Hi, Nathan W. Bingham here. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to make you aware of an upcoming travel opportunity with other listeners of Renewing Your Mind and Friends of Ligonier, a Caribbean study cruise that sets sail next February. I'll be there and Dr. Derek Thomas and Pastor Ken Jones will be our teachers as they lead us through the rich theological truths of Galatians 3. Enjoy eight days of teaching, refreshment, and fellowship when you travel with us on this Caribbean study cruise.
You can learn more and register at LigonierTours.com. I hope you have a great day. This Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we spend a week considering the life of Peter. Derek Thomas's survey of the life of Peter, seeing his transformation from brash fishermen into bold apostle, can guide us in pursuit of our own growth in grace. So I do hope that you listen all week. Let's dive right in. If you have your Bible, please turn to Acts 10.
Here's Dr. Thomas. We need to spend just a minute or so picking up what has happened. There has been the election of the seven deacons, proto deacons in the dispute between the Hellenistic and Jewish widows. Among them was Stephen. And then there's chapter seven of Acts where Stephen preaches that extraordinary sermon and is killed and becomes the first martyr. And then Saul is now coming into the picture and eventually there will be the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to become the Paul that we know him to be.
Chapter eight begins with a huge persecution that now arises, partly driven or mainly driven by Saul of Tarsus, the persecution now against the church. And that produces the introduction of Philip at the end of chapter eight and then the conversion of Saul in chapter nine, and he escapes to Damascus. And when we come to chapter 10, Peter is now in Joppa, which is on the coast, probably fleeing the persecution in Jerusalem.
He seems to have had a house in Joppa, and there is a tradition that there's a church in modern day Joppa that's built on the site of Peter's house in Joppa. It's a very important chapter. It's a little confusing because it's like a split screen. We're in one location at one point and we're at another location at another point. So it begins at Caesarea in the north with a man called Cornelius. Then it'll head south some 32 miles to Joppa where Peter is, and then it'll go back up again to Caesarea when Peter comes and finally meets with Cornelius.
So let's pick up chapter 10 and verse one. At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave arms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, Cornelius, and he stared at him in terror and said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and your arms have ascended as a memorial before God, and now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter.
He is lodging with one Simon Atanna, whose house is by the sea. 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, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. 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, and he became hungry and wanted something to eat. But while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens open and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
And in it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him. Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice came to him again a second time.
What God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. 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 and called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them. And Peter went down to the man and said, I am the one you are looking for.
What is the reason for your coming? 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. So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him, and on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped him.
But Peter lifted him up, saying, Stand up, I too am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone or another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection.
I asked then, Why you sent for me? 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 and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your arms have been remembered before God. Send, therefore, to Joppa, and ask for Simon, who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon at Tanna by the sea.
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. So Peter opened his mouth and said, 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. And for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed, 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. 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, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 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. 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.
To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 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, for they were hearing them speak in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. Well, again, it's a lengthy chapter full of interesting things, slightly awkward with Peter in Joppa and Cornelius in Caesarea, which is 32 miles up the coast, the Mediterranean coast. And there's this split screen, first of all, in Caesarea with Cornelius, then back down in Joppa with Peter, and then back up in Caesarea where Cornelius and Peter and Cornelius's family have this conversation.
And Peter preaches the gospel once again. Now, it's a very important chapter because Jesus, or for that matter, Peter, had never had crab cakes or lobster bisque or rabbit stew, or perhaps even more importantly, bacon. They were forbidden. They were unclean. Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, these were laws, ceremonial laws, not because these animals were unclean in and of themselves, but it was a way of instructing the infant church in the Old Testament that they were to be different. And how drastically different that would be when you can't eat pork, when you can't eat rabbit, when you can't eat crustaceans. It would radically teach a lesson every day, three times a day.
You would be reminded that you were different from the rest. I live next door to a rabbi, a neighbor, without thinking, took them a gift for Christmas that she had baked, but they couldn't eat it because it was unclean. It wasn't kosher. There was some ingredient in it that just wasn't kosher. It would affect certain kinds of cheese, for example.
Cheese made of camel's milk, for example. They couldn't eat it. And so you have here in this chapter the beginning of how the gospel now begins to spread from Jerusalem and from the Jews, all the disciples, all the apostles are Jews, they're Jewish Christians, all the believers in Jerusalem, these thousands that have come to faith in Jerusalem before the scattering. They were all Jews. They were Jewish Christians. But now we have a Gentile, this Cornelius man, a devout man who feared God. He was a proselyte Jew, but he was a Gentile. He had been brought in to Judaism, but he was still a Gentile.
He was uncircumcised and he ate, he probably ate pork and bacon, at least he did until he became a proselyte. But now what is this vision? And both of them have visions. First of all, Peter has a vision in Joppa, in the house of Simon the Tanner, because there are two Simons.
History has sometimes confused whether it was Simon Peter's house or whether it was Simon the Tanner's house or whether it was both of their houses, but we don't know the story of why Simon Peter lived there. He's on the roof, he's gone up to pray, he's hungry, they've gone to prepare his food, and he sees a vision, this sheet, and it's full of animals, all kinds of animals, clean animals and unclean animals. And God is saying, there's no more any such thing as unclean animals, kill and eat. You can be a vegetarian, but it's not a biblical warrant, it's not a biblical command to be a vegetarian. It's a moment in history where the division between Jew and Gentile is now completely taken away.
