“Open Doors”
Acts 10:1-33
September 9, 2007
Word association: “opening doors”. Did “Maxwell Smart” come to any of your minds? He does mine; the familiar opening of “Get Smart” featured, of course, Agent 86 doing something that we do now without thinking twice about it. I mean, when the doors opened automatically for Maxwell Smart, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, but now, when I go to Publix, they open automatically for me! This chapter is all about opening doors. This was terminology that we’ll see Paul using in a few chapters, how God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. This door begins to crack open in today’s text.
Context:
• Background: Resistance of Jews to the idea of Gentiles coming to faith “just as I am”; ingrained in them was the idea that Gentiles, if they were to find their way to God, had to come first through the “door of Judaism”.
• It was God Himself, though, Who opened that door.
• It was Peter, leader of the Jerusalem apostles, and not Paul, who was the human instrument in the opening of this door. In fact, Christ had given to Peter the “keys to the Kingdom” (Matthew 16:19), and he’d used them to open the doors of the Kingdom to Jews on the Day of Pentecost and to Samaritans soon afterwards; now, he opens those doors to Gentiles in this episode.
• Ultimately, the Jerusalem church had to accept these Gentiles, since they had received the Holy Spirit as they were. The church invented multiculturalism, as people from every tribe, tongue, and nation have eventually been gathered into her fold.
• Caesarea had been a bit of a backwater town, located 65 miles northwest of Jerusalem on the Mediterranean, that is until Herod the Great came to power; he changed all that, transforming the harbor of Caesarea into a first-class affair, dredging the harbor, building a breakwater, importing fresh water via stately Roman aqueducts, and so on. The village he transformed into the provincial capital, with amphitheater and a magnificent Roman temple in honor of Rome and Augustus.
• Something else about Caesarea: it was hated by Jews, being more Gentile than Jewish in population and outlook; though it was part of the province of Judea, it was spoken of as though it weren’t even part of Judea at all, much like I speak of Massachusetts. Several decades after today’s narrative, riots broke out in Caesarea between Jews and Gentiles, and the historian Josephus claims that the Gentiles massacred Caesarea’s entire Jewish population in A.D. 66.
Notice the first open door:
I. The Door to Cornelius’ Heart: Open
:1-8
Cornelius was a common name, likely a descendant of a slave freed by Cornelius Sulla; all the freedmen took the name of Cornelius in honor of their benefactor. This Cornelius was a man who worked his way up through the ranks to achieve the rank roughly equivalent to our “captain”, a man responsible for up to 600 Roman soldiers.
Cornelius was a devout, God-fearing man of prayer and good deeds (:2). He recognized, in other words, that there was a Godward dimension to faith, and a person-ward side as well. This wasn’t unusual; there were many such so-called “God-fearers”, Gentiles who familiarized themselves with the worship of YHWH, some of whom attended the synagogue, prayed, kept the Sabbath, and even observed some Jewish dietary regulations. Further, these words are applied to Cornelius’ whole household, suggesting that this was a man who influenced and led his family to fear God. One sentence-worth here: this illustrates the critical role of the father/husband in the home to set the godly example for the entire family. He rejected the empty pagan worship that was common in Rome, and set out to sincerely worship the real God, and to honor Him by living morally and giving to the poor.
• About 3 in the afternoon—in broad daylight.
• The angel mentioned Cornelius’ religious sincerity, and his good deeds.
• God could have used a Damascus Road-type situation, but he didn’t; He chose, through His angel, to instruct Cornelius to send for Peter, and told him just where Peter was staying.
• Cornelius responded immediately in obedience.
II. The Door to Peter’s Mind: Open
:9-16
• “Sixth hour” – some translations do the work for you and state that this meant “noon”, since Jewish “hours” began at 6:00 A.M., sunrise. It was lunchtime, and Peter was hungry, and God laid out a menu for him, right there on a big blanket like a picnic.
• Did God bring together several elements already present in the situation in order to accomplish His purpose? Peter was hungry; there was on the roof almost certainly an awning used to shade people from the hot sun, a “sheet” or a blanket-like piece of linen, and the fact that Peter, praying, might well have been like we are sometimes in prayer, a bit on the drowsy side.
• Basically, there was a zoo-full of critters on that blanket, some of which were OK to eat, but many of which were contrary to Jewish law, the most disgusting of which, undoubtedly, was the pig, a filthy animal to Jews, detestable and inedible. But there was the little piggy, this being the place where we get the expression “pig in a blanket”. Ahem. “Clean” animals and “unclean” ones, all there together, no distinction made between them, all part of God’s great bill of fare for Peter. And to the pious Jew, some of these animals were the epitome of disgusting.
• Never had Peter had eggs and bacon. Never had he eaten a Honey-Baked ham. Pork chops? Nope. And pulled pork barbecue? He didn’t know what he was missing. There were some types of seafood that were verboten. He’d never had lobster bisque or crab cakes. Shrimp scampi? A no-no as well. There were birds that were off-limits, although some of them don’t strike me as too tasty even today—although most of us have eaten a lot of crow in our lifetimes. The point is that this big blanket came down from Heaven, in Peter’s vision, full of all these animals, and God said, “Bon appetite, Pete!”
