GOSPEL MEDITATION #33
Acts 10:17-43
Peter’s Vision part 2 & Gentiles Hear the Good News
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- While Peter was perplexed by the vision he saw, emissaries from Cornelius arrived at the door of Simon the tanner.
- Peter is expressly told to go with the men from Caesarea. Peter even invited these men in to stay over night. Amazing!
- Arriving in Caesarea, 30 miles north of Joppa, Peter enters the home of Cornelius and finds a gathering of Cornelius’ relatives and close friends. Cornelius begins to “worship” Peter, but Peter “makes of himself of no reputation.” (Phil. 2:7, KJV)
- Cornelius explains to Peter the events leading up to that moment and invites Peter to speak to them all “in the presence of God” all Peter had been commanded by the Lord.
- Peter, a man steeped in Judaism and Jewish culture, sees that God is far more generous than he imagined to the point of caring for those who fear Him. And Cornelius, a God-fearer, desired to know more of the God of Israel.
- Here now is a wonderfully condensed account of the Gospel ti be found in Scripture. Did Luke condense the words of Peter to the bare minimum? We cannot know the answer.
- “God anointed Jesus”—for a Gentile this is the same as Jesus being the Christ, the Messiah for a Jew.
- The message is “good news” because it means that sinners, including Gentiles, can be forgiven. The means of which is Jesus’ dying on the cross followed by His resurrection.