Scripture: Read Acts 11:1-18.
Insights:
- “Attention. Peter, please come and answer charges of associating with Gentiles.” There were some unhappy people who had serious accusations against Peter. This same thing occurs to Paul later in Acts, but we will get to that in a week or so.
- It is interesting to see how important this event is to Luke. It’s not like he had unlimited space to write. He wrote on a papyrus roll which was unwieldy. The longest roll that was used was about thirty-five feet long, just enough to fit the Book of Acts. Luke had to be careful what he put in. So to tell the Cornelius story twice tells you how important he thought it was.
- We usually do not realize how near Christianity was to becoming only another kind of Judaism. All the first Christians were Jews and the whole tradition and outlook of Judaism would have moved them to keep the movement to themselves and to believe that God could not possibly have meant it for the Gentiles. Luke sees this incident as a notable milestone on the road along which the Church was groping its way to the concept that the Gospel is for the world.
- Peter’s defense is: the Holy Spirit told me to do it. Of course, that is easy to say. But when the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles, it became an ill refutable and convincing argument. Plus, he had 6 witnesses with him (see Acts 11:12).
Life
Questions:
- It is difficult to go against what we have always believed, what we have always taught. Look at it this way:
1.
Tradition
is “the living faith of the dead”, the embodiment of the Christian faith as
contained in the Scriptures through the belief and practice of disciples
through the centuries and handed on to present and future generations.
2.
Traditional
is a congregation’s or denomination’s familiar practices rooted in a given era.
3.
Traditionalism
is “the dead faith of the living”, a belief checklist, because “we have always
done that.”[1]
- In Wesleyan theology, we believe that every Christian has the Holy Spirit within. How has the Holy Spirit led you? Where and to what is He leading you now? (To learn more about the Holy Spirit, plan to attend the First Sunday: Christianity 101 class, November 4, 2012.)
Prayer
Focus: That we would be guided by the Holy Spirit in
everything we do.
[1] Adapted from “Contemporary
Worship for the 21st Century: Worship Or Evangelism?” Daniel T. Benedict and
Craig Kennet Miller. Discipleship Resources, 1994.
