Four Conversations to give us hope

Acts 10 and 11 gives us a record of four related conversations that should encourage us to enter everyday conversations with the very real hope that God can use them to transform lives. All we must do is ask the Holy Spirit to help us lay aside doubt, or prejudice, or anything else that may tempt us to give up on the gospel’s power.

First conversation

The tenth chapter of Acts in the New Testament begins with perhaps the strangest conversation recorded in Scripture; it’s between an angel and a Roman soldier named Cornelius. Cornelius’ piety was widely known in Caesarea, a city in northern Palestine built by Herod the Great in which he located his summer palace. Cornelius was a Gentile, but even the Jews respected the generosity of his charity and the faithful use he made of the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and worship. But despite all Cornelius’ good works and faithful attendance at Synagogue, something was missing from his life. He needed a direct, personal relationship with God, but that could not happen until someone came and explained to him the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension..

“Clearly the angel could speak intelligibly. Wouldn’t it have saved a lot of time and trouble if he had just taken it upon himself to go ahead and tell Cornelius about Jesus?”

That’s why Cornelius’ conversation with his supernatural visitor was so strange. Clearly the angel could speak intelligibly. Wouldn’t it have saved a lot of time and trouble if he had just taken it upon himself to go ahead and tell Cornelius about Jesus? Instead the angel told him to send to Joppa to find a fellow named Simon Peter and have him come up the coast to preach the gospel. Sending for Peter meant travelling 60 miles each way, not to mention postponing by four days the opportunity to hear the gospel. 

But that’s just the point, isn’t it? In Matthew 28:19, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, and finally in Acts 1:8, Jesus ordered his followers, i.e., his brothers and sisters to tell others about him. That people would tell people about Jesus was the divine plan, and that meant the angel could only get the ball rolling; he could not tell Cornelius how to believe and be saved. This principle remains true to this day. God, in his wisdom, has decided the gospel can only advance when people who know Jesus, who’ve personally experienced God’s grace, tell others who also need to know him. God works to smooth the way for us to share the gospel, (don’t forget the angel) but he will not do it for us, and he won’t allow angels to do it either. Paul was thinking of this when he said in I Corinthians 3 that although God alone can empower the gospel to save lives, it still depends on people to plant gospel seeds, to water gospel plants so they grow, and then to take part in gospel harvests. The takeaway from this conversation is that if you know God through faith in Christ, you need to see yourself like Peter, being prepared to take the gospel to your own Cornelius, along with all his friends and relations.

Second conversation

The second conversation took place between Jesus and Peter, while he was in a kind of trance, or ecstatic vision. Three times Peter is shown a sheet-like surface covered with all kinds of wild animals, including reptiles and birds, all things that Jewish dietary law considered “unclean,” and therefore spiritually damaging to eat. Peter was strong in his disavowal of the Lord’s command to “kill and eat.” He wouldn’t do it, he explained, because he had “never eaten anything that was common or unclean.” In other words, because he was a Jew. Three times he was shown the sheet, and three times he argued with God over the command to kill and eat. Then the vision ended, and as Peter pondered its meaning he received word that Gentile men were at the door, asking him to go with them to speak the gospel to Cornelius. Peter immediately understood the conversation he’d just had with Christ. “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean,” he said. At that moment he stepped out of Judaism and took his place as a son of Adam and thus a brother to all humanity. He no longer argued with God. Instead, he recognized that Christ died for all kinds of people all over the world. 

Peter’s experience raises a huge red flag for the rest of us. Do we really understand the fullness of the meaning of Christ’s suffering and death? In our day a growing number of Christians are ready to diminish the importance of Christ’s death, and thus the importance of the gospel. The argument is often expressed like this: “Isn’t being a Christian mostly about loving one another and serving one another?” And the only truly Christian response is, “No, it isn’t.” As we will discover in this story, being a Christian is first about telling the world about the death and resurrection of Christ, and about the hope that faith in Him can bring. Good works must follow our profession, of course, but Christians are born into eternal life through hearing and believing the gospel; they are not made through developing habits of worship or service. Therefore, it is crucial that we learn to explain our faith, and defend our faith, in everyday conversations.

Third conversation

The third conversation has several parts. Peter arrived in Caesarea, where he finally met Cornelius. They talked together, and then Peter was led into the house where he discovered a crowd of Gentiles had gathered, everyone of them looking forward to hearing a word from God. Peter conversed with the group, telling them briefly of his own recent experience in which he learned that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation he accepts those who fear him and who do what is right.” (Jews of that day were convinced that God showed nothing but partiality toward them). He then reminded the crowd of what they already knew about Jesus—his good works, his death and resurrection, and the fact that as “Lord of all” he alone had the power to forgive their sins and set them right with God. And while Peter was saying all this, God the Holy Spirit was at work confirming the truth of his message to their hearts (heart = mind, will, and emotions), and producing faith to believe and be saved (Eph. 2:4-9). Their salvation was a real miracle of grace, and as the people began to praise God in their own languages (“just as on us at the beginning” See Acts 2:4-6.), Peter challenged the Jews who were with him to produce a single reason why these new believers should not be baptized into Christ.

Fourth conversation

This last conversation is just sad. Other Christians were upset when they learned that Peter had brought uncircumcised Gentiles into full fellowship in the church (never downplay the significance of baptism). In their view Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and believing in him was a Jewish privilege. To their minds, Peter should first have brought Cornelius and the others into Judaism, complete with ritualistic circumcision for the men. The controversy over Peter’s actions became so widespread that he and the six Jewish witnesses who’d seen what happened were forced to travel to Jerusalem and explain themselves. Thankfully, when they had finished, everyone agreed that the salvation of the Gentiles was a work of God. (“They glorified God saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (Acts 11:18). 

Here’s the takeaway. You are always working against God when you doubt the possibility that a massive harvest of souls is possible—now, today. The fields are white and ready for harvest, even in the worst of times, possibly especially in the worst of times. But like the Jewish Christians of Peter’s day, we’re always tempted to put up fences to keep out whoever it is that makes us uncomfortable. God help us to learn from this final conversation that the gospel is always more powerful than we imagine, able to save people that to us appear unsavable. And may God make us sensitive to the promptings of his call. Whether an angel orders up a gospel expedition, or we “just happen” to run into an old acquaintance on the street, we need to be ready as the door opens to say with Peter, “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).