Acts 10:9-33 English Standard Version Peter's Vision 9 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. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. 17 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 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 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.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.” 30 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 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 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.” This is a much longer passage than we've been dealing with recently, but it is a pivotal passage in the book of Acts (along with the passages that explain this vision in chapters 10 and 11). Last time we saw the Lord send an angel to Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and a devout man of God who gave alms and prayed continually before God. The Lord told him that He had accepted the alms that Cornelius had given and heard his prayers and that Cornelius should send men from Caesarea to Joppa to the house of Simon the Tanner to find a man named Simon Peter and compel Simon Peter to come back to Caesarea with them. So Cornelius sent two of his most trusted servants and one of his most devoted soldiers with this message.
Today's passage tells us what was going on back in Joppa while all this was going on in Caesarea. The day after Cornelius's men were sent out, Simon Peter went up on the flat roof of the house where he was staying to pray at about the sixth hour (this would have been high noon). The text tells us that he became hungry and wanted something to eat, which makes sense because this was probably around lunch time for him. The people in the house started preparing food for him to eat, but while they were making the food, he fell into a trance (he had a vision). While in the trance, Peter saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth (I think it's saying the four corners were all gathered together so that you could not see the contents until it was let down on the earth and the corners were released to show what was inside). Peter then saw that the sheet contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean animals, and there was a voice from heaven saying, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." This is a most strange commandment and Peter assumes this to be a test because Peter knew that there were dietary rules about what kind of animals he could and could not eat (clean and unclean animals) and even of the clean animals there apparently were animals that furthermore were "common" that were not to be eaten--I would assume here that Peter is talking about that certain animals that could be sacrificed on the altar were not supposed to be eaten as everyday food, but would be eaten as part of the offering of the sacrifice, especially on holy days when special offerings were made to the LORD. Peter thinks that this is God trying to tell him to eat of anything on the sheet that he wants to satisfy his hunger that he is feeling right then and there and that this a temptation to see if he would break God's Law to fulfil that natural hunger that he is feeling. The voice comes from heaven a second time and gives the interpretation of the vision, "What God has made clean, do not call common." This is a key verse to hang onto as we read the rest of chapters 10 and 11, and Peter will come back to this verse to explain his vision to the Jews. This vision had nothing to do with food or the taxonomy of animals or many of the other things that we try to make it out to be, but it did have something to do with "clean" and "unclean" and "holy" and "unholy" (that is ordinary). Remember that Peter is about to be summoned by three men to go meet with a Roman centurion, and Peter is going to struggle with how the gospel can be taken to those who "unholy" and "unclean." In Peter's eyes, these Gentiles were as detestable as the creepy-crawly animals on that sheet, but God has already declared Cornelius to be "clean" (that is declared righteous be grace through faith). So then, what God had made Cornelius a part of His family by adoption and no Jewish person should look at Cornelius or any other Gentile that God was going to save as a second-rate disciple or that the gospel was not powerful enough to make them "clean" and "holy." In typical Simon Peter fashion, even the things that were said plainly to him needed to be repeated to him several times, for the Lord repeated the vision and the sayings to him three time, and, yet, he was still perplexed when he awoke from the trance. Honestly, I'm not sure many of us would do much better though if we were Simon Peter in that place and that time and in that culture. If you hungry at noon-time and you see a vision of animals on a sheet and a voice says something about "Kill and eat," you're probably thinking about food going in your belly and not about the Abrahamic Covenant that said, "Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed," or the the Great Commission which told the apostles, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go into all the world and make disciples of all nations [people groups/ethnicities] baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always even to the very end of the age." Notice in both passages I quoted/paraphrased that "all nations" are mentioned, yet so far, with the exception of the Ethiopian eunuch, we only have people who were of some Jewish descent saved (and it's possible that the Ethiopian eunuch was also of Jewish descent, but we weren't told that). Even the Samaritans were descended from the northern ten tribes of Israel and they had the Torah. These Gentiles that God is sending to Peter and sending Peter to seemingly had nothing in common with him, and there was going to be an issue later of the Jews saying that close contact with the Gentiles and eating with them was going to make Peter unclean like them, and that will not be a one-time issue as it will be at the heart of the Jerusalem Council later in the book of Acts and it will be an issue as the Judaizers will follow the apostle Paul from town to town telling people that either the Gentiles can't be saved or that they must first become Jewish before being saved or that even after receiving the Holy Spirit they must still