The Cycle of the Christian Walk - Acts 9-10

Acts 10:23-29 (ESV)

So he invited them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

The above passage is taken from the story about a Gentile named Cornelius and the famous Apostle and Jew, Peter.  Cornelius is seeking for God.  Peter is an ambassador for God.  Cornelius is seen by the Jews as a devout man who feared God.  But he is also a Gentile and that is the struggle with Peter’s thinking.   God gives Peter a lesson that was concluded by God’s statement to Peter:

Acts 10:15 (ESV)

And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

Peter’s takeaway from that lesson is what we read above.   This text shows that God is sending a firm message to Peter and all believers that should stop our tendency for racial and ethnic separations in our communities of worship.   However, Peter will eventually fall back into this trap and Paul will be sent to confront him about it.  Note:

Galatians 2:11-14 (ESV)

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Peter heard God tell him don’t say someone is unclean.  He gave him the Cornelius challenge to teach him.  But Peter fell back into the same trap.   We often hear God and then fall back into bad behaviors.   Peter was bold to tell Cornelius the following:

Acts 10:29 (ESV)

So when I was sent for, I came without objection, ...”. 

He will later object.   He will be corrected.  That is the cycle of good fellowship with our brothers. One fails and the other confronts and lifts up.  This is what happens in our lives.  Look to lift or be lifted up.