Today’s section goes from Acts 9:20 through the end of chapter 10. We don’t have time to read all of the text, so I am going to give you some highlights and encourage you to read all of it yourself. We may revisit parts of it later, but today we need the bigger narrative. Here is a quick overview before we unpack some of the details.
In Acts 9, after Paul’s encounter with Ananias, he sticks around and does some proclamation of Jesus as Lord. The local Jewish people try to kill him (I’m guessing it’s his former colleagues), but he escapes. He goes to Jerusalem and meets a bunch of the disciples who, as you might imagine, were skeptical. A guy named Barnabas smooths things over. That name will come up later. The section on Paul ends this way:
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. (Acts 9:31)
The narrative returns to Peter. He is on the move, and He is crushing it. He’s preaching. He heals a paralyzed man, and,
“All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.” (Acts 9:35)
He raises a woman named Tabitha (Dorcas, in Greek) from the dead. The people love him, and,
“This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.” (9:43)
Then Peter decides to stay with a local tanner (9:44), a guy who was constantly ritually unclean because he handled dead animals. It seems like an odd choice… until it doesn’t. We’ll get to that.
He gets this vision of a sheet descending from heaven with clean and unclean[1] animals mixed together. A voice says, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
So Peter, faithful adherent to Jewish purity laws, says, “Surely not, Lord.”
God says, “What I have made clean, you must not call unclean.” (Acts 10:13-15)
This happens three times, which is par for the course for Peter (3 denials that he knew Jesus; 3 challenges by Jesus of, "Do you love me?")
Meanwhile, God is speaking in a Roman house to a Gentile family (Acts 10). Cornelius, an important dude in the Roman army, is a praying, generous, devout God-fearer whom the Jewish people respect. Cornelius receives a vision to summon Peter, so he does.
When Peter gets there, he enters a house he was trained to avoid because of ritual impurity – but he had just been in a house like that, so some preparation had been done. There, he announces a tradition - shattering truth:
“God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.” (Acts 10:28)
Then he starts preaching, and the Holy Spirit lands on them, and a bunch of folks get baptized. Then they invite Peter to stay and eat together with a bunch of Gentiles, and he does.
Peter is starting to look a lot like Jesus.
* * * * *
That’s the forest. Let’s look at some beautiful trees.
Healing is Unifying
Peter heals two people:
Aeneas had been paralyzed for eight years. He couldn’t worship in the temple (beyond the court of the Gentiles), and there was likely plenty of speculation about what sin he had committed to deserve that.
Tabitha/Dorcas was a disciple beloved by widows, known for good works and helping the poor. Listing both of her names likely highlights that this female disciple was a bridge-builder between the Jewish and Greek cultures.
These healings introduce a theme that’s going to continue in Acts 10. God’s saving power is not limited by boundaries that create insiders and outsiders. And the restoration is not going to be merely physical. The result will be a building of a community of faith populated by people free of the hierarchy of value labels that traditions and cultures can enforce.
Peter Joins What God Is Already Doing
We talked about Saul’s zeal needing correction, which happened on the road to Damascus. Now Peter is going to get some holy disruption concerning categories of people he considered clean and unclean.
To be fair to Peter, he’s giving it a go. He’s staying with a tanner, which Jewish people just did not do. There are dead animals, blood, hides, stench, impurity.
“A wife, it is said, could claim a divorce from a husband who became a tanner (Mishna Khethuboth): “It happened at Sidon that a tanner died, and left a brother who was also a tanner. The sages held that his (childless) widow had a right to plead, ‘Thy brother I could bear but I cannot bear thee.’” (Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges)
Let’s give Peter the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s testing himself. Maybe he’s trying to bring the tanner some honor by staying with him (like Jesus eating with Zaccheus). I don’t know.
Either way, the fact that he needs a vision suggests he hasn’t stopped putting people into categories of clean and unclean. So, he gets a vision of universal equality of human value in the eyes of God. He has to catch up with what God is already doing.
This continues in Acts 10 where, Cornelius doesn’t convert because Peter is persuasive; Cornelius responded to Peter’s message because God had prepared the way first. Cornelius already prayed, gave alms, and was a “God fearer,” a Jewish way of saying revered God. The Jewish people respected him. God was already at work.
“Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’
So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” (Acts 10:30-33)
Then, the Holy Spirit manifested before Peter even finished his sermon (10:44).