celebrate the Jewish holidays that foreshadowed what Christ would do even though the Gentile believers now celebrated the fulfillment of those holidays that were but a prophecy of what was to come. Paul will argue later that there is no point clinging to the shadow when you now can clearly see the true image of what was casting the shadow. To worship the sign rather than the Person that the sign points towards is silly and foolish. We've covered some of that already in the book of Galatians, but perhaps you'd like to go back and read some of that again in light of Acts 10 and 11, especially the part of Galatians where Paul has to confront Peter for showing partiality towards the Jewish believers and refusing to fellowship with the Gentile believers because he hadn't remembered this very lesson that God was teaching him in this passage. About the same time that Peter came out of his trance, the men sent by Cornelius arrived at the house of Simon the Tanner and were standing at the gate and were calling out asking where Simon who was called Peter was lodging. The Spirit speaks to Peter and tells him that these men are looking for him and that he should go with them without hesitation because the Sprit has sent them. Peter goes down to them and greets, tells them that he is the one they are looking for and then asks them what business has brought them to him. They tell of their master, his devotion to the Lord, the vision and message that Cornelius was given, and their instructions to return with Simon Peter so that he could speak the Lord's words to Cornelius. Peter invites them into the house as his guests and gave them food and lodging for the evening (though he too was a guest in someone else's home). The next morning, Simon Peter arose and went with these men from Joppa to Caesarea, along with some of the other brothers who were with him in Joppa. When they arrived, Cornelius was expecting them and he had invited all of his friends and family over to hear what Peter was going to say. When Peter arrived, Cornelius fell down at his feet in worship (probably in the same kind of way that he was expected to do when any of his superiors came into the room and he was expected to show them honor). However, Peter was quick to correct him and to say that he too was just a man and not worthy of Cornelius's worship. When Peter saw the large number of Gentiles that filled Cornelius's house, the vision he had made sense to him and he told the people, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of 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 ask then why you sent for me.” (v. 28-29) Cornelius then relates his vision to Simon Peter. Peter had already been told this by the servants and soldier sent to him, but I believe that he wanted to hear it directly from Cornelius and he wanted everyone else in the house to hear Cornelius's testimony as well, because this will be part of Cornelius's public profession of faith. Our passage today ends with Cornelius saying, "Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord." We are left until next time waiting for the message that the Lord has commanded Peter to deliver to them. We'll see that next time as well as their response to the message in verses 34-43 and then God's acceptance of them by giving them the Holy Spirit in verses 44-48. Some key verses we will look at in the next couple journal articles will be, "“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." (v. 34b) and “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (v. 47). Peter starts to see that God's vision is much larger than he had originally thought--Peter thought they were taking the gospels to the Jewish people in all the nations of the world, but God is saving a remnant from every people group, and both Jew and Gentile received the same Holy Spirit and received it the same way --as a gift of God that came by grace through faith. This is going to kick off our next main section of the book of Acts as we will start to focus on the gospel going to "the uttermost ends of the earth" through the work of the Apostle Paul and those who worked with him (there are about 70 different people named throughout Acts and Paul's epistles that helped him in this effort, and I'm sure there are many more who were not named). This is not a task that we can do alone, but each of us must individually respond to the call that God has given to us, even when it is to go and speak to people that we find to be "unclean" and "unholy," for those are the people that Jesus is in the business of making "clean" and "holy," just like He did for us. Acts 10:1-8 English Standard Version Peter and Cornelius 10 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. 3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” 4 And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7 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, 8 and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. Caesarea is another coastal town along the Mediterranean Sea. As you can probably guess by its name, there was a large Roman presence there (the city is named after Caesar after all) and there is a Roman garrison and barracks there. Because of the number of troops that would be stationed here, there would be a centurion (an officer that would oversee about 100 men underneath his command) there, and this particular centurion and the men whom he commanded seemingly came all the way to Israel from Italy, for they were part of the Italian Cohort. This centurion, Cornelius, is described as being a devout man who feared God with all his household. That would be a headscratcher for most of the first-century Christians, especially the ones of Jewish background, because how could any man in the service of a man who claimed to be a god and who was probably forced many times a day to say "Caesar is Lord" be a devout man of God when he almost certainly was breaking the first commandment and maybe the second commandment and, well, you get may drift. The Jews would have bristled at this description because they thought all Gentiles were unclean and all contact with them should be avoided lest the guilt they had would rub off on the Jews and that God would pour out His wrath on the Jews that they thought was being stored up only for the Gentiles--we're going to see that come to play in this passage.
