At that time it is likely that no one ever imagined that Peter would even think about entering the home of a Gentile, never mind dine and stay with one.
These first three verses expose some great truth. The most obvious thing we should note is that Peter does not hold a position of infallible authority with the early church. If he had, as some claim, then they would have never questioned him on this matter, they would have just accepted it. Instead what we see is that the church saw Peter as a great leader, but just another fallible human like the rest of us.
The second thing we see here is that the church gathered and tested Peter. This is something sadly missing from modern day Christianity yet we see it through out the New Testament. Anytime something new comes up, godly men among the church should investigate it and determine if it is right and good. Peter did something way out of line, based on the understanding of the day, and the Church rightly called him out to investigate it. Until the matter could be heard and judged on, they kept themselves separate from it. This should be done in a spirit of love and understanding, but one could infer from our text that that was not the case in this instance.
Peter must have been filled with the Spirit that day, even though the text does not say as such, because his normal hotheaded reaction was tempered. Instead of exploding and ripping into the Jewish-Christians he calmly presents the facts of his case.
Peter realizes a great truth here and uses it to his advantage. That truth is that Christianity is unique in all the world religions because it is based on facts and truth. It is the only religion that says, “here is a pile of historically verifiable facts, test them and see if I am real.” Jesus himself said that He is truth and that God’s word is truth.
Luke here does something that is a bit odd for the day and time in which he is writing; through Peter’s defense he completely retells the prior chapter. At the time of the writing of Acts, you were very limited on space which to write letters, and histories like this. Luke would have had to spend a great deal of time working out what large chunks of information he would be forced due to space to leave out and yet he tells us this story twice. That should give us an idea of how important this event is. The entire church age that we live in today radically changes from a Jewish only religion, to a worldwide religion to which everyone can be saved.
Still, even though Luke found this important enough to retell, he did have to choose to leave out details to get in what he wanted so what we have here in this retelling is the most important parts highlighted for us. For example in Acts 11:4 there is no mention of Peter being hungry, or the meal being prepared that we see in Acts 10:10. We do how ever see much of the detail of the vision, and repeated is the fact the sheet is lowered from Heaven. This shows the message is from God and not from Man. Also we see Peter’s objection repeated, and God’s correction to Peter. These facts are important because the people present do not see Peter as some kind of infallible leader, they need to know this message is from God alone.
Peter notes that seven of them went to the house of the Gentile; these witnesses are needed to help validate Peter’s claims. Without them it is unlikely anyone would have believed Peter. What he was suggesting was just too radical.
In Acts 11:15-16 Peter is drawing a connection that we should not miss. Peter is equating what happened at Cornelius’s house back to the birth of the Jewish church in Acts 1 and 2. In Peter’s eyes this is much bigger of a deal then when the Samaritans were brought in and could only be equated with the birth of the church itself. Furthermore he ties it back to a prophecy given by Jesus himself. Peter is making sure to hammer home the importance of this event.
As Peter continues his defense we should note that all he does is present the facts. He carefully walks through the case offering no interpretation; he just lets the facts stand for themselves. He continues building this way until Acts 11:17 where he hammers home his conclusion by turning the tables back on the accusers and sets them up to question God, instead of him.
The result of this trial is the Jewish church is rejoicing at the wonderful events. They at this time are praising God for opening the door, and tearing down the wall not only between Jew and Gentile, but also between Gentile and God. For the first time in their history, Gentiles were being allowed to be part of the family of God. This would cause a lot of problems for the early church, and the first council in church history would be called to address this is part (see Acts 15), but overall they saw this a great thing.
What we need to take away from this is a few basic points. First is that no man, not even Peter, is above the Word of God. We need to test everything we are told, and everyone we know to see if they are true. If someone is suggesting something that seems contrary to what we know to be true, it needs to be tested thoroughly before being accepted. If it fails such a test it should be rejected.
Second, we should note that Christianity is based on facts. It is not based on emotions, or some burning in the chest. It is a factual religion that puts a great deal of importance on knowing and understanding truth. While it is true that you can put the truth in front of men and they may still reject it, any attempt to defend Christianity without relaying on the truth is doomed to fail and destroy your witness.
Finally we need to make sure we understand the vision that Peter had. He gives us the interpretation in Acts 10:28. That is that no man is any better or worse then any other. It does not matter what ethnic group you or your ancestors are from, we are all on the same level. All are welcome in to God’s family, and all should be made to feel that way.
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