Acts 11:1-30
Key verse: 20-21. 20 Some of them, however,
men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also,
telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord's hand
was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
Introduction: Through the last week message, we came to know how Cornelius and his families were saved. Peter would not preach the Gentiles. This came out of his personal sense of what
is good and acceptable to God. But God led him in every steps of saving a
Gentile man, Cornelius, and his family. In some sense Peter was dragged into it
by God, through his revelations and guidance to do what he would never do.
After all, he learned that God
does not show favoritism. God offers salvation to the gentiles as well. Through
this, it became clear that deeply seated Judaism was the source of rejection
and pride that opposed God’s purpose for the Gentiles.
We all have become children of God by Jesus grace. So we have firm
understanding of our relationship with Jesus and God the Father. But I have a
question. Since you became children of God,
has your view about the people of the world changed or still remain as the same
as it was before?
One thing we know is that our old view cannot be changed in a day by
someone’s suggestion or idea. To bring changes of our deeply seated convictions,
there must be a long and arduous process. God went through this process with
Peter in order to bring changes of his heart and that heart may be in line with
God’s heart.
But there were so many believers out there who held the same
understanding as Peter had. To help them Peter explained the details of how God
led him to save Cornelius. What does it mean to us? Through today’s passages, I
pray that God may bring radical changes
in our attitude toward others so that we may live as children of God.
1. God gave them the same gift [1-18]
V1-2. Until now almost all believers were Jews, may be small number of Samaritans.
But there were no Gentiles. Soon after Cornelius and his family were saved, this
news spread like wild fire to entire believer’s community. So as soon as Peter
went back to Jerusalem, they made a very serious accusation.
V3. 3 and said,
"You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."
As we know Peter was reluctant to go out to preach to the Gentiles and
further to eat with them the kinds of food that he never ate before was an
impossible thing to do. But Peter was led into this by God’s vision and
direction. Eventually Peter preached to Cornelius house and all received the
Holy Spirit. Apparently Peter ate with them the kind of food that he would
never ate before.
But many Jewish believers in Jerusalem could not accept this. How could
a Jewish man go and eat with Gentiles the kind of food that was unclean?
What was the foundation of such criticism? When God called Abraham, God
told him that his descendants must be circumcised. Anyone that is not
circumcised shall be cut off from God’s family.
This was reaffirmed through the Law of Moses. This has been the rule of
Israel, God’s people. Cornelius became saved by their God. This meant that Cornelius became a member of God’s family,
the family of Israel. Also circumcision signifies one’s decision to follow God
and His laws. So it is said of circumcision of heart. Having oneself being
circumcised implied one’s repentance to follow God.
One thing here we cannot separate people with what they eat and do;
their lives. If we accept one person, it means that we accept his life style.
It is one thing that Gentiles are saved by God and become God’s people, and it is
another that Peter went with them and ate with them accepting as if they were
one of Peter’s families.
So here the important thing is not just the fact that the Gentile were
accepted by God and became God’s people but that they became one family with
Peter and all other members of Church in Jerusalem. As we learned in Acts 2, the
sign being God’s family was sharing everything, having life together. To the
mind of the Jews, it is unthinkable thing to do! They never did and they would
never attempt to do so. Knowing them well, Peter explained in detail what
happened in saving this Gentile family.
Then how can these two be reconciled? It was impossible in the eyes of
the Jewish believers. Such belief could
not be changes by simply teaching. So God took Peter from the beginning to the
end. So Peter explains:
· God showed him a
vision of all kinds of animals and told him, ‘Get up kill and eat’ I rejected
it but God said to him. Do not call anything impure what God has made clean’
· That vision was
played out by sending three from Cornelius and God told his to go with them.
· God send his angel
to Cornelius to send for him. So God showed vision to me and to Cornelius.
· Eventually God sent
the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his family in full view of Peter and his
company.
God knew how hard it was for Peter to do this. So God led every single
step of this event; what words could Peter add? ‘There is nothing that I did in
my own decision or my initiative. ‘Delivering a message’ was the only thing
that I did. It was all God did from the
beginning to the end.’ Here expresses
his final resolution of the matter in his mind:
17 So if God gave
them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I
to think that I could stand in God's way?"
God gave the gentiles the same gift of the Holy Spirit that he gave to
Peter. This shocked him because by doing this God was counting them as worthy as they were. They became equal with
Peter and all the circumcised. Such will of God was never imagined and
known to Peter and to all the circumcised Jews. But now God has revealed
through the blessing given to Cornelius and his family.
Since God made his will clear to Peter in this way, all believers have
to change their views regardless of what views they held before. Gentiles can
become like God’s chosen people Jews by God’s grace. It is possible that any
men can become children of God.
It is note-worthy to pay your attention to the exact words of accusation
of these believers. They did not complained that Peter preached to the Gentiles
and they did not accuse him for converting the Gentiles to be believers of
Jesus. They complained that Peter, a Jewish man, ate with the Gentiles. Peter
became like them and they became like Peter in all aspect of their lives; i.e.
eating together sitting side by side. In their mind, Peter, God’s chosen,
degraded himself to be like the people of ungodliness. This can never be!
