Prayers Bring Change
Based on Acts 10:1-48
| January 19 2020
Khen Lim
Image source: lds.org
Introduction
Here’s an interesting (fictitious) story that I once read on
the Internet:
One day, a pastor attended the usual monthly meeting with the
church elders and deacons but unlike before, he came to share an idea that he
felt had come from God. The hope was that everyone would be on the same page as
far as the idea was concerned. In his presentation, he pulled out all the stops
to promote the idea to all present but despite his all, they voted 15 to 1
against him.
“I’m sorry, Pastor Jeremiah. As it turned out, that one
solitary vote in favour came from you. For whatever reason, everyone else
didn’t think it would work,” the condescending elder said.
“Well, that’s it, folks. We can now call it a night and go
home,” he added as he closed his diary to get ready to leave.
“What? Aren’t there anything else to discuss?” the pastor
asked.
“Oh no, Jeremiah. We all came to listen to your idea but I’d
suspected it would turn out the way it did,” the elder replied.
The pastor was shocked to hear that but before he could reply,
the elder quipped: “Anyway, why don’t you do the honours and close the meeting
with a prayer…”
Although crestfallen, the pastor didn’t give up although he
didn’t show it to the others. He knew the idea had come from God and so he
wanted to see it materialise. Raising his hands up towards heaven, he prayed as
if it were his last.
“Oh Lord of Heaven! You have seen how my brothers here don’t
share the vision You have given me. Try as mightily as I have, I have only
failed you. Lord, I pray You will move them to see and realise that this is not
mine but Your vision,” he prayed.
“And if it is, Lord, let us all do Your will,” he continued. “So,
show us a sign. Let us know this is what You want us to do. In Jesus’ most
precious Name we ask and pray, Amen!”
Before the others could say ‘Amen,’ a bolt of lightning appeared
amidst a thunderous outburst, crashing through the window pane closest to where
they were. The powerful lightning struck the table they were all sat at,
shocking everyone. Many were taken aback by the suddenness that they fell
backwards in their chairs. In the end, all were on the floor except the pastor
who was still seated.
He looked at them, calmly, and asked, “So what do you reckon
now? Should we put the idea back to a vote?”
Picking himself off the floor, dusting himself off and
straightening his jacket, the elder said, “Well, I guess that’s now 15 to 2 but
you still lose.”
For some people, change is just a word. They just can’t
stomach the idea of changing. Even a bolt of lightning doesn’t cause them to
rethink things. Change is never a good idea if it isn’t theirs in the first
place. Some of us have come across people whose grievous sins are finally
exposed and their promises to change amount to a bluster of hot air.
In other
words, they can’t be bothered to change. Life’s too good for them the way they
are. The idea that God knows about their sins hardly made a difference. And
they go about their lives unperturbed and unchanging.
For many of us, change is way too difficult because old habits
die hard. Ask any chain smoker or alcoholic. Or any drug addict you know.
Sexual perverts and predators know that too well also. If change is so nigh
impossible, then these are the people who can’t muster turning a corner in
their lives. They will never renew their mindsets nor re-evaluate their
prejudices. They don’t have the wherewithal to lift themselves from their
sinful miseries.
Today’s article focuses on the story of Cornelius and Peter
(Acts 10:1-48). Here are two characters of whom one we are familiar with and
the other, not so much. In this true story, Jesus’ disciple Peter faces one of
the biggest challenges in his life and ministry in the post-Christ era. In this
challenge, God brings before Peter a great opportunity to change, one he never
knew he had to. Faced with change, Peter’s response is what we’re going to look
at.
This change has long been spoken about throughout Scripture.
It is the same one that Paul had spoken about as a mystery kept hidden from
Satan. However he did reveal it to the saints (Col 1:26) but it was to the
Ephesians that he did so in much greater detail. In the change, the Gentiles
would inherit the Kingdom and become members of the same Body of Christ. They
are to be the co-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.
Because Peter bore the responsibility of fathering the Church
for Christ, God’s first priority was to lead him to reorientate his thinking
without which, the Church would not be ready to implement His plan to save the
Gentiles. But of course, the story also involves a person named Cornelius, a
Roman centurion and a Gentile whom God moved to press the issue on Peter. By
bringing two disparate people together, God answered two separate prayers,
merging them to and for His glory. This, in brief, is what Acts 10:1-48 is
essentially about.
In the 49 verses, we can read the story in six distinct
sections:
1-8 > I. Cornelius
receives a strange vision
9-16 > II. Peter also
receives a similarly odd vision
17-23a > III.
Cornelius’ messengers seek out Peter
23b-33 > IV. Peter
arrives in Cornelius’ home
34-43 > V. Peter shares
the Good News
44-48 > VI. Cornelius
and family receives the Holy Spirit
I. Cornelius receives a strange vision (Acts
10:1-8)
“1 In Caesarea, there lives a Roman army
officer named Cornelius who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. 2 He was a devout, God-fearing man as was everyone in his household. He gave
generously to the poor and prayed
regularly to God. 3 One
afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God
coming toward him.
‘Cornelius!’
the angel said. 4 Cornelius stared at him
in terror. ‘What is it, sir?’ he asked the angel.
And the angel replied, ‘Your prayers and
gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! 5 Now send some men to Joppa and summon a man
named Simon Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives
near the seashore.’ 7 As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and
a devout soldier, one of his personal attendants. 8 He
told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.” (Acts
10:1-8, NLT, m.e.)
The important part of this story is that Cornelius wasn’t just
a Roman and an army officer but was a Gentile. Scripture tells us that he was a
“devout, God-fearing man” and so were his family members (“his household”).
Cornelius was also someone who “gave generously to the poor and prayed
regularly to God.”
There are two interesting things to note at this point.
Firstly, we can and do find non-Christians who do believe in and pray regularly
to God. It’s just that they might not have a personal relationship with the God
we know and of course, they are yet to receive salvation through Christ Jesus. Secondly,
it is also possible to find a non-Christian who might display godliness better
than many Christians we know. In other words, Christians don’t necessarily
behave better than non-Christians. Unfortunately, we do know this to be true in
so many cases, don’t we!
In Cornelius was someone, a Gentile, who was better known to
the Jews as an outsider. To the contemporary Christian, an ‘outsider’ would be
someone who isn’t a member of the church, any
church. Cornelius certainly wasn’t a disciple of Jesus but that didn’t stop
him from wanting to know more about God. He was definitely prepared to do what
it took to achieve that.
And because Cornelius was willing to be instructed and guided,
his attitude paved the way for God to enter into his life and lead him. The
point is if you avail yourself to the will of God and you have a natural desire
to truly want to know Him, He will certainly make it all happen. In other
words, the ball has always been in our court.
There’s that phrase: “Instructed and guided.” In verse 5, the
phrase encapsulates how the angel instructed Cornelius to “send some men to
Joppa” and then “summon a man named Simon Peter.” To be “instructed and guided”
by the angel means that the Roman centurion was an exemplar of obedience. But
then, being a centurion in the Italian regiment, obedience was a strong
prerequisite. In this case, Cornelius was obedient not to his generals but to
God, allowing Him to take over and lead him to hear the Gospel for the first
time. Through the vision presented to him, he did exactly as he was told.
A little interesting point that we shouldn’t overlook is that
Cornelius despatched not only two of his servants but he requested a soldier to
follow along. Quite likely the soldier was part of his 100-strong platoon (called
‘century’). Scripture took note of the soldier being “devout” as well, meaning
that he too believes in God and was probably too, a prayerful person.
Image source: warrencampdesign.com
II. Peter also receives a similarly odd vision
(vv.9-16)
“9 The
next day as Cornelius’ messengers
were nearing the town, Peter went up
on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, 10 and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the sky open and something like a
large sheet was let down by its four corners. 12 In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice said to him, ‘Get up, Peter;
kill and eat them.’
14 ‘No, Lord,’ Peter declared. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure
and unclean.’ 15 But the
voice spoke again: ‘Do not call
something unclean if God has made it clean.’ 16 The same vision was repeated three times.
Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.” (vv.9-16, NLT, m.e.)
Just to get the time frame as close to correct as possible,
take note that verse 9 says that Cornelius’ entourage was close to arriving at
their destination by the following day. We don’t know exactly what time they
left the previous day but we do know that the same verse says “about noon.”
During those days, a trip from Caesarea to Joppa would be around 35 miles (56
km) in the southerly direction along the Mediterranean coast. On the assumption
that they walked at a speed of 3.7 mph (6 kmh) with brief breaks here and
there, the journey would take up to half a day to complete. Given that they
were due to arrive a little after midday (v.9), it is likely that, at the
earliest, they departed in the late afternoon the day before, possibly sometime
around 3:00pm.
The amazing thing about this story is that these were two
people who began by not knowing each other. In fact, they had no reason to know
each other since their lives were so completely different. More to the point,
one was a Jew while the other, a Gentile. Yet each of them ‘happened’ to have a
divine encounter of his own after they began to pray. These visions were
admittedly quite different in nature but even so, God used them to draw each to
the other.
Though this might sound quite extraordinary, much of life
itself is filled with similar experiences where God brings two or more people
together for the purpose of fulfilling His will. I can certainly say that it
was the Lord who brought my wife and me together. Given the unlikeliest of
circumstances, there was no chance that we could have otherwise met. I can
apply the same to other relationships and friendships that have come together,
again, in quite unlikely ways. Indeed, through my experiences, I can say that
He brings people together to bring glory to Him. Peter and Cornelius certainly
did.
In Peter’s case, God put him in a trance just as he felt his
hunger pangs. Quite incredibly then, the vision Peter had was about eating. He
was told to slaughter and eat “all sorts of animals, reptiles and birds”
(v.12). But he baulked because in his mind, they were unclean.
In the Old
Testament, Deuteronomy 14:3-20 underlined the Mosaic Law about meats that Jews
could and couldn’t consume. But as we soon will see, Peter’s encounter in this
case resulted in him declaring that under the new covenant, no creature of God
was to be considered unclean (Acts 10:11-15). We also see this reflected in
Mark’s Gospel (Mk 7:19).
