You all are blessed with the shortest blog post ever for tonight! It is mostly a recap of what happened in Acts 10 with a little bit of added history at the end.
Let's knock this out...
Acts 11 (Read it here)
As soon as the Jewish believers in Jerusalem heard about Peter visiting and preaching to Cornelius and other Romans (Gentiles), they criticized and reminded him that the Jewish law forbade him to do such a thing. (vs. 1-3)
Peter completely recounted the details of the vision that he had received on the roof of the tanner's home in Joppa. He told them about the sheet that contained the "unclean" animals and how he was commanded to kill and eat them. He refused to because of the Jewish dietary laws, of course. (vs. 4-8)
Peter repeated what he heard next from heaven, "Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean." (v. 9) Right after the vision concluded three Gentile men came to the tanner's home looking for him, but he had confirmation from the Spirit that it was ok to go with them. (vs. 11-12)
Then Peter recounted exactly what Cornelius had said about an angel appearing and instructing him to find Peter in Joppa. (v. 13) And here's the kicker, even though Cornelius was a God-fearer, a guy who worshiped, revered and prayed to God, he...was...not...saved! Cornelius knew it, too, because the angel told Cornelius that Peter would "tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!" (v. 14)
The proof of God being present was when the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius' household. (v. 15) Peter's explanation more than satisfied the Jewish believers. They even began to thank God for it! (v. 18)
Some of the believers that left Jerusalem after the persecution that began after the stoning of Stephen ended up in Antioch (about 330 miles from Jerusalem). Some only preached to Jews and chose to observe the outdated Jewish law of not associating with Gentiles. Others did not. (vs. 19-20) A huge number of Gentiles in Antioch responded and converted to the faith. (v. 21)
The apostles sent Barnabus down to Antioch to check out what was going on. (v. 22) Barnabus decided that Saul had been in exile long enough in Tarsus. He brought Saul to Antioch and together they taught the believers in the new church for an entire year! It was here that the believers were first called Christians (vs. 25-26, literally meaning a follower of Christ). So a Christ-follower and a Christian are one and the same.
Even though most American Christians may have never heard of Agabus, he is pretty well-known within the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches; there are actually minor holidays in his honor. The first Christian disaster relief effort ever mentioned happened during the famine that he predicted occurred around the year 45 AD. It was one of the first of many times where the Christian church would give and share outside of their community just as freely as they did within.
Saul and Barnabus were in charge of the donations from the Antioch (Gentile) church that were being given the Jewish church in Jerusalem. (v. 30) Wow, how things have changed now that Gentiles are helping the needy Jews. I bet the Jews never thought they would need the Gentiles; instant humility. Thank God that it was His decision to reach the Gentile and not the Jewish people's.
Questions
1.) Jews were not happy that Peter preached and attributed to God's saving of a Gentile family. You would think that Christ-followers would be joyful anytime ANYONE is saved. However, this isn't always true. Brutally honest question here: in your opinion (maybe at your worst), do some people not deserve salvation? If so, who and why? For example, Jenny had this thought after seeing Schindler's List and the brutality of the SS soldiers.
2.) How do you think the Jewish church felt when the Gentile church basically became the first Christian organization to sponsor a relief effort? How do you think this will change the relationship between the Jewish and Gentile believers? Personally speaking, are there some people that you wouldn't want their help just because you don't like them? Why is that ridiculous (yes, I said that its ridiculous)?
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