Acts 11: It’s Not About Bacon Wrapped Shrimp
If you want to eat bacon wrapped shrimp at your next anniversary dinner, be my guest. But please don’t use Acts 10 & 11 to explain why the Bible says it’s okay. Doing that takes one of the most important moments in history and trivializes it. I’ll prove it to you in less than 10 minutes.
It was about ten years since that Day of Pentecost in the Temple. Peter had seen thousands of his brethren follow Jesus and become His disciples. But there was one further step that needed to take place before Peter and the other disciples could say that they fully obeyed Jesus’ final command before He ascended; the command to go beyond Jerusalem, and Judea, and even Samaria; the command to go to the Gentiles. Peter knew this would cause problems. He’d seen the reaction that even those from Jesus’ home town had when Jesus had mentioned this possibility.
Remembering Nazareth
Jesus had just finished reading a Messianic prophecy from the book of Isaiah, which He then declared to those listening was fulfilled in their hearing (Luke 4:16-22). The people of Nazareth seemed to welcome the idea that Jesus could be the Messiah. But then the people also appeared to be waiting for a sign or miracle from Jesus. It was then that Jesus said:
“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum. Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Luke 4:23-30 NIV
It’s when Jesus talked about the miracles done in Lebanon and Syria that the people turned on Him.
They became so angry that they tried to stone Jesus. These people, who were okay with Jesus claiming to have fulfilled Messianic prophecy, turned completely around when Jesus talked about the possibility of any of His mission having anything to do with the Gentiles.
The Ends of the Earth…
But Jesus had commanded His disciples to go to the Gentiles. And it was time to fulfill that command. So God made that clear to Peter in a dream. Here’s Peter’s experience in his own words:
“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. And I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’
“I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
“The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’
This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.
“Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’“
As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
Acts 11:5-18 NIV
Why Peter?
Why was he the one selected to be the Apostle who would be used to confirm that the Gospel of Jesus applied to the Gentiles, as well as to the Jews? Paul, the missionary who later would be the most influential teacher and writer of the First Century Church, wrote that Peter’s mission was specifically to the Jews:
For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles.
Galatians 2:8 NIV 1984
So again, why Peter? I believe that there are two key reasons. First, Peter was with Jesus for His entire earthly ministry, and would have known Jesus’ clear teachings on this issue. He would have understood that Jesus’ compassion reached beyond the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Second, Jesus knew Peter’s heart, especially in light of his earlier denial of Jesus, and subsequent restoration. Peter would never again deny His Rabbi, or go against His clear commands. So. Peter was the only one who could go to the Jewish Believers, and convince them that the Gospel was now going to the “uttermost parts of the Earth”, and that meant it was going not only to Jews scattered worldwide, but to the Gentiles as well.
Fading Away
Peter seems to drift into the background of the story after this. We see him at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, but again, his words are only in connection with how the Gospel applies to the Gentiles. We read no more of any miracles or teachings. Peter knows that everything has changed. He writes some letters and in one of them seems to indicate that he has traveled to Babylon. This isn’t surprising if we understand that a large Jewish population continued to live in Babylon even after the return to Jerusalem after the captivity. Peter simply continued to minister to those whom he was sent, content with knowing that he was being faithful to his calling.
I like to imagine Peter sitting in his prison cell later in Rome, remembering that morning on the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection, when Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me, Peter?” And as Nero’s soldiers prepared the cross upon which Peter would be crucified just as his Rabbi was, I can see Peter closing his eyes, lifting his face toward Heaven and whispering, “Yes Lord. You know that I love you.”