Upon receiving the vision, Peter actually rejected God because
“our Jewish laws” appeared more important for him to comply but the Lord put
him in his place by saying that He “has made [them] clean.” Peter was a
striking example of a typical Jew steeped in his tradition and customs. To him,
abstinence from eating “impure or unclean” meat is as important as many of the
laws that bound them. And they still bind them today.
Given that this was how he felt, it’s not hard to imagine how
he would have been totally confused by the vision. But in this case, God is
telling Peter to eat what were essentially unclean animals; animals that were
rendered so in Deuteronomy 14:7. He did so for two reasons. Firstly, when God
said He has cleansed them (Acts 10:15), indeed He has. He must have done
something to have made these unclean animals clean and hence, acceptable for
consumption.
Secondly, Mosaic Law’s coverage of dietary stipulations and
standards made up one of the key cultural points of separation between the Jews
and Gentiles. Where the Gentiles could and would eat anything, the Jews relied
on their laws to differentiate the clean from the unclean. But it was this very
law that God would finally use Peter to tear it all down.
In verse 16, the vision is said to be repeated three times,
meaning that in total, it had appeared four
times. Why this many times, no one is sure because Scripture doesn’t
explain it. Some say that this was because Peter had such trouble understanding
it. Others suggest that it had something to do with Cornelius having sent three
messengers thus helping Peter to understand that their purpose in seeing him
had something to do with God’s command to all of them.
III. Cornelius’ messengers seek out Peter (vv.17-23a)
“17 Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent
by Cornelius found Simon’s house. Standing outside the gate, 18 they asked if a man named Simon Peter was
staying there.
19 Meanwhile, as Peter was
puzzling over the vision, the Holy
Spirit said to him, ‘Three men have come looking for you. 20
Get up, go downstairs and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.’ 21
So Peter went down and said, ‘I’m the man
you are looking for. Why have you come?’
22 They said, ‘We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout
and God-fearing man, well respected by
all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so
that he can hear your message.’ 23a
So Peter invited the men to stay for the
night.” (vv.17-23a, NLT, m.e.)
In these passages, we now come to the encounter between Peter
and Cornelius’ messengers but not before the apostle was inundated with
perplexing thoughts concerning the vision. In the midst of such confusion, the
messengers were already at the outside gate, standing and waiting to see him.
Even more interesting then, Peter was stopped in his tracks by the Holy Spirit
who told him accept Cornelius’ messengers without question. The command was to
accept them and later go with them back to Caesarea.
So there you have it – the instruction had come and the
message was quite clear by then. Being made clear, one would expect Peter to
understand and obey but he didn’t. In verse 21, he actually asked, “Why have
you come?” Before that in verse 14, he seemed quite happy to also argue with
God over the unclean animals. It’s obvious that Peter can be quite obtuse. If
God were to command any of us to go, we just get up and go. If we are to walk
the whole 35-mile journey, we walk. You don’t ask why. You certainly don’t keep
baulking at God all the way.
In such a situation, Christians, as disciples of Christ,
should respond to God by saying, “Lord, Lord, I may not know why or where but I
know I will do as You ask.” In every sense of what this means, Peter shouldn’t
need to ask why. So do we given the same situation. But poor Peter. His head
must have been spinning like a top by now. From strange vision to strange
people, it was all getting a little too much.
Of course, it wasn’t just Peter alone. Cornelius was also
intimidated by the appearance of the angel to the point of fear:
‘Cornelius!’ the angel said. 4 Cornelius stared at him in
terror. ‘What is it, sir?’ he asked the angel. (10:3-4, NLT, m.e.)
After all, it isn’t everyday that everyone of us gets to see a
real-life angel before our eyes. It is interesting that while Hollywood
persistently paints pictures of angelic beings looking, well, ‘angelic,’ it is
obvious that Cornelius didn’t. An expression of terror pretty much says it all.
It must have gotten worse when the angel instructed him to get his messengers
to go seek someone by the name Simon Peter.
But once both Peter and Cornelius got a grip of what was
happening, they decided to heed God’s command. In both their cases, they acted
immediately. For Peter, he said it so in verse 29 below.
Image source: ldsmag.com
IV. Peter arrives in Cornelius’ home (vv.23b-33)
“23b The next day, he went with them, accompanied
by some of the brothers from Joppa. 24 They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives
and close friends. 25 As
Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshipped him. 26
But Peter pulled him up and said, ‘Stand
up! I’m a human being just like you!’ 27 So they talked together and went inside, where many others were
assembled.
28 Peter told them, ‘You know it is against our laws for a
Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no
longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. 29 So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. Now tell me why you sent for me.’
30 Cornelius replied, ‘Four days ago, I was praying in my house about this
same time, three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes
was standing in front of me. 31 He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your gifts to
the poor have been noticed by God! 32 Now send messengers to Joppa and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is
staying in the home of Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’ 33
So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord
has given you.’” (vv.23b-33,
NLT, m.e.)
Verse 23b tells us that Peter thought to bring along “some of
the brothers from Joppa.” ‘Brothers’ in this case might not be his siblings.
After all, there is a difference in wording between “the brothers” and ‘his
brothers.’ They were more like like-minded fraternal friends who happened to
live in Joppa and not where Peter originally hailed from.
Peter’s decision to bring along his friends is unusual because
the angel’s command to Cornelius was that he needed to meet only him but not
anyone else. One might be able to read into this a sense of distrust or doubt
on Peter’s part. Perhaps it was because Peter had no idea who Cornelius was let
alone the two servants and the soldier he sent. They might be ‘devout’ to their
master but Peter wouldn’t know any of this. But then Peter’s instructions came
not from another human but from the Holy Spirit. In other words, if he couldn’t
trust the Spirit, who else can you? (1 Jn 4:18)
It’s obvious that even Peter didn’t remember that his
descendants failed to claim the Promised Land that God told them to because
they too doubted Him. In Num 13:26-14:4 lies the story of how mortal fears
overrode spiritual sense in God. As a result, they sent 12 scouts in who then
returned, gripped with fear.
The rest of the story was, well, tragic.
Thankfully, this time, God seemed more forgiving. Meanwhile it wasn’t just Cornelius
who waited with mounting excitement for Peter to arrive but also his relatives
and close friends. He was generous in also wanting his loved ones to experience
the message from God.
In fact, Cornelius was so respectable that when Peter arrived,
he “fell at his feet and worshipped him” (v.25), a gesture that Peter was quick
to correct. It was also the kind of expression that those who were accustomed
to pagan worshipping would have done. Being of Roman culture, that was an
understandable mistake on Cornelius’ part. In the same way, we are never to
take glory unto ourselves even as we do great things for others.
Someone I used to know would take delight in telling me how his
late father would build schools, hospitals and playgrounds in some provincial
part of China to show how he used his wealth to substantiate his generosity.
The father chose that specific part of the country to do so because he was born
there in the previous century before migrating to what was once called Malaya.
However, there was a common feature on all these building structures – they all
were emblazoned with his late father’s name. Just to make sure no one could
miss it, the name was large and visible from the main roads.
That’s the kind of behaviour Peter was alluding to with
Cornelius. For whatever our achievements are, God deserves all the glory no
matter what. Because God is always in control (Prov 19:21, 16:9, Ps 115:3), our
successes and failures are essentially what He allows or disallows. Every
outcome in our lives is something God is aware. When someone has the means of
building schools, hospitals and playgrounds to benefit communities, it is only
because God allowed it to happen. It has nothing
to do with the person’s abilities.
In these passages, we get to the crux of the article – both
Peter and Cornelius are people who experience the kind of change that could
only be brought on by God. But their reactions were quite different. Peter began
by casting doubts and experiencing confusion. Cornelius, on the other hand, was
terrified (v.4) by the angel’s “dazzling clothes” (v.30) in his presence before
he quickly understood his instructions. Thereafter, he did not hesitate to send
his servants and soldiers to bring Peter back.
The potential to change came to both Peter and Cornelius but
they didn’t exactly produce the same outcome, at least initially. As we know,
one of two outcomes was markedly more proactive. What made this story stand out
was that these two changes were the result of two simultaneous prayers by two
disparate people in two contrasting places. In God unfolding His plan, He
brought together two people who knew nothing of each other.
One was a Jew and
an apostle and the other a God-fearing Gentile. By bringing these two people
together, God’s plan to bring salvation to the whole world could take place. In
issuing instructions to the two, God merged their actions and in unifying them,
the promise of salvation was finally materialising for those not of his own
Chosen People.
But of course, it wasn’t as straightforward as it may sound.
In particular, it was Peter who had the odds stacked against him. For him to
overcome his own cultural challenges was going to be an uphill task. It was something
he was never brought up to do but then again, one could say that of almost
every Jew during that era.
When it came to dealing with Gentiles, the Jews only
had verboten in their minds. For one,
they could not visit a Gentile’s home. For another, they could not be
associated with Gentiles, physically or otherwise. It was mainly both of these
that Peter found himself confronting as a result of the vision.
Although he had problems accepting such challenges at the
beginning, Peter did respond fairly quickly soon after but not before he was
rebuked by God. In his eventual meeting with Cornelius, he admitted as much
what that change was and how God altered his mindset. Of great importance was
that he explained how such Jewish Laws concerning impure and unclean animals
were finally abrogated by the Lord.
Needless to say, once Peter got over his earlier cultural
inhibitions, God could finally use him to and for His purposes. Meeting
Cornelius became the cornerstone of God’s greatest gift to the Gentiles because
Peter finally moved in divine harmony. Or at least that was what most of us
would have expected but, no, it seemed that his head was still stuck in the fog
when quite incredulously, he asked, “Now tell me why you sent for me.”
It now appeared that the full weight of the chance encounter
had yet to bear on Peter. He finally understood the vision of the impure and
unclean animals. He joined the dots between that and how he should now treat
the Gentiles. He obeyed the Holy Spirit’s orders to meet Cornelius’ messengers
and join them in returning to Caesarea. He finally met Cornelius himself. And
he explained all that he understood…except not having even the foggiest idea
“why you sent for me.”