Luke gives evidence for his claim that Cornelius was a devout man of God by citing that Cornelius gave alms generously to the people (this would probably be to the Jewish people of whom he was seen as an outsider and "unclean") and he prayed to God continuously, yet we know such a man would not have been welcomed in the Temple, so he must have been praying wherever else he went. The phrase "the ninth hour" probably means 3 p.m. as Roman time starts with sunrise at about 6 a.m. and if we add 9 hours to that we would get 15:00 hours or 3:00 p.m. This is one of the dedicated "hours of prayer" for the Jews, and likely Cornelius is praying, as would be his normal custom, when he saw this vision of an angel of God. The angel tells Cornelius that God has heard his prayers and accepted the sacrifice of his alms, and he was given instructions send men to Joppa to the house of Simon the Tanner, whose house was by the sea, and to find the one named Simon Peter, and he was to have his men call for Simon Peter to come to him. Cornelius immediately obeys everything that he was told to do. As soon as the vision is over, he calls two of his closest aides and a devout soldier (probably meaning devout to him, but it could mean that this soldier was also devout to the Lord) and tells the three of them all that he saw and heard and gives them instruction to go to Joppa, to the house of Simon the Tanner, and to bring Simon Peter back with them. We'll see next time that God is in the process of giving Peter a vision as well so that he will be prepared and ready to go with them when they arrive, though it's going to take some work for Peter to understand what God is saying, for Peter will first interpret the vision as a test of his devotion to the Lord. Acts 9:36-43 English Standard Version Dorcas Restored to Life 36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner. We have seen mostly men mentioned so far in the historical narrative that is the book of Acts, but Luke makes sure to add this story to show that the Church was a place where women were welcomed as disciples. Jesus encouraged the women and children and all the other outcasts of society to draw near to Him and follow after Him, just the same as He did to the men, and many of the women and children were able to follow him day and night for years where as their husbands and fathers may only have been able to see Jesus for a day or two when he was close to town, as most of the adult males had to work six days a week in order to support their families.
