God Repeats Himself

In the Scriptures God often repeats important themes again and again like mighty drum beats making sure we hear Him and understand how important what He is telling us is… but often with miracles it is different. It almost seems like the H.S. doesn’t like to repeat himself. God saves Israel but He does it through a miracle birth, through the Red Sea, through a warrior, a strongman, a woman, a prophet, a king, a shepherd boy, through an invisible army, mass confusion and blindness, and through a Persian emperor. In the N.T. Jesus heals by his touch, by his spit, by his voice, and by a woman simply touching the fringe of his shawl.

But in Acts, we see a miracle so nice God repeats it twice. At Pentecost Jewish believers are filled with the H.S. and begin to glorify God in other languages. Then, at the house of the Centurion Cornelius, we see new Gentile believers do the same.

And this is hard to take for the Jewish believers and that is understandable. God had drilled into them that they need to remain a chosen people, special, that they should not mix with the gentile world or be unduly influenced by it. The Holy Land had been given to them. They had been occupied by the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Parthians, and now the Romans. They had fought bloody wars against their occupiers and were a proud and independent people.

It was bad enough that Jesus told them to love their enemies, but now the hated Romans were becoming followers of J.C. and being filled with the Holy Spirit of God! It didn’t make sense.

It’s a cataclysmic event and changes Christianity forever. And God repeats, not only the miracle, but He moves Dr. Luke, the writer of Acts, to tell the story twice.

One commentary put it this way, “The story of the conversion of Cornelius would be incomplete from Luke’s point of view without the addition of the fourth scene in which the effects of the incident on the church are described. Luke’s concern is with the apostles as the leaders of the church and the brethren as its ordinary members (1:15), and he speaks of the church in Judea (8:1; 9:31), which consisted of the group in Jerusalem together with the Christians scattered in the neighbouring area. It was the reaction of these Jewish Christians to the response of the Gentiles to the gospel which was all-important for the future.”

Marshall, I. H. (1980). Acts: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 5, p. 207). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

READ Acts 11:1-3 – just read vs. 1 – it might be easy to imagine that the next verse would be about the rejoicing that went on because gentiles came to faith in Christ. But instead vs 2 & 3 record a personal attack. They question Peter’s sanity. Sure, he was one of the 12 who had been with Jesus, but look at Judas. Maybe Perter could fall off his rocker too.

And do you notice WHO criticizes him? Believers. People you would wish would be more open to sharing the joy off people coming to faith in Christ. But life is rarely easy because people are messy. How does Peter respond?

READ vs. 4 (talk)

READ 5-14 Two things I want to bring out – Cornelius saw an angel appear in his home. I think that must have been terrifying. On the one hand it would have been a tremendous blessing, an honor! On the other hand, Cornelius was a good man, but he was still a human being. Here a holy angel from heaven appears in his home – perhaps in a room where he had got in a fight with his wife, or unfairly scolded a servant, or got drunk, or gossiped. How would it be for you and I to have an angel in our homes? I news for you, they are probably there 24/7. The Bible may not be explicit on that but I would not be surprised at all to get to Heaven and learn that angels were always watching over God’s people.

The 2nd thing I want to focus on: the angel tells him how to save he and his household – and he made sure to do what he was told. (focus on ‘save’ vs. ‘lost’ – both words only 4 letters long yet both of them describe infinity – an eternity with God in Paradise or separated from God in unending torment. The difference between saved and lost is so great that Christ lived and died to save people.)

In Luke 19:10 Jesus tells us why He came to this world. He said He “came to seek and to save the lost.”

READ 15-18 – Peter resigns himself to God’s will by saying “Who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way.” And the Jewish believers who heard his report answered with resignation saying, “So the, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Not a lot of cheering. Not a lot of joy. Instead of “YES! This is AWESOME!” Its more “Well… I guess if that’s what God wants to do we can’t stop Him.”

Not the beginning of the world wide church that you would expect.

You know if you were a liar, inventing a new religion and buttering people up - this is Not the way a Jewish writer would have made the story – and if you were a gentile inventing this story you wouldn’t have written it this way either.

One last thought: When we read this event – it is easy to focus on the flashy work of the Holy Spirit when He filled the new gentile believers, but the HS is busy here in these verses – we see Him filling Peter, to respond humbly and wisely to criticism. And we see the Jewish believers humble themselves to hear Peter’s report and do the unthinkable – accept gentiles as brothers in faith. These are BIG miracles. The HS is busy in the hearts of God’s people. And if we are humble, and teachable, God will work mighty changes in our hearts. Difficulty, misunderstanding, and conflict were not absent from the Jerusalem church, but they were overcome by humble submission to the HS.

How beautiful. How powerful. When human pride goes down, the power of God in our lives, our families, and in our church goes up.