The full weight of God’s plan had still eluded Peter! In other
words, it hadn’t dawned on him to share the Good News to this Gentile family.
Maybe after all, Peter’s awareness was as sensitive as his namesake, a
proverbial rock! It took Cornelius, a Gentile, to draw him to his senses. It
was his account of the story that prompted the Gospel to be told (v.33).
A notable thing at this point is the sheer enthusiasm and
anticipation that Cornelius and his relatives and friends displayed in wanting
to hear the Gospel. Ironically, Cornelius’ hunger in this sense is truly spiritual
but Peter’s earlier pangs of hunger were simply about wanting to eat (v.10).
No doubt about it, Cornelius’ desire to hear God’s message is what
every aspiring evangelist in us would love to encounter. Cornelius and his
friends epitomise the kind of people we all dream of meeting because they make
our job far easier and more straightforward. Just imagine for a moment of some
stranger coming up and say to us, “Listen, pal, I’d love you to tell me every
wonderful thing you know about God because I’ve been hungering to hear it!” Now,
what an enduring experience this would be!
As Jesus has commanded us to “go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations” (Mt 28:19), the Bible doesn’t give us any hint if Peter was
actually glad to do so with the likes of Cornelius. We know that Cornelius was
itching to hear the Good News but that doesn’t necessarily mean Peter
reciprocated. At this point of the story, of course, we’ll never know if it
might just be because of his lingering cultural inhibitions.
V. Peter shares the Good News (vv.34-43)
“34
Then Peter replied, ‘I see very clearly
that God shows no favouritism. 35
In every nation, He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right. 36
This is the message of Good News for the
people of Israel – that there is peace
with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You
know what happened throughout
Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism.
38 And you know that God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good
and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.’ 39
‘And we apostles are witnesses of all He
did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on
a cross, 40 but God raised
Him to life on the third day. Then God allowed Him to appear, 41
not to the general public but to us whom
God had chosen in advance to be His witnesses. We were those who ate and drank
with Him after He rose from the dead. 42 And He ordered us to preach
everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the One appointed by God to be the
judge of all – the living and the dead. 43 He is the One
all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in Him will
have their sins forgiven through His Name.’” (vv.34-43, NLT, m.e.)
It is only when Peter finally began sharing the Good News that
his confession started. He said that God showed no favouritism (v.34), meaning
the Gospel wasn’t just for the Jews but for everyone throughout the world
including all the Gentiles one could find. This would have been sweet news to
someone like Cornelius who was there to hear this firsthand because “no
favouritism” means God is not partial to any particular race, creed or colour.
Neither would He favour a materially successful Christian in
an affluent First World nation more than He would a homeless hobo in a Third
World nation. He accepts Christians from “every nation” (v.35) just as He would
welcome unbelievers into His midst albeit with the condition He mentioned (ibid).
In fact, as we all know, a rich man who thinks he’s a Christian might have more
cause for concern than his opposite counterpart.
Recall the story of this man who came across Jesus and asked,
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” to which he replied that he must know
the commandments (Mk 10:17-19). The man replied that he had honoured all of
them throughout his life but Jesus said he had still left one that had yet to
be fulfilled. This was what Jesus said he had yet to do:
“21
‘Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will
have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ 22 At this, the man’s face fell and he went
away sad, for he had many possessions.
23 Jesus looked around and
said to His disciples, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of
God!’ 24 This amazed them.
But Jesus said again, ‘Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of
God. 25 In fact, it is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” (Mk 10:21-25, NLT, m.e.)
It doesn’t mean that rich people don’t make it to heaven. God
isn’t saying that it is sinful to be rich. He also isn’t saying that He hates
rich people. What God is actually saying is that rich people might have priorities
that do not allow them into His Kingdom. In the above story, the man only
became crestfallen after Jesus told him to rid himself of all his possessions and
give the money from the proceeds to the poor.
For him, his priority was to
horde his possessions. It’s this kind of priority that Jesus was talking about.
Yet He genuinely loved this man (v.21). Hence when God says He shows no favour
to anyone in particular, He loves everyone, rich and poor. No one is
excluded.
Perhaps the most significant part of Peter’s message to
Cornelius and his friends was when he said, “that there is peace with God
through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,” it was the last bit – “who is Lord
of all” – that would have been played to maximum impact because it simply said
that Jesus is, unreservedly and unconditionally, Lord of every creation.
Putting that into perspective might help us to understand how
cringeworthy it is when we hear Christians telling their unbeliever friends to
accept Jesus as their Lord and God. Why? Because Jesus is the Lord of all! Whether someone accepts this or not is
immaterial because He remains his or her Lord. Irrespective of the people we
talk to whether they are atheists, socialists, agnostics, anti-Semites,
Satan-worshippers, Muslims or Buddhists, Jesus still is their Lord. There is no
escaping this fact no matter what they might want to do. Richard Dawkins and
everyone at ACLU, take note of this:
“15
Christ is the visible image of the
invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16
for through Him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things
we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the
unseen world. Everything was created
through Him and for Him.” (Col 1:15-16, NLT, m.e.)
And even if these people refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is
Lord, they all will end up doing so. It’s only a matter of where and when they
will do that:
“9
God elevated Him to the place of highest honour
and gave Him the Name above all other names, 10 that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Php 2:9-11,
NLT, m.e.)
Take note that the phrase ‘under the earth’ refers to the
underworld, which is just another name for hell. What this means is even those
who have died and aren’t in the Kingdom of God will nonetheless acknowledge
Jesus no matter who they were when they were alive. They may reject Him,
admonish and abuse His Name, repudiate Him and condemn Him for all they want
because Jesus will have the last say.
As Peter continued with his message, he added, “In every
nation He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right” (v.35). And with
this, he would have introduced an interesting almost-dichotomous concept to
Cornelius; one where we are to love but fear God who then calls us His friends
and children. It’s pretty much similar to parenting itself where children are
to love their parents but at the same time, fear them enough to respect and
obey. That is why parents who overplay the role as their children’s ‘best
friend’ could eventually get into trouble when conflicts arise.
It is for the same reason that being the employer, we need to
be circumspect when we befriend employees and blur the distinction. In my days
running an IT outfit as an IBM reseller, that was precisely my problem. I had
unwittingly – but foolishly – become too friendly to the point where it became
too difficult to confront derelictions of duty.
Imagine if the King of kings show up at your home. Despite His
towering height, He calls you His friend. He looks at you with a warm smile and
His hand reaches for your shoulder. You sense His friendship but then will you
return the favour and slap Him on His back? Will you wrestle and mess with Him
as physically-inclined friends typically do? Will you tell ribald jokes as if
you’re sharing a beer with Him in a pub? Or will you feel the gratitude of His
friendship and hence, in your humility, bestow even greater respect to Him?
Because He considers you His friend?
Remember Jesus saying this:
“14
You are My friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves because a master
doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now You are My friends since I have told you
everything the Father told Me. 16 You didn’t choose Me. I chose you.” (Jn 15:14-16, NLT, m.e.)
“11
He came to His own people and even they
rejected Him. 12 But to all who
believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”
(Jn 1:11-12, NLT, m.e.)
God not only calls us His friends but His children. But there
is a condition. In the above passages, Jesus first says, “You are My friends if you do what I command (v.14).” And then
He adds that “to become children of God,” we must first believe and accept Him.
Only then will Jesus accords us the right. Those conditions make it very clear
that even though He treats us as His friends, He remains someone we must learn
to fear.
Yet this fear has more to do with respect. In other words,
when you fear someone, it can also be because you respect him. To put this in
another way, when you fear someone, it may lead you to show him respect. To me, both appear to make a lot of sense. But
then there is this verse to consider:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Prov 9:10,
NIV)
In other words, wisdom can only come after we learn to fear
God. And only when we know who He is will we begin to understand life around
us. Going back to what Peter said about those who fear God and do what is right
are those whom He accepts. This is reverential fear; fear that is out of how
much we revere Him. It is not fear just for the sake of fear.
Despite all the flaws or shortcomings we may find in the way
Peter handled himself, he did share the Gospel and he did it very well; well
enough that we can all learn from. From his sharing, he proclaimed the
following to Cornelius and his friends and relatives:
-
Jesus was sent by God the
Father and that He was equipped and empowered by Him together with the Holy Spirit
-
Jesus is Lord of all;
‘all’ meaning every single creation on earth and throughout the Universe
-
Jesus was sentenced to die
on the cross but God the Father raised Him from the dead on the third day to once
and for all overcome the perdition of death
-
He himself (Peter) and the
other disciples including Jesus’ mother were all witnesses to Jesus’ ministry
on earth including His dying on the cross and ultimately His resurrection
-
The outcome of all this
was Christ’s forgiveness of sins and the emergence of a new relationship with
God; one that includes the promise of salvation and eternal life beyond death
Towards the end of the message he shared, Peter revealed that
the Son of God “ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is
the One” (v.42). Yet he himself was the one who was slow to come to his senses
for it took him awhile to even figure out why he was ‘taken’ to see Cornelius.
Image source: chinese.christianpost.com
VI. Cornelius and family receive the Holy Spirit
(vv.44-48)
“44 Even as Peter was saying these things, the
Holy Spirit fell upon all who were
listening to the message. 45 The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on
the Gentiles, too. 46 For
they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.
Then Peter asked, 47 ‘Can anyone object to their being baptised now that they have received
the Holy Spirit just as we did?’ 48 So he gave orders for them to be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ.
Afterwards Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.” (vv.44-48,
NLT, m.e.)
If Peter had any scepticisms about being in the home of a
Gentile, the intervention of the Holy Spirit would wipe them all out. Now, he
as well as the Jewish friends who came along witnessed something they never
imagined they ever would. Watching the Gentiles becoming the recipients of the
Holy Spirit and then speaking in tongues, it must have been an incredible
sight.
To say that Peter was shocked would be an understatement.
Scripture says he was in the midst of saying, “Whoever believes in Him will
receive remission of sins” (v.43) when suddenly, the Gentiles were visited upon
by the Spirit before they began to speak in tongues. In verse 45, Luke recorded
that Peter was “amazed” at the sight of it all.
