Introduction
According to the Joshua Project, there are 17,259 people groups in the world today (see https://www.joshuaproject.net).
The Joshua Project defines a people group as follows:
A significantly large group of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, class or caste, situation, etc., or combinations of these. For evangelization purposes, a people group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance (see https://www.joshuaproject.net/help/definitions).
Today, I want to study how God brings down the walls of prejudice against those of a different people group.
We will see that God intends the gospel to be good news for all people, indeed, for all people groups.
The gospel was never meant to be for just one select people group but for all people groups.
Scripture
Let’s read Acts 10:1-11:18:
1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” 4 And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, 8 and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests.
The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”
30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
11:1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. 6 Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10 This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11 And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12 And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” 18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Lesson
This story about Cornelius and Peter has a lot to say about the issue of prejudice.
It has a lot to say about our natural tendency to think of other people groups besides our own as impure and unclean.
It has much to say about world missions and our commitment as Christians to take the gospel of Christ to every people group in the world so that people may be saved from God's coming wrath.
So, I hope you will listen carefully as I unpack the powerful truth of this story for our lives.
Let me sum up the story for us.
Cornelius is a Gentile, not a Jew.
But he feared God as best he knew how, prayed, gave alms, and walked uprightly (10:2, 22).
God sent an angel to him and told him to send for the apostle Peter.
At about the same time, God gave Peter a vision of animals that the Jews regarded as unclean because of the ceremonial law of the Old Testament.
The voice from heaven said, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat”(10:13).
But Peter protested that they were unclean. And the voice came back with these decisive words in Acts 10:15: “What God has made clean, do not call common [that is, unclean].”
The point is that the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Jesus' life and death, so the ceremonial laws about food were no longer in place.
Moreover, barriers to the Gentiles were also removed.
And so Peter’s vision has two points: the food laws are fulfilled in Jesus (Mark 7:19), and the people the Jews are separate from (the Gentile nations) are not to be considered impure or unclean.
God makes this clear to Peter immediately. While he is pondering the meaning of the vision on the roof in Joppa, three Gentiles from Cornelius knock at his door.
Acts 10:16 says the vision about unclean animals happened three times, and Acts 10:19 says that three men (Gentile men, ordinarily thought unclean) are at the door, which is no accident.
Peter is supposed to get the message: “People you have formerly regarded as impure and unclean and separated from your fellowship are not to be viewed that way. Go with these men.”
So Peter goes with them to Caesarea.
There, he finds Cornelius with his whole household ready to hear the gospel.
Peter preaches (10:34; 11:15), they repent (11:18), the Holy Spirit falls on them (10:44; 11:14), and they are saved (10:44-48; 11:14).
Today, I want to ask two pressing questions about this narrative.
First, was Cornelius already saved before Peter preached Christ to him?
Second, what does it mean when Peter says, "In every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him”?
I. Was Cornelius Already Saved Before Peter Preached Christ to Him?
First, was Cornelius already saved before Peter preached Christ to him?
This question is pressing because Acts 10:34-35 has led many to say Cornelius was already saved.
This, of course, would have a significant impact on the way we think about world missions.
Peter begins his sermon to the Gentiles at Cornelius’ house like this: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (10:34-35).
Readers would quickly conclude that God already accepted Cornelius since Acts 10:2 says that Cornelius was “a devout man who feared God with all his household.”
So, some say, Peter’s visit just informed Cornelius of the acceptance and salvation that he already had.
The conclusion is further drawn: many people in all the unreached people groups of the world are genuinely born again, accepted by God, and saved—without hearing or believing in Christ.
So, my first question is this: Does Acts 10:35 mean that Cornelius and those like him are already part of God’s family, justified, reconciled, and saved?
Is that Peter’s point in saying this and Luke’s point in writing it?
Let me show you why Cornelius was not saved before Peter preached Christ.
The Scripture clarifies that Cornelius was saved because of Peter's message.
Look at Acts 11:13-14 where Peter tells the story of the angels appearing to Cornelius:
“And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ ”
Notice two things.
First, the “message” is essential.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
Second, notice that the verb tense is future: “a message by which you will be saved.”
In other words, the message was not simply to inform Cornelius that he had already been saved, which some people say is the purpose of world evangelization.
If he sends for Peter, hears the message, and believes in the Christ of that message, he will be saved.
And if he does not believe, he will not be saved.
The story is built around God’s miraculously getting Cornelius and Peter together.
There was a message that Cornelius needed to hear to be saved (10:22, 33).
