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Acts 10:23-48. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, click here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2010%3A23-48&version=NLT

God said, “Go.” Peter went.  Peter is definitely catching on. 

He brought some of the Jesus-following Jews from Joppa with him.  I like this.  It seems like wise behaviour to me.  Something new is happening.  God has spoken to him.  He is being obedient, but he is also bringing other people along with him.  I think he was being humble, (the Holy Spirit really was changing him), and cautious.  He wanted others to be with him to confirm that he was hearing God correctly.  He wasn’t sure what God was up to.  He had told him that he was to go with these men and he wasn’t to consider them unclean, but to what end?  What was God’s purpose in this?  When he finally meets Cornelius, that is essentially what he asks.  “Why am I here?”

I love that Cornelius assembled his family and friends before Peter even arrived.  He isn’t sure what God is up to either.  But whatever he has to say, Cornelius isn’t keeping to himself. If God is going to speak to him, everyone he loves is going to hear it.  

Still, Cornelius is clearly confused because when Peter arrives, he falls at his feet as if to worship him.  Peter is having none of that.  He knows there are two levels in the church – Jesus, and everybody else.  We can and should be respectful of those who are in authority in the church.  It’s also appropriate to admire and learn from people who have known God a long time and who have developed a strong relationship with him.  But admiration and worship need to remain miles apart.  Peter had the wisdom to very clearly assert, “We are equals under Jesus.  Get up.  Let’s talk.” 

Cornelius explains what happened to bring them to this point.  It’s kind of amazing in and of itself.  I mean, God sends him to a town a couple days away to bring home a man he had never heard of.  The stuff that is happening here is well within miracle territory, ya know?  And he is so sure that God is doing something that he invites a crowd.  You know he was serving good snacks! 

Peter connects the dots as soon as Cornelius provides his side of the story. So Peter reminds them of all that they had been hearing in the last few years.  For centuries the  Jews had worked to be forgiven for their sins and thereby be at peace with God by making sacrifices and following rules. But good news had come that peace and forgiveness could be found when a person repented of doing wrong and trusted that Jesus was the true Lord of everyone from every nation. First, John the Baptist started preaching that this was about to happen, and then Jesus came preaching and helping and healing by the power of God. Peter tells them that Jesus was executed but then came back to life and was seen and spent time with many people who knew him well. He explains that, having proved by his resurrection that he was the Messiah God had promised to send to rescue the Jews, he instructed them to tell everyone that belief in him was the way to forgiveness and peace with God. Jesus was not only the Messiah of the Jews, he was the judge of every person alive or dead.  The Jewish scriptures had predicted his coming and all he would accomplish, but only now that it happened could people understand what God had planned all along.  Forgiveness from sin and peace with God was available to everyone not by perfectly following a whole list of rules but by believing that Jesus had fulfilled the rules by making the sacrifice for them.

It appears that everyone in the room believed exactly that, because suddenly the same thing that happened at Pentecost happens in Cornelius’ living room in Caesarea! Suddenly the Jewish believers realized all these Gentiles who had gathered to hear their testimony were speaking in other languages.  For Peter and his Jewish friends from Joppa, that was all the proof they needed.  How could they possibly doubt that God welcomed Gentiles into his kingdom when his Spirit was so clearly at work in them?  They were baptized as a symbol of their belief in Jesus, in the name of Jesus.  This was significant too.  Jewish people were often baptised as a symbol of conversion or purification, but this was a new baptism.  It was a baptism in the name of Jesus.  They didn’t convert to Judaism.  They declared themselves to be followers of Jesus.