In other words, Peter had no
control as to where or when the Holy Spirit would act. Neither does any pastor
today. No one has the Holy Spirit on his beck and call. No one can command Him
on cue to do anything he’d like. It’s easy to forget that the Holy Spirit is
God and in His sovereignty, He does as He wills, to whom He wills and when He
wills.
Considering that he once thought of his exclusive Jewish
background, this would have surprised him. And thus was the powerful conversion
that Peter experienced. Being a disciple of Christ and having followed Him
throughout His ministry, he probably thought he’d seen it all. He probably also
thought he was ready for all the life could throw at him. But God knew better.
The Lord foresaw that Peter needed to be differently prepared
in order to fulfil His plan. Peter himself had no idea that he needed some hard
lessons in order that he changed his culturally-restrained mindset. Therefore,
witnessing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit right in the home of a Gentile was
enough to convince him that Cornelius and his friends and relatives were all
ready for baptism.
The last verse tells us that Peter and his Jewish friends
stayed with Cornelius for a few days (v.48), which would be completely unheard
of prior to this event. But now, through the shared love of Christ, they – the
Gentiles and the Jews – were able to dispense with the past many generations of
animosity and prejudice and begin a new relationship bound in the sharing of
the Gospel.
Now that God has fulfilled His will with the Gentiles, it is
the Jewish church that, next, faced its need for change.
Image source: pinterest.com
VII. Peter retells the story in Jerusalem (11:1-18)
“1 Soon the news reached the apostles and other
believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the Word of God. 2
But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem,
the Jewish believers criticised him.
3 ‘You entered the home of
Gentiles and even ate with them!’
they said.
4 Then Peter told them
exactly what had happened.
5 ‘I was in the town of
Joppa,’ he said, ‘and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a
vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the
sky. And it came right down to me. 6 When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild
animals, reptiles and birds. 7 And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’
8 ‘No, Lord,’ I replied.
‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or
unclean.’
9 ‘But the voice from
heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ 10
This happened three times before the
sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven. 11 ‘Just then three men who had been sent from
Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. 12 The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and
not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me
and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. 13 He told us how an angel had appeared to him
in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa and summon a man named
Simon Peter. 14 He will
tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’
15 ‘As I began to speak,’
Peter continued, ‘the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He fell on us at the beginning. 16 Then I thought of the Lord’s words when He
said, ‘John baptised with water but You will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’
17 And since God gave
these Gentiles the same gift He gave
us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?’
18 When the others heard this, they stopped
objecting and began praising God. They said, ‘We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of
repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.’” (11:1-18, NLT, m.e.)
As an adjunct to Acts 10, the following chapter reveals an
important scene concerning what took place between the returning Peter and the
Jewish church. Because Peter spent a few more days in Caesarea, that meant that
news of the Gentiles getting baptised had reached the church well before they
arrived, which explained why the believers criticised them. It was all too
evident that they weren’t keen about what had happened.
Knowing he now had some explaining to do, Peter revealed what
had happened but considering the sensitivities involved, he was careful how he
told his story. He spoke about his vision of the unclean animals followed by
the command to rendezvous with Cornelius’ messengers. He then recounted
Cornelius’ side of the story. In rounding off his explanation, he concluded by
saying, “And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift He gave us when we
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” (11:17)
The key part of his conclusion was important – “Who was I to
stand in God’s way?” – because Peter is plainly reiterating that nothing that
took place was theirs to decide or determine but God’s. The outpouring of the
Holy Spirit could never be dictated by anyone and when He came, all Peter and
his friends could do was to watch in awe. As it seems, that was all that was
needed to finally convince the Jewish believers.
Or at least that was what it appeared by the end of the
chapter. However, in truth, the Jewish church remained resistant to the idea.
Five chapters later in Acts 15, we learn of many more objections that surfaced,
resulting in a council being held in Jerusalem purely to resolve them.
Old habits die hard, they say, and it is often true. It’s
certainly true with the early Jewish church. The baptism of the Gentiles was a
rude awakening to a church that felt they were the ones exclusive to God. They
knew next to nothing about His plan to broaden Kingdom appeal to the Gentiles
around the world. Cornelius’ conversion had now forced the believing Jews to
finally grapple with their old habits, customs, biases and prejudices. And they
didn’t like it one bit.
The three takeaways
From this remarkable true story of Peter and Cornelius, we can
take home three main points that proved inescapably dominant.
Firstly, God’s sovereignty
is not up for debate. He is our Creator, our
Lord, the King of kings and the Author of everything that is living on earth.
He also happens to be the Creator of the entire Universe. As His creation taken
after His image, we serve Him and to do that, we must be in obedience to Him at
all times and that implies how we are to be in step with His plans. Not knowing
the reasons behind these plans is immaterial – He may, after all, tell or not
tell. He also can determine how long before He finally reveals His plans.
Irrespective of what plans God has in mind, we are submissive
to His will. This means we are at His command no matter what. In His
sovereignty, we can’t even question God’s motives in whatever He wishes to do.
Even if we do, He doesn’t have to provide us with an answer. And so if we’re
left grappling for answers, He remains God over all.
Still, because He is a moral God, righteousness in our lives
is important to Him. What we feel is right or wrong might not matter much to Him
because only His moral codes stand. In other words, we cannot invent our own to
supersede His. In God’s sovereignty, He can forgive anyone He wishes –
including mass murderers, corrupt politicians and rapists and so on – and
there’s nothing we can do.
Often when that happens, it is because we do not
have the depth of understanding to know how God thinks. It is said that our
intelligence does not prepare us to properly perceive divine providence in its
fullest form.
In this story, God exposed Peter’s understanding for what it
was – inadequate, antiquated and not in line with His plan. As much as the Jews
liked to think of their exclusivity, it was ultimately God who decided that the
Gentiles were part of His plan. Just as it was He who determined when unclean
animals could actually be made clean (vv.11-16) much to Peter’s bafflement. And
when that happened, Peter couldn’t accept it at the beginning. If it were any
of us, we too would find ourselves in the same situation as Peter.
And if God could turn the Mosaic Law upside down, He would
have no trouble dealing with manmade Jewish laws about whose home the Jews
could or couldn’t enter much less fraternise with. Peter learned the difficult
way as to how manmade legislations were no match for God’s supremacy. No matter
how immutable we think our worldly laws are, God can make fools out of any of us.
Consider the odds that a fledgling modern Israel was against
when the Arabs decided to invade its sovereignty shortly after its creation in
1948. In the three wars that span 1948 to 1973, the tiny and poorly-equipped Jewish
state was constantly on the back foot against an enemy that was armed to the
teeth by the Soviets. Time and again, the size of their army, infantry, air
force and navy were dwarfed by the combined Arab contingent comprising Egypt,
Syria, Jordan, Libya and several others.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was seriously caught out.
Having underestimated Arab resolve, Egyptian and Jordanian forces on opposing
flanks found themselves with the best opportunity to finally annihilate Israel.
It was so grim that much of the Israeli population had dug fresh graves in
readiness to die. Hope was thinning by the day and gloom was cast over the
entire Jewish state. After the victorious 1967 Six Day War, tens of thousands
of Israelis felt this was the end, the ultimate shoah.
But God turned the tables on Israel’s enemies and made fools
out of every media observer who predicted its destruction. Beyond 1973, Israel
was always under the shadow of Arab threats but God was constantly on their
side. As we now live through the looming emergence of Iranian nuclear weaponry,
the Lord will show His sovereign hand even if the rest of the world continues
to deride Israel’s chance of survival.
Secondly, God doesn’t take
sides, not even if you’re avowedly a
Christian. Consider Martin Luther, the undisputed Father of Reformation and the
protagonist of the Protestant movement, God did not agree with his
well-documented hatred of the Jews. Some historians are of the opinion that
Luther’s anti-Semitism could arguably be the motivating factor behind Nazi
Germany’s genocidal ambitions against the Jews.
Some of us, too, might harbour
sentiments that the Jews did not deserve to be part of God’s plan simply
because we like to hold them responsible for sending Jesus to the cross. Yet we
forget the biblical significance of the Jews being God’s Chosen People. In
other words, it’s not God’s fault that our opinion on the Jews is wrong.
By the same token, the Jews think Gentiles don’t have the
right to share the same salvation plan as them and by and large, most Judaists
today retain that same opinion. Again, it’s not God’s fault that they have
little to no understanding of His plan. Persistently, many forget that
Scripture does say that His thoughts are nothing like ours (Isa 55:8). In God’s
impartiality, His love is for all to enjoy. Hence the Good News is for everyone
who cares enough to listen and accept. Here is a lifetime of eternity with Him.
It’s an offer He wishes for everyone to savour and not just a select few.
God does not look at us the way we do. While many of us are
inclined to be discriminating to some extent and in some form or another, God
looks past our creed and colour, social or economic standing, religion,
cultural background or history. He will accept anyone who decides to come to
Him by way of His Son. If we accept Jesus as the Son of God, the Father would
welcome us. There’s biblical evidence of this and no one can dispute it.
This aspect of God’s impartiality saves many of us from
certain doom. When the world doesn’t want to have anything to do with the
uneducated and the poor, God opens His arms and greets them with promise of
eternal life. When the world judges those who have been body-shamed and cast
them aside, God offers them a chance for true peace and happiness. When we’re
so down the social and economic pecking order with no chance of lifting
ourselves, God leaves a door open for us to be redeemed. He loves us so much
that He allowed His Son to die on the cross just so we have a way back to Him.
Thirdly, we persistently
think we know everything until God exposes us. Even
the best among us fall into this trap at least once in their lifetimes. It
always takes God to show up our flaws. We’re often so into head knowledge that
we forget that for all that we know in life, it’s probably only a small
infinitesimal fraction of God’s limitless knowhow. It would be way beyond our
comprehension to come to terms with the expansiveness of what He knows.
Man’s past history is enough to be daunting. Some historians
think they have it down pat but oftentimes, their understanding might be
flawed. Consider Darwin’s evolutionism and how misleading it turned out to be.
