Monday, March 4, 2019
The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.” “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.” But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven. Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house. Standing outside the gate, they asked if a man named Simon Peter was staying there. Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.” So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?” They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.” So Peter invited the men to stay for the night. The next day he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa. Acts 10:9-23(NLT)
Peter had his world rocked more
than a few times because he was a follower of Jesus Christ. Often Christian disciples tend to read
Scripture, especially parts that contain Jewish tradition, as if it doesn’t
apply to us, here in the 21st century.
We forget that Peter was a Jew,
and here, a very orthodox Jew. In
this account his orthodox menu is challenged by a vision of everything he was forbidden
to eat. It says Peter was puzzling
over what he’d just experienced when an invitation showed up at the front door from
Cornelius, a Gentile Roman Officer, to come to his home and preach the Gospel
message.
The fact that Peter responded at
all is evidence that the message from Heaven’s sheet full of meat
was becoming clear to Peter. If God is
in something, you get on board with it.
In Peter’s case it is clear he got it right away, because he invited the
messengers to stay the night with him. In Peter’s orthodoxy it was forbidden to
enter a Gentile’s residence, and it would have been a severe offense to have
them stay in your home.
It is dangerous to assume that
every whim of change that floats around in the culture is God telling us what’s
happening is a new direction for the church, or for individual
discipleship. On the other hand, we
cannot, because of settled orthodoxy, summarily dismiss the possibilities. Therefore, we listen to others before going
to war over differences of opinion. Culture
wars are not always about right and wrong; sometimes they’re just attempts to
get traction on approval for a new way to sin.
In many cases the development of
civilization has meant throwing-out old ways, in favor of something more beneficial. Slavery, Racism, Sexual abuse, and many more such
evils, have been targeted as monstrous, intolerable by godly and civilized humanity.
We must be ready to listen to
those who claim victimization. At the
same time, we must listen closely; not all that glitters is gold, and not all
that demands space must be accommodated.
For You Today
For those who are serious about
following Christ with pure motives and heart, even a direct message, let down
in a sheet from Heaven must be a puzzling dilemma. But a genuine move of God can never be orchestrated
by demonstration, demeaning, manipulation, or false witness.
That kind of agenda-driving is not
let-down from Heaven, it’s brought-up from below, and it smells like smoke.
Go to VIDEO
[i] Title Image: By Illustrator
of Henry Davenport Northrop's 'Treasures of the Bible', 1894 Public Domain
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