The Unclean
In our reading this week, we come to a story that was so important that the writer of Acts thought to include it twice. This is the story of the Gentile Pentecost, or when the Holy Spirit came upon the non-Jews. We find this story told not only in Acts 10 but also in Acts 11. You see, once it all happened, news spread quickly back to Jerusalem. When Peter returned, people were already waiting for him and asking him about the events.
However, not everybody was happy with him. In Acts 11:2-3 we find that there were some that questioned his actions. As the text reads in the NIV, we see that “the circumcised believers criticized him.” Now, being a Jewish community, you would’ve been hard pressed to find any man who wasn’t circumcised. However, it was not the whole church that was criticizing Peter. In fact, this is one of the rare instances where the NKJV is one of the more accurate translations when it says, “those of the circumcision,” or as the ESV puts it, “the circumcision party.”
You see, in this era Christianity was still a Jewish thing. The Jewish Messiah came from the Jewish God in order to save the Jewish people. Others were welcomed to become Jews, but there were certain things that they had to do first, one of which was circumcision. So this group of people weren’t just circumcised, they were of the mind that in order to be a Christian, you had to first become a Jew. That was why they were bent out of shape about Peter eating with the Gentiles. The Jews had many rules and regulations by which they must abide, some of which were what they ate, but more importantly in this instance, who they ate with.
Also notice that the reason these people were upset was not because Peter went and preached to the Gentiles. It was not because he baptized the Gentiles, but they were upset because he “went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” They weren’t upset that Peter was trying to make them converts. They wanted them to become converts. In their minds you preach the gospel to the Gentiles, the Gentiles believe and convert to Judaism, with all its rules and regulations, and subsequently Christianity, then we can eat and have fellowship with them because they are now one of us. They look like us, they act like us, and they believe the same things we do. But Peter did it differently. He accepted them before they believed. They still weren’t following the Jewish laws, and Peter accepted them anyway. That’s why these people were all up in arms.
So, when questioned by these people regarding his actions, Peter did the only thing he could do. He told the truth. He tells the story all over again emphasizing at every turn that this was an act of God. He tells them the story, but in so doing he points to God and says, “He’s the one that told me to do it, so if you have a problem with it, you need to take it up with Him.”
Many times we as the church can act just like these early Jewish Christians. We know our mission. We’re excited for any story we hear about someone coming to Christ, especially when they’re the vilest of offenders, but when it comes down to new people in our church, we want them to look like us, think like us, and act like us. We welcome fellow Christians with open arms as they jump from church to church, but those that don’t know how to dress or how to act need not apply. Of course none of us would admit this openly. As I said, we want people to come to know Christ, but the way we act when “unattractive” people come into our church tells a different story. When we buddy up to new visitors that meet our status quo and give the cold shoulder or are maybe a little less friendly to those that don’t quite live up to our standards, we’re essentially telling the world to get their act together before they can join our group. But as God said to Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Let us welcome those that are down and out, accepting them before they get their act together. Let’s step out and follow God, regardless of what “the circumcision party” says, just as Peter did.