Then there is carbon dating, which modern science swears by but Christian
scientists know it to be deceptive. And of course, we’re now having to contend
with climate change. Again hordes of scientists, researchers,
environmentalists, climate activists and not to mention, politicians and
liberalists are all forcing the rest of us to read from the same page.
Yes, many of us are arrogant enough to think they know
everything there is to know. In truth, that is completely false and without
proof. And the more removed we are from God, the more we like to believe in our
expertise. This shortcoming prevents us from learning to develop the mind and
perspectives of God. And so long as we reject His thoughts and ways are
persistently higher than ours, we will never see the truth of life itself.
One of the worst aspects of Christian behaviour is our belief
that we are superior to unbelievers simply because our head knowledge tells us
so. We use our biblical knowhow to pummel others into submission just because
we can. We know that if we want to win battles on Scripture, all it takes is to
reel off an impressive series of verses to shut our opponents’ mouths. We look
at unbelievers and we judge them as hell bound. We listen to unbelievers and we
think we can teach them a thing or two. Our tendency to constantly judge others
is simply a reflection of our smug attitude; that in knowledge we worship, not
God.
Focus on Peter
John Stott once wrote, “The principle subject of this chapter
is not so much the conversion of Cornelius as the conversion of Peter.” He’s
not wrong. Acts 10 offers us a powerful
lesson based on Peter’s intransigence concerning what God wanted to teach
him although in the end, he relented after realising God’s grace in reconciling
the Gentiles. It’s not difficult to see the very same lesson that many churches
around the world must learn.
For many centuries, Scripture has been teaching churches about
conduct but there are still so many that choose ignorance. Throughout the
history of the church right up till today, there are churches that justify
their own actions even if they are unbiblical. There are churches that
infamously take God’s word out of context. Abound with the alluring prosperity
gospel, these are churches that discriminately choose to ignore the
multifaceted nature of God’s word. It’s a dangerous doctrine but they don’t
seem to care.
There are also churches insist that certain Bible translations
are superior to others. Such churches advertise this as their standing
position, meaning that if you use any version other than the one they uphold,
you’re unfit to join their services. It’s alarming but it is true; they do
exist even today. And they’re not about to change their views.
In the past number of decades, progressive churches are also
fast becoming very involved in social issues to the point of taking up
political lobbying. In doing so, they have painted Jesus as a social worker
with an activist agenda. To that end, these churches are constantly embroiled
in highly politicised issues like climate change, unemployment, gun control,
illegal migrants, and of late, the notorious Me Too and Black Lives Matter
movements.
Many churches not only in the west coast of America but across
Europe are not just welcoming illegal – but questionable – migrants but also
protecting those who have broken laws. Countless of these migrants have raped
and murdered; yet there are churches that choose to be blind to their actions.
But the ones that raise the most serious alarms are those that
use Scripture to justify their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriages,
transgenderism and gender neutrality. So long as these sexual unions are
anything but one between a man and a woman, it’s without a doubt a perversion
of God’s word. It is clearly evident in Scripture but astonishingly, these
churches still manage to distort the message to fit their sexual agenda. And
they do all this by also removing everything else that they do not agree with.
The point is there are so many churches that are resistant to
change the way Peter was at the beginning. So long as the change is something
churches disagree, it wouldn’t matter even if it is biblically sound. Paul’s
Ephesian inside-out transformation sounds great but many of these churches
would either be indifferent to it or they twist it to fit into their ‘beliefs’
much like forcing a square peg into a round hole.
In Malaysia, there are mainstream churches that look fine on
the surface but beneath the outer skin, there lurks an attitude that could
surprise many. Most churches, for example, would think twice about inviting
beggars and homeless people into their Sunday services especially if they
haven’t had a bath in ages. The same could easily apply to those they know who
are prostitutes, gigolos, gays, lesbians and anyone who isn’t ‘normal.’
On the converse, there are also churches where known bigamists
attend but no one is interested in ‘rocking the boat.’ In a similar way, many
churches welcome ‘big givers’ who may not conduct themselves in a Christian
manner though this is tolerated so long as the generous funds keep coming in.
Never mind if the money is clean, so long as the church benefits, everything is
‘fine.’
Donald Fortner in his book, ‘Life after Pentecost’
(Evangelical Press, 1995) wrote:
“Pride
and racism are intolerable evils and must never be accepted by the church of
God. All who are in Christ are one in Him, be they rich or poor, black or
white, male or female, learned or unlearned. All true believers are brothers
and sisters in Christ. In Christ, there are no distinctions of race, sex or
social class and none should exist among us.”
Peter’s earlier attitude towards Gentiles is Fortner’s idea of
racism but of course, today, there are many other types of problems beyond
social ills that underscore the churches’ resistance to change. When progressive
churches mix politics with their evangelical imperatives, they often lose track
of or compromise their identity. Such involvements are no longer about
spiritual empowerment but instead, they become nothing more than political
fodder. In some cases, the politics in the church gets so intense that its
members end up not filled with love but bursting with hatred especially for
those whose opinions and viewpoints they don’t agree with.
A lot has changed since Fortner published his book in 1995;
not just with churches in general but the society at large. There has been so
much change going on but unfortunately, for the most parts, these aren’t the
kinds of change God encourages. With so much undermining going on that stems
from within the church walls themselves, Peter’s lesson in Acts 10 stands out
as a strong reminder of all that is wrong that needs to be righted. In his
case, it was God’s rebuking that finally made him understand what was at stake.
As a product of his time and culture, God has shown the errors of Peter’s ways.
All this while, Jews like Peter were led to believe that
Gentiles were not their equal but they were treated like dogs. With attitudes
like this, it becomes easier to understand Jewish practices like shaking the
dust off their feet once they left Gentile territory. As horrible as it sounds,
that was standard fare at that time. Jews were also told neither to eat with a
Gentile nor to welcome one into their homes. Or even be seen to visit one in
his home. The legalism got so extreme that Jews would not even use the same
cooking pots as those used by the Gentiles unless they were thoroughly cleaned.
During my parents’ years before becoming Christians, they
would practise strict vegan diets on special auspicious days on the Buddhist
calendar. During those days, they didn’t share the use of the kitchen
appliances and dining utensils with me. They kept and washed them separately
and then stored them away from my view just so that I didn’t accidentally use
them and hence ‘destroy’ the purity of their tradition.
My mother especially
was so intractable over the matter regardless of how or what I said about it.
No amount of logic could sway her. It was only after they became Christians
that they understood the legalism and false piety. In similar ways, such
practices are no different than some Muslims we know who hide their
lasciviousness and corruption by dressing piously, attending prayers at mosques
and looking very holy for the benefit of others.
None of these Jewish traditions were authorised by God. They
were all contrived out of self-righteousness. Priding themselves over such
practices, the Jews likened themselves as separate – and superior – to every
Gentile back then. It was likely that their awareness of being God’s Chosen
Ones had gotten into their heads. Hence the cultural supremacy. It’s therefore
not too difficult to understand Peter’s confusion at the point of the vision
itself. It’s possible that he was under the impression that Gentiles could only
become Christians through ‘Jewification.’ In other words, they had to be
proselytised as Jews first. We’ll never know, of course, but it’s not an
impossible speculation.
Whether or not that was the case, Peter did finally understand
that in God’s eyes, Gentiles were not subordinate to the Jews. By way of the
vision that appeared in his trance, God made it clear that those who weren’t
Jews were also part of His plan of salvation even if they needn’t have to be
circumcised or wear a yarmulke. In other words, Gentiles were free from such
requirements. For these reasons, Stott believes that Acts 10 was more about
Peter’s rather than Cornelius’ conversion.
Gentile conversions, however, aren’t new by the time we come
to Acts 10. In fact, two chapters earlier, we learn of the conversion of the Ethiopian
eunuch, a treasurer at the court of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, en route
home to Ethiopia (Acts 8:26-40). While on his way home from Jerusalem, he was
studying the Septuagint when he chanced a meeting with Philip who, himself, was
bound for Gaza. Having found Isaiah a difficult text to understand, he sought
Philip’s help and through that, he was, according to Jerome and Eusebius, converted
and baptised in Bethsura, which was not far from where Gaza is today.
The point is the eunuch was headed home. He did not spend time
in the hospitality of any Jew. He met up with Philip but that was along the journey and not in a home. To
put that into context, no Jewish traditions were breached. In contrast, the
same cannot be said of in Peter’s case where the conversion of a Gentile was even
followed by a few days of fellowship between the two.
In other words, the
baptism in Caesarea was ultimately cause for celebration between the Gentiles
and Jews. And ultimately the Jewish church not only recognised the admission of
Gentiles but without even becoming Jewish proselytes. This was real witnessing
of the very first order!
In John MacArthur’s words, “In God’s providence, the time had
come to reconcile Jews and Gentiles in the church” (MacArthur New Testament
Commentary, 1994). MacArthur is saying that, without God’s orchestration, the
reconciliation of the Jews and the Gentiles in church would not have been
possible. Through separate prayers by Cornelius and Peter, God hatched His plan
that led to the reconciliation becoming possible despite all the cultural and
customary hurdles. Indeed, Acts 10 offers us stunning evidence of how only
God’s grace could make the whole event so miraculous.
Cornelius and Peter had now set the tone to launch world
evangelism of which the apostle Paul would eventually blaze the trail for the
others to follow. With the two of them having broken the mould, everything
gathered speed and before we knew it, missionaries from an essentially Gentile
church were despatched across the various territories of the world for the
Gospel to be shared.
As it was then, hatred continues to be the present-day bulwark
against Christian evangelism. And we see that everywhere including China, North
Korea and Iran and many other countries throughout the modern world. We see
this hatred manifesting in persecutions of Christians from the mild to the
serious, from simple banishment to beheadings and all forms of executions.
Christians are made to pay the price for their faith but in glory to God, they
go from here to a far better place, of course.