• Pete in his pious purity reminded the Lord—was the voice that of Jesus?—that he’d never put one of these vile animals in his mouth; they were against the law, the Jewish law, and only eaten by vile Gentiles. You’d think that old Pete would by now have figured out that he shouldn’t contradict the Lord, that when Jesus had told Peter of His impending crucifixion, and Peter had objected to the whole idea, Jesus had said, “Get behind me, Satan!” You’d think that Peter wouldn’t have the gall to keep telling Jesus that He didn’t know what He was talking about—but here he goes again. “By no means, Lord! I don’t eat that kind of stuff!” Note the contradiction: Peter refuses to obey the One he calls “Lord”. Jesus asked once, “why do you call me ‘Lord’, and do not do the things I say?” Without obedience, “Lord” is just a word. Then again, we can muster a bit of sympathy for him; this command was so counter to anything he understood to be right and holy. As Will Willimon remarked, the Jewish “dietary laws are not a matter of etiquette or peculiar culinary habits. They are a matter of survival and identity.”
• And God said, “Right, Pete, I know that. Great. You’re a holy guy and all that. But I said ‘eat’, and if I’ve said it’s OK to eat, Pete, then it’s OK to eat!”
• Repeated three times—was Peter that hardheaded? Yeah—there’s plenty of evidence of that!
• As we saw last week, Peter was moving in this direction; he wasn’t overly-scrupulous to begin with in observing Jewish practices, and his willingness to stay with Simon the tanner represented a further step in his relative disregard for Jewish convention. That said, the idea of ministering directly to Gentiles, proclaiming the gospel to them and calling directly for a faith commitment, was still a bridge too far, and God had to move him along to accomplish God’s purpose.
III. The Door of Simon’s House: Open to Cornelius’ Messengers
:17-23
Interestingly enough, this being a vision and all, Pete didn’t immediately go down to the Gentile deli and grab a ham salad on rye. Pete wasn’t really sure what to make of all of this (:17). He obviously understands that God has something He wants to teach him, but what it is, Pete’s not sure.
Soon enough, it all begins to come into focus. Three men arrive from Cornelius’ house, right about the time Peter’s third rerun of the vision is finishing up and Peter is trying to interpret it all. They explain the whole Cornelius vision thing, and they ask Peter to go back to Cornelius with them—which God has already explained to Peter is part of the plan.
IV. The Door of the Kingdom: Open to Gentiles
:24-33
We know from reading later in Acts that a half-dozen brothers from Joppa accompanied Peter and Cornelius’ three messengers on the way to Caesarea. Both Joppa and Caesarea sat on the seashore, and thus we can say, perhaps, that “Ocean’s Ten” set out for Cornelius’ home—or, I suppose we could skip that little pun.
Cornelius believed God and acted upon that belief, confident that Pete would arrive, and thus called some friends to his home to hear what the apostle had to say. That said, Cornelius wasn’t totally sure what to do when Peter got there, and so expecting that there was something supernatural about Peter, he fell at Pete’s feet to worship. “Wrong move”, said Peter, brought up as he had been to consider such acts blasphemous. Stop right there: Peter worshipped Jesus, though. Why? More than a man!
Peter was unwilling to allow Cornelius to treat him like a god; he knew now very clearly that it was wrong for him to treat Cornelius like a dog! Peter explains that it’s really not kosher for him to be doing this, but that God had shown him that such restrictions weren’t in play any more, that he should freely associate with those he’d previously considered unclean. It’s interesting that the vision had only concerned food, but Peter was quick to put two and two together and grasp the concept that God was saying that the whole gamut of Jewish/Gentile interaction was now to be seen in different terms. It was in their lack of dietary cleanliness that the Gentiles were the most abhorred; to consume food, particularly meat, offered by Gentiles was an unclean thing. But if God had shown Peter that eating the animals considered most-vile by Jews was acceptable, then by extension what other types of interaction with Gentiles could be off-limits? The whole thing was becoming crystal-clear in Peter’s mind.
Cornelius explains how the whole thing came about, and how now this whole assembly was ready to hear what Peter might want to tell them. This was an easy congregation to preach to if ever there was one!
Points to Ponder:
• Sincerity is commendable, but insufficient.
Wake all the way up, or go all the way to sleep: sincerity is an overrated virtue. Sincerity is only as good as the trustworthiness of that which is sincerely believed!
• Cornelius’ sincerity was commendable
• Cornelius’ sincerity was honored by God
• Cornelius’ sincerity wasn’t sufficient!
• There are no people whom we are allowed to “write off”.
The Jews effectively wrote off the Gentiles.
• The spread of the gospel is the work of God (but we have a role to play!).
The gospel of Christ spread, not by the ingenuity of the apostles, or by their planning, but by the work of God. Big dumb Peter had to be led along by God to the point of being willing to share with these Gentiles.
Table Talk
• Who is it tempting to “write off” as unreachable? Why do you think that way? Has God ever changed your mind about someone being “reachable”? How?
• Share the story of someone from your experience whom some might have considered “unreachable”, who came to faith in Christ.