It'll have all kinds of consequences. We'll have to have a look at Peter in Antioch and the situation where they're eating with Jews and Gentiles, and it all gets complicated. But this is the moment when Peter is given, by way of a vision, a revelation that the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. As Paul would say in Ephesians chapter 2, that wall of division between Jew and Gentile is now broken down, and there's no need anymore for the ceremonial laws. They were instruments of education for the infant church, to teach the Jews that they were different, to teach the people of God that they were to live differently, eat differently, but all of that now is gone. It was like they've graduated.
Paul, for example, in Galatians 4, speaks of the elementary principles of the world, and he may actually be referring to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, the food laws. They've graduated. It was like being at home. And when you're at home as a teenager, there are lots of rules, lots of rules, too many rules. And teenagers begin to rebel against all of these rules, but then you graduate.
Then you graduate. And that's the image that Paul will use about moving from the Old Testament into the New Testament. Now, I want to look at the sermon, because the family have gathered. Cornelius has explained himself why he's called Peter to come there.
They're inside. One imagines there might be upwards of a couple of dozen people in the room, and in verse 34, he begins to preach yet another sermon. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality.
God shows no favoritism. And what he's talking about is this, that there's no more any distinction between Jew and Gentile. That the gospel isn't simply for the Jews. Yes, Jesus was Jewish. Yes, the apostles were Jewish.
Yes, it has been up until this point almost totally confined to Jerusalem. And the tens, hundreds, thousands of people that have become believers since Pentecost are almost exclusively Jews. Or else they were proselyte Jews like Cornelius.
They were Gentiles, but they'd adopted the Jewish faith. But now something quite remarkable has happened, that the gospel is for all the nations. The gospel is to spread to all the world. And that's what the Book of Acts will unfold.
It begins here with the death blow to the food loss, the kosher food loss in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 and elsewhere. God had chosen the Jews not for anything in themselves, but because he loved them. But now in verse 34, God shows no partiality. The gospel is for all the world, for Jews and Gentiles alike.
It's for everybody. In every nation, verse 35, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. Now don't misread what Peter is saying, does what is right, as though he's reverting to some kind of works theology, that you're saved by doing what is right.
What is the right thing to do? To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to come to an end of yourself, to confess your sins, to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, as he goes on to say. The gospel is for everybody, for every tribe, for every nation, for every tongue. And there's another occurrence of the tongues here, speaking in foreign languages, as we saw in Acts chapter 2 and Pentecost. It's another indication that the gospel is for every tribe and tongue and nation of the world.
It's for the whole world. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world. He offers the gospel to the whole world. He loves this sinful, rebellious world. And He gives His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. What did Jesus say in the Great Commission in Matthew 28?
To go into all the world. Well, so far they're only in Jerusalem and Joppa. They're still in what we might call the Holy Land. They haven't gone yet into Gentile countries, but that's about to happen.
That's about to happen. Notice where He begins in verse 36. It's the same message, isn't it? As for the word that He sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all. We've seen this in Peter now so many times, this obsession with the life and death and resurrection of Christ.
This is the message of Scripture. Remember that there still isn't a New Testament. Peter doesn't know anything about the apostle Paul. He doesn't know anything about Paul's epistles.
He doesn't know anything about John's epistles. All he has is the Old Testament. But the Old Testament, the core of the Old Testament, the conclusion of the Old Testament, is the death and resurrection and coming again of the Lord Jesus. It is a message of Christ alone, by faith alone, to the glory of God alone. There is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved.
And this chapter closes with something quite remarkable. And it's the first time we've seen this, that this Gentile proselyte, without asking him to be circumcised, to obey some of the ritual laws of the Old Testament, he is baptized. He baptizes Cornelius.
He's going to have to give an explanation. There are those like the Lord's brother, James, who will rise to some degree of prominence in Jerusalem. And there will be a faction, there will be some division that will arise between Peter on the one hand and Paul on the one hand, and the men of James. And we'll see that in Galatians chapter 2. He's going to have to give an explanation as to why it is he baptized Cornelius.
It's not going to go down very well. The door has been officially opened to lead the Church of Christ into the whole world. It's why we know the gospel.
It comes from here. The reason the gospel came to us and didn't just stay in Israel and Palestine is because of what Peter did here in baptizing Cornelius. He was being obedient to the vision that he had received in Joppa to the south. Acts 10 is the beginning of the fulfillment of Jesus's command in the Great Commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And barriers now are being taken down. Walls of division are now being taken down.
The gospel came to us because these walls of division were torn down. You just heard Derek Thomas on this Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind from his new series, The Life of Peter. Did you know that this new series from Dr. Thomas also has a companion hardcover book? If you'd like to use this as part of a book study or for your book club, you can request a copy this week when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343.
Trace the life of Peter and see the work of God in his life. When you make your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind, in addition to the hardcover book, we'll unlock the full teaching series and its digital study guide as well. So whether you prefer to read, watch, or listen, there is a resource here for you.
Click the link in the podcast show notes or visit renewingyourmind.org today. Also, did you know that Ligonier's ministry partners, those who support Ligonier's global outreach on a monthly basis, already have access to this series and hundreds of others? Our teaching series library is just one benefit our ministry partners receive, all while being a theological lifeline to countless Christians around the world who otherwise wouldn't have access to trusted Bible teaching. If you're interested in becoming a ministry partner, you can learn more at ligonier.org slash partner. We can be tempted to shy away from words like sin and repentance, but if we are to be faithful, we mustn't. Join us tomorrow as we see the expanding reach of the gospel and the necessity of repentance. That's Wednesday here on Renewing Your Mind. .