What is surprising isn’t the persecution in non-Christian
parts of the world but the increasing entrenchment of institutionalised
antitheism in countries allegedly blessed by God including America. In the U.S.
of A, Christian evangelism is facing incredible odds because of leftist
politics that outright reject God and the frenetic and immoral nature of
political correctness. And therefore, we see an interesting turnaround where
God is using missionaries from elsewhere who are now making their way to
evangelise First World countries that include even Australia, New Zealand and
Japan.
At Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the Centre for the
Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) estimated that in 2010, some 400,000
missionaries from worldwide were despatched. Of the top ten missionary-sending
countries in that year – apart from the U.S., which sent out 127,000
missionaries – they included Brazil, South Korea, India, South Africa,
Philippines, Mexico, China, Colombia and Nigeria.
While America continues to be the top despatcher of
missionaries to the rest of the world, the nation itself is besieged by an
incredible plethora of problems beyond just ethnocentrism. Assailed by
mainstream and radical leftism, Christians are constantly under attack on all
fronts and in all forms. Blacks hate whites at all social, corporate and
institutionalised levels.
But now even the whites hate whites, although it’s
quite hard to wrap our minds around this piece of illogic. Women hate men but
now certain women also hate certain other women based on gender preferences. Men
pretend to be women so that they can dominate gender-based sports and invade
women’s personal safe spaces such as bathrooms and changing rooms. And all of
these are an affront to Christianity on the whole.
But as we have seen in Acts 10 with Peter and Cornelius, only
the grace of God will overcome all these.
Image source: christgateway.website
Focus on Cornelius
Inasmuch as many biblical scholars believe that Acts 10’s
focal point is purely on Peter, there is merit in considering that Cornelius’
role was equally as important. This is, after all, a great story of God’s
amazing grace in not just sanctifying a saint but in saving a sinner. In this
account, Cornelius was no less a recipient of God’s grace. God’s hand was on
him for the purpose of carrying out His plan to redeem the entire human race
and not just the Jews. What we have here is nothing less than the incredibly
miraculous unfolding of sovereign grace.
Just to remind us that the Gentiles are very much a part of
God’s children, recall what the apostle John says of God’s sheep from “another
fold”:
“16
I
have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to
My voice and there will be one flock with one shepherd.” (Jn 10:16, NLT,
m.e.)
Cornelius is, indeed, one who was from another “sheepfold” to
which Jesus said, “I must bring them also.” We should then be greatly encouraged
– and grateful – that God has not forgotten those of us who aren’t Jews. The
Lord’s plan didn’t only cover His Chosen Ones but to bring us all into His fold
because Christ died for everyone.
Cornelius’ account of the story offers us as clear a picture as Peter’s. So as
we now shift our focus to the Roman centurion, what can we learn from his
experience?
Firstly, there’s no doubt
that Cornelius was deeply religious.
William Barclay (Westminster Press, 1955) recalled Tacitus saying of Roman
centurions, “[They] are desired not to be overbold and reckless so much as good
leaders, of steady and prudent mind, not prone to take the offensive to start
fighting wantonly but able when overwhelmed and hard-pressed to stand fast and
die at their posts.”
In other words, people like Cornelius were not rash
minded, impulsive or spontaneous in the way they responded to situations.
Rather they were measuredly circumspect and mentally organised. They knew
precisely what they were doing. Cornelius’ decision to desire God wasn’t one
hatched from a wild idea but instead one that was carefully thought out.
However, despite his devoutness, Cornelius was also lost. He
was religious but in his desire for the One True God, he struggled to forge a
relationship with. Being a part of Roman society, exposure to its poly-paganism
was a given. It would have been simple enough to pursue the many gods in its
midst. Yet Cornelius chose to abandon them to pursue Yahweh but short of being
proselytised to Judaism. The proselytisation didn’t work for one obvious reason
– Jewish tradition and custom simply forbade it.
People like Cornelius couldn’t have numbered many at that
time. A Roman centurion who walked away from their own pantheon of gods was, in
all likelihood, quite an uncommon case. Given that, he would have been very
much on his own and with alienation coming from the Jews, someone like him
would also have struggled in his spiritual life. But that didn’t stop him from
influencing his own relatives and close friends, all of whom, quite
miraculously, desired the same relationship with God. In other words, they too
wanted to know the One True God.
Such desire might not be too hard to come by in Roman society
but in Cornelius, one thing stood out – he actually prayed to God even though
he had yet to establish a direct spiritual relationship with Christ. Richard
Longenecker wrote:
“It
seems that we must understand Cornelius to have been a Gentile who, having
realised the bankruptcy of paganism, sought to worship a monotheistic God,
practise a form of prayer and lead a moral life, apart from any necessary association with Judaism.” [m.e.]
Not being proselytised to Judaism may not necessarily be a bad
thing. It just depends on how one sees it. Regardless, he wasn’t deterred in
his desire to know God. Not being a Jew might have ‘prevented’ him from being
circumcised but as a Gentile, he lived up to the light that he had. For that,
God delivered a whole lot more light to him than he could have dreamed of. Such
was the incredible power of Cornelius’ life of prayer that God rewarded him in
great abundance.
Having desire was one thing. Like the Ethiopian eunuch or Saul
who ‘excelled’ at persecuting Christians, he too was a man of nobility. Much
respect was bestowed to him as a respectable Roman centurion. He was, like the
other two, a godly man though one who was undeniably lost. Charles Erdman
wrote:
“It
is almost startling to note the character of the men who are described in the
Acts as needing the salvation that can be found in Christ alone. This section
of the book narrates three notable conversions: that of the Ethiopian prince,
of Saul, and of Cornelius, but all of these were godly men; they were not only
of irreproachable morality but they were zealously religious. Are such men
lost? Is it absolutely necessary today for men of this character to experience
a “new birth”? These narratives seem so to affirm and they remind us of the
words spoken by our Lord to the great teacher of Israel: “Ye must be born anew.” [m.e.]
As Erdman rhetorically said, people like Cornelius were lost and therefore in need of being saved.
The idea was they needed to experience “a new birth,” which isn’t difficult to
understand. In our contemporary times, many people I know came to Christ
because they were lost. They’ve been seeking the truth but they were looking in
all the wrong places.
In coming to Christ, they had nothing to lose but everything
to gain such as the peace, calm and the reassurance. They felt rarefied comfort
that only Christ could offer. They also found good reasons to finally be happy
once again. In Christ, they now found their brand new identity. They
experienced a rebirth and forged a direction in life unlike ever before because
this time, they were sanctified to the Lord.
As Jesus puts it, Cornelius belonged to a ‘different
sheepfold.’ That didn’t stop him from adopting his prayerfulness, which the
story reveals in some detail. Acts 10 tells us he began his regular praying one
day at the ninth hour. According to Jewish custom, the day begins at 6:00am
rather than our midnight. Therefore, the ninth hour means 3:00pm in the
afternoon. Given that Jews then as now prayed three times a day, Cornelius’
afternoon prayer – called Minchah –
was of great importance even though he was not proselytised. Interesting then
that he then “had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him”
(Acts 10:3).
Therein, the angel had a great message for him. He said, “He [meaning
Peter] will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!” By
that message alone, it is evident that despite all his praying, Cornelius was
still not saved but the angel now told him that God had given him the
opportunity to be. And all that because he prayed. Of course, little did he
realised that God was using him to move Peter into revealing and sharing the
Gospel with him and his relatives and friends.
When Cornelius heard that from the angel, he did not hesitate
in following his instruction. Scripture tells us:
“7
As
soon as the angel was gone,
Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, one of his
personal attendants. 8 He
told them what had happened and sent
them off to Joppa.” (Acts 10:7-8, NLT, m.e.)
Therein lies the next
important aspect of Cornelius – his urgency.
He wasted no time in sending his messengers to Joppa to seek out Peter. That
alone set him apart from Naaman who was recorded in the Second Book of Kings as
having a vastly different attitude. Even though he was deeply respected by his
own king for the great military victories resulting from his relationship with
God, he still refused to be washed seven times in the Jordan River as
prescribed by the prophet Elisha to heal him of his leprosy. He only relented
after his own officers succeeded in persuading him (2 Kgs 5:9-14).
Naaman’s refusal puts him in stark contrast to Cornelius’
sense of urgency. We don’t know why Naaman hesitated but we do know that
Cornelius acted quickly because his desire to strike a relationship with God
was undoubtedly strong and meaningful. His rapid response was also a sure sign
of someone who wills himself to be obedient to God.
Cornelius’ part of the story affirms the wonders of praying.
He proves that God delivers when we pray with all our heart. As Cornelius
showed so clearly, when God answers, we must move and move quickly. Delaying or
even rejecting in Naaman’s case is not the right thing to do. Similarly, we
must not just sit around and wait for God to begin working in our lives.
Instead, we need to be proactive. If you’re a parent, encourage and teach your
children to read the Word of God, to pray ardently and to obey Him. Alternatively,
if you’re a ministry leader, do the same for those who are under your
leadership.
Don’t waste time. Don’t drag your feet. When God calls, do
what He asks you to. And do it now.
Can we change to transform ourselves?
All of this brings us back full circle to some wide
implications for us individually and as a church.
Firstly and without a shadow of doubt, God answers prayers. And this happened to not one but both
Cornelius and Peter. He didn’t just answer them but He used the both of them to
flesh out His plan for humanity. Cornelius’ desire to know the Lord prepared
him well as the ideal candidate for His plan. His credentials were perfect – a
Roman centurion, a zealous God-fearing Gentile and a generous person who loved
helping people.
But Cornelius alone was only one part of the grand plan. Enter
Peter. Again, here was a person who also loved God. In fact, he was one of
Jesus’ closest disciples and the one chosen to lead the church. And because he
was a Jew, he’d fitted into God’s plan to disassemble his attitude towards
Gentiles. This meant prising apart every one of his prejudices and inhibitions
against them.
So putting the two together, Peter played the role of the
transmitter and Cornelius, the receiver. In his role as the transmitter, Peter was
the unwitting change agent, the one God used to bring change to the early
church and the one who would witness the outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto a
Gentile. As the receiver, Cornelius was first set up by a visiting angel who
simply instructed him as to what to do to get saved.