Tabitha, who was also called Dorcas, was known for being a person full of good works and charity. Likely she had the gifts of service, hospitality, and giving among others for her to have gained such a reputation among the early Church. News of her illness and death rose to the attention of Peter as the believers in Joppa knew that Peter was nearby in Lydda and they sent two messengers to run to Lydda to ask Peter to come to Joppa without delay. When Peter arrived, the funeral had already started. All the widows of the town were gathered in the room and were mourning her loss. We have seen similar scenes in the gospels when Jesus was called to help and someone died before He arrived and He would have to clear the room. In like manner, Peter tells all the mourners to go outside and he kneels down and prays and then says, “Tabitha, arise.” (Compare this passage with Mark 5:35-43 to see how this is similar to what Jesus did). When she had opened her eyes, she sat up and Peter gave her a hand standing up. He then called everyone that had been there to mourn her death to come in and see that she was now alive, and the news spread throughout Joppa so that many believed. See, there it is! There was a greater purpose in this miracle than simply brining Dorcas back to life, and Peter would stay many days in Joppa in the house of Simon, the tanner. This is where we will meet Peter next time when he is going to have a vision telling him to take the gospel to a Gentile by the name of Cornelius. We've already seen the gospel going to the Gentiles with Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and that Jesus told Saul that he would be the apostle to the Gentiles, but we have yet to see a pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles in the same way that we saw the Spirit being poured out on the Jews at Pentecost and on the Samaritans in chapter 8. We often try to read things into this passage coming up that are not there, specifically about dietary code and what is allowable for us to eat as Christians versus what the Law told the Jews that they could and could not eat. There is a message about clean and unclean, but it is clear in the interpretation of the vision that follows that God is telling Peter to not call "unclean" the Gentile people that He has made to be "clean." This would be a lesson that the Church would struggle with throughout the years and that we struggle with today as we find it hard to worship with people from different cultures and backgrounds, but we'll see that this is something that the church in Syrian Antioch will be doing well and it is why they will be such a missions-sending church, this is the church that will send out Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, and later they will send out Barnabas with John Mark, and Paul with Silas on additional missionary journeys so that they could reach people from all around the world with the gospel. This is going to be a turning point in the book of Acts. Acts 9:32-35 English Standard Version The Healing of Aeneas 32 Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. 34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. 35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. The Christians for the most part have scattered and started to return back to their homes because of persecution, but in a twist that only God could have planned, the one who was persecuting the Christians has now become one of them. The one that was driving the Christians away to the nations would become the apostle to these nations. However, there was still work to be done in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and Peter seems mostly focused on that effort in the book of Acts (though we know that he travelled other places as well as we study the New Testament epistles.
For now, Peter is going from town to town visiting the churches in each area and this story focuses on his time that he spent visiting the congregation meeting in the city of Lydda. Lydda is southeast of Joppa (Peter's hometown). When Peter got there, there was a man there named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years. No additional details are given by Luke other than the fact that the man was paralyzed. Peter speaks to him and says, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." This command seems similar to when Jesus healed the paralytic man in Luke 5:17-26. This again was a miracle that accompanied a message. When the residents of this city and the ones that came from another nearby city saw this miracle, for the probably all knew of the man and that he was paralyzed, they turned to the Lord, because they knew only God had the power to do these kinds of miracles, but they were done in the name of Jesus which had to mean at a minimum that God approved of Jesus and His gospel message and it could even be inferred that Jesus was God in the flesh. Next time we'll see another miracle done by Peter in the town of Joppa. Again the focus here is not the miracle, but the message, and God is using the miracles to validate the message and the messenger, that both came from Him. God can and sometimes still does use signs and miracles for the same reasons today but we get into the same kind of trouble the Jews did with Jesus when we are just constantly looking for signs and wonders without giving thought to the message that the miracle is validating. Let's be careful to not worship the miracle or the messenger and make make sure that we worship the Lord who is the one who is the source and provider of both the miracle and the message. Acts 9:26-31 English Standard Version Saul in Jerusalem 26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Saul has just fled from Damascus in the cover of darkness, but instead of fleeing back home, he goes to the one place we probably wouldn't expect him to go--to Jerusalem where everyone there knew him. The Church there would be afraid of him, and the Sanhedrin and those aligned with them would be angry with him. Both groups would be in disbelief for different reasons.