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in different languages and praising God. (10:44-46)
It’s often viewed as a repeat of Pentecost, but this one is for the Gentiles. There was no carefully orchestrated moment Peter had to create before the Holy Spirit was ready. Acts 10 is Pentecost without circumcision, without Torah observance, or without markers of “clean” and “unclean”. The Holy Spirit was way ahead of Peter.
Faithfulness is not about getting God to endorse our plans; faithfulness is recognizing where God is already at work and joining His mission.
Doctrinal change = relational change
Back to Peter’s vision. It wasn’t ultimately about food; it was about abolishing hierarchies of human worth. That was going to have massive implications about how Peter needed to interact with people. We are still on a theme of people zealous for God whose incorrect belief and practice – or both – need refinement.
Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection.” (10:27-29)[2]
Their relationship is changing because their understanding of what God is like, and what God is doing, has changed. The story ends with table fellowship:
“They asked Peter to stay with them for several days.” (10:48)
Note the progression: Peter went from living with a tanner (unclean Jewish man) to being in a Gentile home (unclean Gentiles, double whammy) - and then sharing a meal, which clearly sent a signal of value, dignity and worth.
The gospel doesn’t just save souls; it erases unrighteous categories of value and creates a community that shares a common feast at a common table.
Acts 10 is not the story of Gentiles becoming acceptable to God. It is the story of God teaching the church about those whom God has always invited to be a part of His Kingdom. Which, it turns out, is everybody.
Most of us don’t wrestle with kosher laws, but I am guessing there are ways we still have a tendency to label people and place “unclean” so that we can avoid them, critique them from a distance, and maybe even celebrate how much better we are. Meanwhile, God is already at work in them and is calling us to them: “Don’t call unclean what I have made clean.”
Note that God said this of Cornelius before Peter went there and before Cornelius converted to faith specifically in Jesus. I think we need to make a distinction between different kinds of clean. There are a lot of verses about how the cross makes it possible for us to be clean because of the sacrificial provision of Jesus.
But if we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
There is also a cleansing baptism done by the Holy Spirit:
[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit…” (Titus 3:5)
Cornelius and friends had not yet been washed by the regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, so this category shift God makes clear to Pter must be something different.
I suspect it addressed the laws of ritual uncleanliness that insisted that Gentiles were so unclean almost by nature that they must be avoided entirely. This is not based on Torah teaching. The idea that Jews shouldn’t be in Gentile homes or eat at their table was a rabbinic tradition that began during the Second Temple period (516 BC to 70 AD).
God tells Peter that distinction is gone. There are no homes or tables he must avoid to be clean; no cities he dare not go to; no people who aren’t worthy enough to be invited into the Kingdom of God.
I wonder if we have lines drawn where the “clean” ends and the “unclean” begins.
It’s that group that has been so vilified that we just aren’t sure we should go to them with a message that God loves them and we do too.
It’s the people we just don’t want to have a meal with because we think our reputation might take a hit.
It’s those we fear have a spiritual darkness around them that’s so strong that we need to avoid them.
If I am reading the story of Cornelius correctly, the Holy Spirit is already standing on the other side of these lines waiting for us to catch up with the work the Holy Spirit is already doing.
We should be in contact with all people, because God is working them already. Isaiah records God saying,
“I made myself available to those who did not ask for me; I appeared to those who did not look for me.” (Isaiah 65:1)
They are, after all, His image bearers. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), so He’s at work. I’m thinking now also of all the reports of dreams people are having in other countries preparing the way for the missionaries who arrive to introduce Jesus.[3]
When we embrace the reality that Jesus is already at work, our love and mercy will increasingly match the wideness of God’s love and mercy.
A couple questions for us to think about today as I invite us to join Jesus in the work He is already doing?
Where might God already be at work—healing, welcoming, and pouring out the Spirit—while I am still deciding who belongs, who’s clean, and whether I’m willing to enter their house?
Am I following the Spirit into unfamiliar places—or asking the Spirit to stay within my boundaries?”
Is my obedience shaped more by faithfulness to Jesus—or by comfort with people like me?
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[1] As described in Old Testament Law
[2] Perhaps there are two miracles here: Cornelius received the Spirit, and Peter stopped resisting Him.
[3] “Have you seen The Man in White? Jesus is appearing to people in dreams” https://www.unreached.network/have-you-seen-the-man-in-white-jesus-is-appearing-to-people-in-dreams/