There’s an old saying about the three ways God answers
prayers. The first is He answers them immediately by providing exactly what the
person asks for. The second is He answers them but not before the person is
made to wait a while. The third is He answers by giving the person something
different but better than what he asks for.
But there is a fourth one that people often overlook. When God
answers prayers, it doesn’t always have to be in the affirmative. ‘No’ is also
an answer though invariably, it’s not a very popularly accepted one.
Nonetheless, it is still an answer. So when God says no, it still qualifies as
an answer. It would be arrogant and presumptuous of us to expect God to always
give us what we want. The point with God’s answer – yes or no, for that matter
– is that it is always in our best interests. In other words, we should still
be grateful to Him if or when He says, “No.”
The problem with God saying “No” to us is that we don’t have
the ability to discern. Whenever we pray to God, asking for something, we tend
to ask Him for a sign to confirm His answer to us. The issue with this is that
invariably, that sign is supposed to be a verification for a “Yes” rather than
a “No” response. In other words, no one I know of ever prays to God looking for
a negative answer, meaning we have no way to tell when it’s not a “Yes.”
That of course makes it a touch hard to figure out. However,
as life’s many lessons teach us, a negative response might sometimes be the
better answer but often, that’s only in retrospection. If I look back at my
life and think of all the past relationships that didn’t work out, I am now
actually thankful they failed. I certainly wouldn’t have thought so back then
but with the benefit of hindsight, I’m glad I broke up with them. If I hadn’t,
I wouldn’t have met my wife and I certainly wouldn’t have had my lovely pair of
twin daughters. It is sometimes in failure that we rise up and do something
successful.
However, not everyone thinks like that. When God’s answer to a
person’s prayer is a ‘No,’ that is as good as not answering at all. Sometimes
even a zealous Christian might react wrongly to such a response. On the mistaken
basis that God doesn’t care as much as we think, that explains why He doesn’t
even answer our prayers. It might sound reasonable to think that way but it’s
not true.
To help us to understand this, consider when we were young
kids with not a care in the world. Back then, we lived in an age where we’d
like to believe that at the click of our fingers, our parents would rush out
and buy the toys we wanted. We like to imagine that parents were great only
when they did as we liked them to, gave us what we wanted and took us to the
coolest places in the world including Disneyland. Some of us might have liked
to fantasise getting smartphones from our parents without even working for
them. Or our first brand spanking new car for college.
That’s just a fantasy because for most of us, that just
doesn’t even sound realistic. Loving parents just don’t do that sort of thing
because doing otherwise would have spoilt and pampered us. Besides, if we’d
gotten everything we demanded from our parents, there’d be no limit as to how
far we would go. Being spoilt also meant that we would grow up irresponsible,
undisciplined and arrogant and so on. In other words, there is nothing go about
asking and then getting everything we wanted.
It doesn’t make sense that every prayer we pray gets answered
purely on our terms. God wouldn’t give us things that He knows would end up
harming us. He loves us too much not to act on what He knows would happen to
us. As His children, we are His flock and He safeguards us as His sheepfold.
When He senses trouble looming, He will shield us from its dangers. Saying “no”
to our prayers is all about protecting us from harm that we can’t see.
Secondly, bigoted
attitudes prevent the sharing of the Gospel with others. We see this in
Peter’s ill-regard for the Gentiles. Had it all been left to him without divine
intervention, the Gentiles would never know about the Gospel because he would
have allowed Jewish traditions to rebuff them. As we saw later in Acts 11, even
Peter’s actions in Caesarea were heavily criticised by his own brethren in the
Jewish church back in Jerusalem, proving that bigotry is a formidable enemy of the
Gospel.
All this points us to Jesus’ telling of the Parable of the
Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). Presumably Peter and the other disciples were
there to hear their Master preach it to the people. Unlike some, this one
wasn’t a difficult parable to understand and yet the message there hadn’t
struck Peter on the day he was given the vision by God.
Given that in the
parable, it was the Samaritan who saved the Jew’s life and still, he failed to
see that a Gentile’s love transcended race. Here was a person – Jew or
otherwise – who laid on the side road, seriously injured. His fellow Jews
ignored him, preferring to mind their business and let him die. But not the
Samaritan who crossed the road and helped him.
In the story of Peter and Cornelius, the disciple was blinded
by Jewish intolerance towards the Gentle that he failed to love his neighbour
as himself (Rom 13:9, Mk 12:31, Mt 22:36-40, 1 Jn 4:7,20-21). Instead of
viewing Gentiles as people, they were taught to treat them like dogs. It was so
ingrained into Peter that he even rejected God’s invitation in the vision. It
was only after the Lord rebuked him that he realised his mistake.
On Cornelius’ part, he did not have any trouble accepting
orders from an angel whose sudden dazzling appearance had initially terrified
him. He didn’t even once felt the trepidation of sending his messengers to seek
out a Jew. He would have realised that Gentiles weren’t allowed to mingle with
Jews let alone enter their homes. Yet he did not reject the angel’s
instructions. Instead, he urgently put the angel’s command into action. All
because he was eager to hear God’s message via Peter.
I was once at a local coffee shop finding a vacant table to
sit at and have a meal when I saw a lady and her friend already seated nearby on
their own. Their table was large enough to accommodate other people in the
event that all the other tables were occupied. I noticed a gleaming cross
around her neck, a confirmation that she was a Christian and so was her female
friend. Seeing he had no choice, a stranger approached to ask the lady if he
could share their table.
Quite unexpectedly, the two ladies told him he couldn’t and
then signalling to him to find somewhere else to sit. I was horrified to have
seen something as unfriendly as that but worse, I overheard one saying to the
other that as Christians, they were not to share any public space within
proximity with unbelievers lest something bad happened to them.
If these two ladies were correct, how would believers
evangelise to unbelievers? If we can’t share common space with unbelievers,
some of whom may actually be quite keen to hear the Gospel, then we cannot
fulfil the royal commission. Similarly if we are so unwelcoming, how do we
convince them to visit our church or attend our care group meetings or even
join us on social fellowship outings? How do we make unbelievers feel
unaccepted when we appear so unfriendly? In other words, if we are so filled
with hatred for and judgement against unbelievers, we will go on in life
denying every opportunity to change. We cannot open ourselves to new
evangelical opportunities even if they do come from God.
It goes without saying that no church is perfect. Ours is so
far from it as well. Yours is likely to be the same too. In our case, we don’t
even appear to know where we’re headed and that in itself is just one of
several problems that plague our church. It is therefore painful to have seen
first-time visitors come and not return. It all seemed promising when the
visitors shared breakfast after Sunday service and our fellowship felt
positive. But when they don’t return the following weekend and beyond, that’s
when we know something isn’t quite right.
Years earlier at a time well prior to our arrival, we were
told of hordes of youth who simply got up and left. They too didn’t return.
Some went to other churches while a few simply dropped out completely. Word has
it that all of this was the result of poor leadership management from a
ministry leader. In some other cases, it was the church’s elder leadership that
was the problem.
Since then, nothing has changed. The opportunities were there
but the leadership never took to them. We were once before a church with a
three-figure congregation size. Today, we’re nowhere touching the century mark.
It’s hard to say what exactly these ‘leadership issues’ were but in broader
terms, bigotry of some form would probably not be too far off the mark. It
appeared that the church youth were bereft of love, appreciation and value.
They received none of those during those days. And yet we should be familiar
enough with what Scripture teaches us about these qualities in fellowship.
Last but not the least, being
a Christian doesn’t prepare us with an automatic knowledge download. Unless
we will ourselves to embrace change, we will be too complacent to want to
learn. And if we don’t seize the opportunity to learn, we’ll never be able to
interrupt ourselves enough to want to change. It’s a vicious cycle that just
keeps on pinning us against the wall. Peter’s experience in the story proved
that his close relationship with Jesus failed to prepare him to anticipate
God’s plan for the Gentiles.
Here was a person who was involved in Jesus’ public ministry.
He heard Him preach. He was there at the Sermon on the Mount. He was with Him
in the boat that threatened to capsize amidst a gruelling storm. He witnessed
many of His miraculous healings. And of course, he was there when Jesus was
nailed to the cross only to come alive three days later. Yet he was too
ill-prepared to understand that no manmade laws could ever compare with God’s
plans for humanity.
On the other hand, Cornelius knew he didn’t know enough about
God. That was why he was so eager to meet Peter and hear God’s message through
him. He knew nothing about what a relationship with God was like and that was
why he kept a prayerful life, waiting for the Lord to change him. He was aware
that good works alone wasn’t going to be good enough to save him. After all, he
was a man known for his generosity towards the poor, a trait that God recognised
and rewarded him. Cornelius’ thirst for knowledge about God set him up for the
greatest change he could have ever hoped for in his life. It was this quest
that finally led him to Peter.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know how much God wants to bring change into our lives.
The renovations of our hearts are a big concern to God because they are needed
so that we may turn ourselves into the kind of Christian that He wants us to
be. Our need for God to intervene and bring change to us is simply because we
don’t have it in us to change on our own. We’re just not cut out to complete
such a task not just because of our very nature but mainly because we don’t
have the capacity to do so.
In certain other cases, maybe it’s because something in our past
that scarred us made it difficult for us to change and move on. I have stories
to tell that offer me a window into how difficult change can be because of some
lingering pain from my past. One such story involved my mid-teen schooldays
when I was a victim of a frame-up.
To cut the story short, someone hated me enough to get me into
trouble that lasted more than just a few months involving a few schoolteachers
who all happened to have been the country’s judo contestants at the Olympics.
In those long agonising months, they took every opportunity to drag me out of
class to physically brutalise me away from prying eyes. With an alibi to keep
me in sight, I stayed out of trouble until the culprit was finally caught.
This and a few other horrible encounters would paint me a
permanent impression of a school I did not want to have anything to do with in
my later life. Today I have neither the desire nor the enthusiasm to get in
touch with most of my old schoolmates. I have no interest in revisiting the
school even if it was a simple walk through its grounds. I do what I can to
block images of the school away from my mind simply because those encounters
remain vivid and horrifying. They leave a bitter aftertaste that just wouldn’t
go away. And I found I couldn’t change myself from that state of mind.