So Acts 10:35 does not mean that Cornelius was already saved when it says that anyone who fears God and does what is right in every nation is acceptable to him.
Cornelius had to hear the gospel message to be saved.
II. What Does it Mean When Peter Says, “In Every Nation Anyone Who Fears [God] and Does What Is Right Is Acceptable to Him”?
The second question is: what does it mean when Peter says, “In every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him”?
And what does this have to do with our prejudices, our ethnocentrism, and our commitment to world evangelization?
At first glance, Peter's meaning in Acts 10:35 seems the same as God's in the vision about the unclean animals, namely the lesson of Acts 10:15: “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
But stop and think again.
There is something more here.
Look at Acts 10:28. Peter explains to the Gentiles why he was willing to come and says, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”
What this means is that Christians should never look down on a person from any race or people group and say: “They are unfit to hear the gospel from me. Or, they are too unclean for me to go into their house to share the gospel. Or they are not worth evangelizing. Or, they have too many offensive habits to even get near them.”
But the phrase that makes Acts 10:28 so powerful is “any person”: “But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”
In other words, Peter learned from his vision on the housetop in Joppa that God does not rule anyone out of his favor based on race, ethnic origin, or mere cultural or physical distinctions.
Peter’s point in Acts 10:28 is that we should not consider any human being on earth that way.
Not one.
That’s the fantastic thing in this verse.
Not one.
Our hearts should go out to everyone, regardless of color, ethnic origin, physical traits, or cultural distinctions.
Don’t write off anybody. Don’t snub anybody. Don’t check them out like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan and then pass by on the other side.
“But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean”(10:28).
That is not what Peter says in Acts 10:35.
Peter is not saying that all people are acceptable candidates for salvation, regardless of their ethnic background.
In Acts 10:35, Peter says, “In every nation anyone who fears him [God]and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Here, Peter is talking about something other than any person, as in Acts 10:28.
In Acts 10:35, Peter is talking about anyone. “In every nation anyone who fears him [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
So, the acceptability Peter has in mind here is something more than merely not being impure or unclean.
That’s everybody.
Peter said in Acts 10:28, “But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.”
In Acts 10:35, he says that only some from every nation fear God and do what is right.
And these God accepts.
So now we know two things Acts 10:35 does not mean.
First, it does not mean that God-fearing doers of good are saved.
We saw earlier in our first point that it can’t mean that.
Second, this does not mean they are acceptable candidates for evangelism because Acts 10:28 already states that this is true of everybody, not just some.
But Acts 10:35 says that only some are God-fearing, doing what is correct and thus acceptable.
So what does Acts 10:35 mean?
Here’s my suggestion. Cornelius represents an unsaved person among an unreached group who is uncommonly seeking God.
Peter says that God accepts this search as genuine (hence “acceptable” in Acts 10:35) and works amazingly to bring the gospel to that person.
I get this, especially from Acts 10:31-32a, where Cornelius says that the angel said to him, “Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter.”
Notice that the text says, “Cornelius, your prayer has been heard…. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter.”
This implies that the prayers were for God to send him what he needed to be saved.
So the fear of God that God accepts in Acts 10:35 is a sense that there is a holy God, that we have to meet him someday as desperate sinners, that we cannot save ourselves, and we need to know God’s way of salvation, and that we pray for it day and night until God reveals his truth to us.
This is what Cornelius was doing.
And God accepted his prayer and his groping for truth in his life (Acts 17:27) and worked wonders to bring the saving message of the gospel to him.
Conclusion
There are two lessons in this text for today.
First, no human being is impure or unclean.
No one is to be scorned, shunned, rejected, or despised because of his ethnic origin, race, culture, or physical traits.
Christians should have no part in any prejudice wherever we encounter it.
The second lesson from the text is that God is preparing people to seek him in prayer in every nation—that is, every people group worldwide.
This means two things for us.
One is that we should go.
Cornelius would not have been saved if no one had taken him the gospel.
No one will be saved today without the gospel.
We should go and take the gospel to our family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, or even strangers.
Some of you sitting here today must consider whether God may be calling you to vocational missionary service.
The other is that we should be full of hope and expectancy.
It is a wonder that God is willing to work to connect the groping of unreached peoples with those willing to take the gospel to them.
So let us wash our minds and our mouths of all our prejudices and ethnic put-downs and be done with all alienating behaviors.
Let’s be the good Samaritan for some outcasts even in our community, the Christ for some untouchables in our neighborhood, and the Peter for some waiting Cornelius. Amen.