Through this we can have a glimpse of idea why God led Peter in every
steps of this event. The root of old idea is so good and so firm. To make
changes, God himself directly intervened in the life of Peter. We also understand
how important it was for God that Peter as well as all believers must change
their views on Gentiles.
What God wanted was not just to change Peter’s ideas but to change the
understanding of entire believers. They must look at the world with different
look, totally different view from what they held before. Also it is not just changes in one’s view. This view must lead one to
solidify new relationship, i.e. to be one with them.
What is the new view that God taught Peter to accept?
9 "The voice spoke from heaven a second time,
'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'
Peter refused to accept this three times because in
Peter’s view the gentiles are impure. But
God repeated this three times! God has made them clean.
What was your view of the people of this world? Such
stark contrast between these two views is seen on the story of Zacchaeus.
There was a man Zacchaeus. He was a tax
collector. Jews hated him and showed
their contempt to him because he rejected his people and his nation and all the
law of God. Zacchaeus went up to see Jesus as he was heading toward the town.
This was the first encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus.
When Jesus saw Zacchaeus sitting on a sycamore tree, Jesus said to
Zacchaeus,
Luke 19:5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked
up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your
house today." (Luk 19:5 NIV)
But the rest of the people thought differently.
Luke 19:7 All the people saw this and began to
mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a sinner." (Luk 19:7 NIV)
There are two different opinions about Zacchaeus. Jesus accepted him and
self-invited to Zacchaeus’ house. . But all others felt that he must change
before receiving God’s blessing.
I was like these people and am still often captured by such way of
thinking. Has our attitude toward other changed? About brothers or sisters, or
many friends or class mates, or many whom you get across day by day.
God called us to be his children. We are his
children guaranteed of heavenly blessing; We are princes and princesses of the
God’s kingdom. At the same time we must accept God’s view of the people, though
they don’t look good as we think. Though they don’t look worthy to share our
blessing! We must change and overcome such view and accept God’s will and God’s
view.
‘Get up, kill and eat’ are very strong words. We
have to get up and love and serve them with words of God’s truth and blessing
that we have. Jesus’ cross is the food for eternal life. Can we share this with
anyone!
How did the
believers in Jerusalem take this?
18 When they heard this, they had no further
objections and praised God, saying, "So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to
life."
They wanted to see
repentance before preaching the Good news of God. But through this they came to
know that God granted even repentance to
save them! This is the amazing truth
penetrating in their mind as they heard Peter.
This was accepted
by all the believers in Jerusalem; this became the accepted principle of God’s
work. This opens a new way to the world. It makes a new beginning to recognize
the will of God for the entire world.
In this way, they
became one with the Gentiles. It was impossible but in Christ this is made
possible. This means that being in Christ is more important that each of our
ethnic rules and regulations or traditions or ways of life. This begins when we
believers accept that God blesses even worst sinners with repentance so that
they may be saved.
The world will
struggle to be one or to make one. But they will never succeed because all
measures or means to be one is to become one by certain standards or rules of
life of particular people or group.
All believers are one because God has accepted us by his grace only. We
have become God’s children by grace and in this we are one. This is well revealed in what happened to the
next stage of church history.
2. The work of God in Antioch [19-30]
Systematic Persecution broke out when
Stephen confronted the Greek speaking Jews with their sin of rebellion against
God. Stoning death of Stephen boiled their hostility and many fervent Jews
unloaded their anger against believers. The leading man was Saul. So it reads
that except the apostles all scattered away from Jerusalem [8:1b]. Here continues what happened to these
scattered believers. They went to
Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. [#]
The persecution did not subdue their spirit of joy of having Jesus. So
as they went, they told the stories of the good news of Jesus, the coming of
Messiah. Majority of them told the good news about Jesus only to the Jews. But
there were few from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and there they spoke to
the Gentile as well. I like to think
more about who these people were.
As we see in this map, Cyrene is
a city in northern Africa, very far away from Jerusalem and the opposite
direction from Antioch. Cyprus was an
island off the Western shore of Syria. Natural direction from Jerusalem
should be Phoenicia, to Cyprus since Cyprus was their home town. Clearly there were not heading home. It seems
that they intentionally chose to go to
the city of Antioch since Antioch was almost opposite direction from their
home town, though we can never know this for certain. If so then, why did they
choose Antioch? [#]
Antioch was the
third largest city in the entire Roman Empire, supposedly its population was
about half million. Here to this big city, they felt compelled to go and to
preach the Good news of Jesus even to Greek. When they did so, there was an amazing
outcome; it reads:
21 The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number
of people believed and turned to the Lord. [#]
So this was a very remarkable event because the Gospel reached to one of the biggest city of Roman Empire and here
a great number of people came to believe the Lord Jesus. This might mean that
the main work of God moved from Jerusalem or Judea to this Gentile city, one of
the biggest cities of the empire.