Image source: cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Perhaps a more interesting – and far more encouraging – story
I came across on the Internet involved a guy by the name of Ken Parker who
happened to have a fairly dark past. Parker was not only a former neo-Nazi – Regional
Director of the huge Detroit-based National Socialist Movement (NSM) – but he
also carried the high rank of a Grand Dragon of the notorious white supremacist
group, Ku Klux Klan. From 2017 to 2018, Parker had two experiences that weren’t
only unforgettable but one would lead irretrievably to the second.
Deeyah Khan (Image source: m4ufree.sx)
The first was the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia
in August 2017 where 32-year-old lawyer and civil rights activist Heather Heyer
was run over and killed amidst violent clashes between the white nationalists
and the counter protestors. As he and a few of his fellow white supremacist
buddies sat down to catch their breaths following the police dispersing the
crowds, Norwegian filmmaker Deeyah Khan of Punjabi/Pashtun descent caught up
with him, asking if he was alright. Parker recalled the moment:
“I
pretty much had heat exhaustion after the rally because we like to wear our
black uniforms, and I drank a big Red Bull before the event. And I was hurting
and she was trying to make sure I was OK. She was completely respectful to me
and my fiancée the whole time. And so that kind of got me thinking: She’s a
really nice lady. Just because she’s got darker skin and believes in a
different god [sic] than the god I believe in, why am I hating these people?”
Khan was in America shooting her documentary piece called,
‘White Right: Meeting the Enemy’ and Parker invariably was immortalised on
film, spewing hatred against Jews and the gays. Yet the effect of the encounter
made him begin to doubt his own bigotry over the next few months. These doubts
were finally confronted when he came across a neighbour of his apartment
complex, a black pastor by the name of William McKinnon III. It was at a
poolside cookout where Parker had an intense dialogue with the All Saints
Holiness Church pastor.
Being a card-carrying KKK stalwart, such an encounter would
have normally ended up in blows but for some reason, that didn’t happen. In
fact, that meeting alone changed Parker’s life forever. Upon McKinnon’s invitation,
Parker was curious enough to attend a church service during one Easter some
time later. And before he realised, he was stood right in the middle of a
mostly black congregation. That was when he gave a glowing testimony that the
congregation was not about to ever forget. This was part of what he recalled
saying:
“I
said I was a grand dragon of the KKK and then the Klan wasn’t hateful enough
for me; so I decided to become a neo-Nazi – and a lot of them, their jaws about
hit the floor and their eyes got real big… but after the service, not a single
one of them had anything negative to say. They’re all coming up and hugging me
and shaking my hand, y’know, building me up instead of tearing me down.”
Ken Parker, right (Image source: nbcnews.com)
Not long thereafter, Parker donned on a familiar white garb.
The only difference between this one and the white KKK gown that epitomised so
many of their rallies. Here, on July 21 2018, Parker was getting ready to walk
into the Atlantic Ocean for his baptism in Christ as his fellow church members
watched on complete with his tattooed swastika, Klan symbol and Confederate
flags, which in September that year, he spent months using laser treatment to
remove.
In resigning from the NSM, Parker said:
“Love
thy neighbour as thyself. It doesn’t differentiate between the Jewish
neighbour, a Mexican neighbour, a black neighbour. It says love thy neighbour
as thyself.” (Parker, News21, 2018)
Parker’s turnaround, from being a bigot who hated blacks,
Jews, gays and lesbians to a believer in Christ is stunning. God had offered him
a meeting that he did not reject and in turn, he set himself on a path that
would forever change him to the glory of God.
In the Gospel, the apostle Matthew recalled the time when
Jesus visited him at his home (Mt 9:10) much to the disapproval of the Pharisees
who considered tax collectors like him and the others “scum” (v.11). While the
scribes’ hearts were probably too hardened to change their views, people like
Matthew did and eventually, he responded to Jesus saying to him, “Follow Me and
be My disciple” (v.9).
Yet another tax collector, Zacchaeus, somehow had a great
change of heart and followed Jesus. He was so enthusiastic that he even climbed
up a tree just to catch a view of the Messiah (Lk 19:1-4). With Jesus at his
home as his guest, Zacchaeus’ turnaround was equally as stunning for he, the
chief of all tax collectors, said, “I
will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on
their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Yet, just like it
was in Matthew’s case, there were Jews who were displeased with the encounter,
labelling Zacchaeus as a “notorious sinner” (v.7).
Most people will say that change is never easy to do
especially when it demands some form of personal sacrifice. When Peter changed
his position, he gave up his long-held cultural inhibitions to follow God’s
direction. Although he felt the initial resistance, he quickly changed his
tune. When Cornelius sent his messengers to Joppa, he surrendered the same
inhibitions that would have prevented the meeting he was now trying to set up.
He
could have remained a comfortable wealthy Roman and continued the senseless
worshipping of pagan gods but he switched his attention in desiring God and God
alone. Even the two tax collectors, Matthew and Zacchaeus, would have had an
easy life collecting taxes off their fellow Jews. But even though they were
richly rewarded by the Roman government, they too decided to follow Christ.
But once Peter and Cornelius were able to sense the purpose of
the change, both set themselves apart to God, merging their paths to the full
glory of the Lord. Through their actions inspired by the vision of the Holy
Spirit, world humanity was saved. By welcoming Gentiles into the fold, the
world changed forever.
Conclusion
As Acts 10 comes to a close, a new chapter reveals the
intransigence of the Jewish church to accept change. But persistent praying
eventually broke through even the most stubborn of attitudes. Over time, even
though Judaism dug its heels in, Christianity blossomed through the subsequent
centuries. And the numbers prove it.
It is estimated that there are just under 15 million Jews in
the world. By the term ‘Jews,’ that also means those who have adopted
Jewishness and embraced Judaism. A rough rundown on the numbers in 1998 looked
like this:
Israel
|
6,500,000
|
United States of
America
|
5,700,000
|
Europe
|
1,500,000
|
Latin America
|
400,000
|
Canada
|
400,000
|
Africa (overall)
|
75,000
|
Australia/New Zealand
|
125,000
|
Asia (excl. Israel)
|
40,000
|
In all
the years since, these numbers have only changed marginally. While the world
population has grown by more than a billion – having increased by 20 percent –
and the U.S. population has increased by greater than 15 percent, the Jewish
numbers have remained fairly static. Had they grown alongside, the total number
of Jews in the world would have, by now, exceeded 15 million.
In
fact, it is said that the worldwide Jewish population has not changed much at
all. Since the Holocaust, they have grown by around 25 percent even when the
U.S. population has since more than doubled. Perhaps the same intransigence has
something to do with this.
According
to the Jewish Virtual Library run by the American-Israeli Cooperative
Enterprise (AICE), the present numbers look like this, side by side those in
1998:
Country
|
1998
|
2017
|
Country
|
1998
|
2019
|
Israel
|
6,500,000
|
6,700,000
|
United States of
America
|
5,700,000
|
5,700,000
|
Europe
|
1,500,000
|
1,400,000
|
Latin America
|
400,000
|
380,000
|
Canada
|
400,000
|
391,000
|
Africa (overall)
|
75,000
|
74,000
|
Australia/New Zealand
|
125,000
|
121,000
|
Asia (excl. Israel)
|
40,000
|
145,500
|
In
fact, if we look at the overall Jewish numbers across the years, they don’t
look any better:
1880
|
1900
|
1922
|
1931
|
1939
|
1945
|
1948
|
1950
|
7.8
|
10.6
|
14.4
|
15.7
|
16.7
|
11.0
|
11.5
|
11.3
|
1955
|
1960
|
1970
|
1980
|
1990
|
2000
|
2010
|
2018
|
11.8
|
12.0
|
12.6
|
12.8
|
12.9
|
13.1
|
13.8
|
14.6
|
On
the other hand, Protestant Christian numbers have skyrocketed. In the last
century alone, the Christian population has quadrupled from around 600 million
in 1910 to more than 2 billion today and it has remained by a fair margin, the
largest religious group globally, making up 32 percent of the entire population
of the world. In America alone, there are about 247 million. Brazil has 176
million while Mexico has 108 million. It is said that more than 50 percent of
the world’s total number of Christians reside in just ten countries.
Simply put, there is no contest. Christians outnumber Jews by
a factor of 154 to 1. And that’s not going to change anytime soon. What makes
these numbers so staggering is that during the days of Peter and Cornelius,
orthodox Jews far outnumbered Gentile and Jewish Christians (Messianic Jews).
Possible reasons: Exactly
what happened over the many centuries that stunted its population growth is
hard to pin down but some scholars say that because Judaism wasn’t into
proselytisation the way Christianity did, the numbers were impacted. Christian
missionaries went virtually everywhere – including China and Japan – while the
Jews didn’t.
Another compelling reason is mass persecution. Following the
destruction of the First Temple, only 35 percent of the Jews remained while the
others were routed. World War Two’s Holocaust accounted for another 6 million
Jews, not forgetting the countless pogroms and exilic movements throughout
modern history.
Cornelius proves that even Gentiles can be God-fearing. Even
Gentiles pray to God regularly. Even Gentiles are receptive to the Gospel and
from there, they too receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. By regularly
seeking God, Cornelius showed that you needn’t have to be a Jew to desire God
with as much fervour as the Jews. And with all the praying, he set the stage
for God to unleash His plan.
Peter’s prayerfulness led to the witnessing of the vision that
brought change to the way the original believers accepted Gentles into the
sheepfold. But unlike Cornelius, Peter’s willingness to go along with God’s
plan was tested until he was ultimately rebuked. Change came hard with Peter
but when it did, some of the worst Jewish taboos were finally shattered. Though
Peter’s prayer was probably different to that of Cornelius’, seeking God made
him instrumental in God’s unveiling of His mysterious plan.
Footnotes
Dashefsky, Arnold and Sheskin, Ira M. () The American Jewish Year Book 2018, Vol. 118 (Dordrecht: Springer)