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Sunday School
No Race Is Given Priority; All Are Equal
14:11-15; Revelation 19:10; 22:8, 9).
Cornelius explained his vi- sion and the command of the angel to send for Peter. Now we are all here in the pres- ence of God to listen to every- thing the Lord has commanded you to tell us. The audience is every preacher’s dream. Every- thing was coming together for Peter. His own vision of the animals let down on the sheet from Heaven (Acts 10:10-16) now made sense. Peter knew the Levitical di- etary code (Leviticus 11). He knew what the Old Testa- ment taught about intimate associations with Gentiles. He had been proud that he had not broken the Law.
But Peter was a Christ fol- lower now, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was to operate with a new para- digm that treated all people (Jew or Gentile) as equal in the sight of God. The Gospels record that in the ministry of Jesus, the old distinctions were being reshaped (Mark
7:19). No one was impure (common) or unclean. Re- member that he needed the vision from Heaven three times.
None Are Favorites | Acts 10:34-38
Peter seized the moment and began to preach: I now realize means “to grasp or re- ceive with the mind.” It took a bit, but Peter finally saw this truth with 20/20 vision. Here it is: God does not show favoritism (“does not regard the face”). This is an out- standing biblical truth which sets Christianity apart from other religions. No race is given priority. No place is better than another. No face is preferred. God accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right (works righteousness or justice). The ground is level at the cross. God plays no favorites from the king to the peasant, from the rich to the poor, and from the wise to the foolish.
But Peter did not leave this message with some sort of
societal kindness or human- istic do-goodism. He grounded this lack of fa- voritism in the message of the gospel (Acts 10:36-38). This message of equality was part of the promise to Israel, which was to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). This message of no partiality was connected to the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6; Eph- esians 2:14), who is Lord of all. This message of liberty for all was made tangible in Jesus’ earthly three-year ministry to people. How Jesus treated people and how Jesus helped people became the new yardstick of Chris- tian ethics.
Peter bracketed the min- istry of Jesus from the time of the preaching of John the Baptist to the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 10:37-41). Peter went on to say that Jesus commissioned the apostles to preach this mes- sage of forgiveness to every- one (vv. 42, 43). The ripple effect had widened to the Gentile Pentecost.
Reading the book of Acts is like throwing a pebble in a pool of water and watching the ripple effect. The circles keep getting wider. When Peter preached to the Jews on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) that was the first ripple. When Peter con- firmed Philip’s ministry in Samaria (Acts 8) that was the second ripple. Here Peter preached to the Gentiles, which is a third ripple. Clearly God’s aim to save all the nations of the world (Genesis 12:1-3) was com- ing to fulfillment.
Acts 10:1–11:18 is one
literary unit. It concerns the gospel going to the house- hold of Cornelius. The back- drop to the lesson is Acts 10:1-23. God was so inter- ested in getting the gospel to the Gentile world that he used visions to get the job done.
All Are Equal |
Acts 10:24-33
The God-fearer, Cornelius, showed his genuine charac- ter (v. 2) by his reverence (lit- erally “worship”) of Peter. But Peter gave Cornelius a sanity check by reminding him that he was just a man like Cornelius (see also Acts
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