It was going to take the intervention of another brother, namely Barnabas, whose name means "Encourager" to convince the disciples in Jerusalem that Saul had a genuine conversion and was now one of their brothers in the Lord. It is interesting that even after all this time that Paul still found new people to share the gospel with as he went in and out among them, that is the Church members, in Jerusalem and he preached boldly in the name of the Lord--I would assume this to be open-air, public preaching due to the next sentence. The Jews that had sided with the Romans were called Hellenists and they weren't very happy with Saul or the gospel message he was preaching because it could be a threat to their political power and influence as well as their wealth. This sect of Jews tried to kill Saul, so once again, the disciples helped Saul get out of town by taking him to the seaport of Caesarea and sending him to Tarsus (Saul's hometown). For at least a little while, things became more calm for the Church in all the places where congregations has been planted because Saul was no longer a bounty hunter looking to terrorize them. Others would come behind him though to carry on that work, but for now, the Lord has given them peace and an opportunity to flourish and grow as the gospel continues to go forth. We see now that the church is no longer growing my "addition," but now by "multiplication," as it says at the end of verse 31, and all this is due to the work of the Holy Spirt. Make sure that God gets all the glory for the grown in both numbers and maturity that you see in your local congregations. Acts 9:23-25 English Standard Version Saul Escapes from Damascus 23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. Saul has been living in Damascus in Syria for some time now. He originally went there under the authority of the Sanhedrin to hunt down the followers of the Way (also called disciples and Christians in the book of Acts), but on his way there, Jesus spoke to him and Paul became a disciple of Jesus--one of the very people he had hated and sought to arrest and bring back for execution.
After his salvation, Saul was eager to learn all he could and to tell everyone he met what he understood and how Jesus had saved him. It was hard for the Christians to accept him at first because they still feared him, knowing why it was that he was sent there by the Sanhedrin, and the Jews would not accept him because he was now one of the disciples of Jesus, so they hated him. In fact, they hated him so much that they plotted to kill him. This is where our passage today starts. The plot to assassinate Saul became known to him, either by word of mouth or through revelation from the Holy Spirit. The Jews began watching and guarding the gates to the city twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so that Saul could not leave the city and escape them and their only goal when they found him was to kill him. The disciples from Damascus helped Saul escape by lowering him over the wall in the darkness of night using a basket and rope or chain that was large enough and strong enough to fit and support the weight of a full-grown man. Saul is not out of danger yet as we'll read about tomorrow, nor is he going to be easily accepted by the rest of the Church. It is going to take some convincing and sharing of his testimony and some outside witnesses to also testify for them to be convinced. That is what we want to talk about next time. Acts 9:19b-22 English Standard Version Saul Proclaims Jesus in Synagogues For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. 20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. The text doesn't tell us how long Saul spent with the disciples in Damascus (remember, many of them are there now because he had chased them out of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria), but Luke tells us that Saul immediately proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues (a public profession of faith), saying, "He is the Son of God." We'll notice that publicly saying that Jesus is the Son of God (the second person of the Trinity) is one of the marks of a true believer, though not the only mark, for even the demons confess the identity of Jesus.
Everyone who saw and heard these things were amazed because the transformation seemed obvious, though some were cautious and skeptical wondering if this was a plot to infiltrate their group so that he could cause trouble for them there and arrest them to bring them back to the chief priests in Jerusalem for trial. It took some help from Barnabas, the Encourager, to come alongside Saul and convince the Church at large that he had a genuine conversion and that this was not a trick. As Saul was discipled by the church in Damascus, he group in strength and in wisdom as the Holy Spirit gave him the answers to the hard questions that the Jews there were asking, what we would call apologetics today, and he was able to prove to them (from the Scriptures) that Jesus was the Christ, that is, the Messiah. Much of what we'll see from Paul's New Testament epistles has to do with this idea of defending and contending for the faith. The Jews that were causing issues in Jerusalem will follow the apostle Paul around wherever the Holy Spirit is at work so that they can oppose Him. So then, be careful if you encounter no opposition to the truth of Scripture that you are preaching--mostly likely you are not preaching the truth of Scripture, especially the exclusivity of the gospel--at that point and are probably preaching a false gospel if the world loves you and is okay with your message. |
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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