This new church in this gentile
city had begun not by an organized action of the Mother church or by a
particular person, like one of the Apostles but was begun by God’s response to spontaneous witness of the ordinary
people like us. Again, this tells us that the leading of the Holy Spirit
was the most important part of this new beginning.
When Jerusalem
church heard of this news, they were happy and sent one man Barnabas. Jerusalem
church not only accepted Gentiles in their hearts but also acted in love by sending
one of them. There were seven deacons; most likely many of them spoke well
Greek as their names reflected. But the church chose Barnabas. In this regard,
it is meaningful to explore why the church chose Barnabas.
Barnabas was
introduced in ch 4:36 as Joseph a Levite from Cyprus. He sold a field
and put all the money at the disciple’s feet.
His was nicknamed Barnabas, a
son of encouragement. Was he simply a likable and affable character that he was
chosen? Through this, we can assume three things:
a.
He was moved by God’s
grace and that grace expressed most prominently in his offering of the
large sum of money, the whole. This
character was recognized by people as they called him ‘Son of encouragement
[Barnabas]
b.
He was fully
dedicated to God as his offering represented.
c. The church
recognized this as the character that
represent or reflect the spirit of Christ.
When he went Antioch, he looked
for a particular thing: Are their
faith genuine and of God? If so, what should he do for them? These are serious
questions since those who carried the message were none of the disciples, none
of the deacons. It was not certain. What might be the
marker of genuine faith in Christ or genuine character of godly church?
V 23 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and
encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
Was there the grace of God among the newly
converted believers? This was the key characteristic of believer in Christ.
Barnabas was looking for this and he saw and was happy to see that because this
is the proof or expression of their genuine faith in Christ. .
When Barnabas saw it in these newly converted
believers and was so happy and encouraged them to remain true to the Lord with
all their hearts.
But suddenly he felt that he
needed Saul. Barnabas knew Saul when
Saul was trying to meet the Apostles in Jerusalem. No one was willing give
him a room for friend ship because no one was dare to accept how Jesus did to
him. But Barnabas believed the grace living in Saul’s life and introduced him
to the Apostles. In this way he knew
well of Saul, how well he was versed in the scripture and how passionate was
Saul for Jesus’ cause. Nevertheless, the Bible does not say explicitly say the
reason why he looked for Saul. But he felt that getting Paul was necessary and
important. So he went to Tarsus. Tarsus was more than a hundred miles away from
Antioch. He had to travel days. Also
we may find the reason why he needed Saul through what they did together
next.
26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year
Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people.
When he found Saul, they got together and taught great numbers of new believers for a whole
year. Paul was the most knowledgeable biblical scholar and theologian,
firmly rooted in Jesus’ grace. In this way their faith was anchored deeply in
the words of God, building an unshakable foundation of faith of the church.
What was the core message of this teaching or the central theme of the
lives of these believers? It was Christ and what he did for
them. So it became obvious to all that Christ was their Lord and they were
begun to be called Christians. This characterization was not made by themselves
but by those who observed what they did and how they lived.
V27-30
Here is a short story about famine that struck the entire Roman world.
In this time of hardship, the believers of Antioch church decided to provide
help for the believers in Judea.
We do not know how well the members of Antioch church knew personally
those who were in Judea. Since it is said that large number of people came to
believe, it is highly likely that the majority of these people knew very little
about the member of Judean church. It is quite possible that only handful of
people had direct contact or personal acquaintance with those who were in
Judea. Humanly speaking there were too many barriers between the members of
these two churches. Notwithstanding such unfamiliarity between these two church
members, they decided to donate much help for the Judean believers. What does
this tell us?
a.
They felt that they were one with the believers in Judea
though many of them never saw any of the Judean believers. Oneness among
believers!
b.
This was an expression of their compassion and love in
grace. This is outworking of the grace that lived in the hearts of these
believers, overcoming all differences and human barriers.
c.
They did this despite of the fact that the famine struck the
entire Roman world, meaning that they themselves were under such duress because
of wide spread famine.
What can we conclude from all these? Jerusalem church was composed of
Jews and almost all member of Antioch church were Gentiles. But they became one
family in love and trust. Two kinds of people were impossible to be one and
united. But in Christ they became one! At the heart of this work is God’s
grace. This grace worked hard among those who went to Antioch. They told the story
of Jesus even to the Gentiles. The Spirit of God that commanded Peter to ‘get
up, kill and eat’ was living in the hearts of these people from Cyprus and
Cyrene. They began a new beginning to make many kinds of people to be one, no
matter how different they were.
Such faith and obedience to the Spirit begins a new beginning in the
lives of many. When we accept Jesus, we also
should accept that God grant even repentance to all kinds of sinners. As we
do so, our relationship is open wide and there is no limit. Our relationship
with other is open to all and is filled with love, grace and Gospel truth.
To do so, it good to hear what God said,
7 Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat. '
9 "The voice spoke
from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made
clean.'
I pray that we all may reexamine our attitude toward others and open our
relationship wide with God’s grace and love.
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