Acts 11:1-18 – Peter explains his actions
- “Which one are you?”
- This passage encourages me as someone who wants to bring change.
- This devotional blog is called ‘a missionary maker’ for a reason – it hopes to encourage those wanting to live a missional & influential life.
- After Peter’s major paradigm shift in understanding, he now has to go back to those he is closely associated with and essentially tell them that he has changed his mind.
- He returns to a group who I am sure he had previously had many a discussion on the importance of being torah-true and observing the various food laws etc. In the past as any group of closely aligned friends might have done, Peter would have bonded with them as they corporately criticized those doing things different. They would have told stories together of compromised Jews and weak followers of the Law. Those who had associated with sinners and ate with gentiles.
- Now he has to go and tell them that he – and therefore they – had got it wrong.
- How much does pride and cowardice stop us changing our minds when God shows us that we have misunderstood something?
- When he first faced his companions they immediately go on the offensive, accusing him of breaking their laws.
- At this point I have already written them off.
- Yet after Peter tells his story, he tells it simply and although counter his culture, it of course fits in to Jesus teaching – they too are completely changed around and actually start praising God!
- That alone is encouraging.
- But what comes to my mind is something Jesus told His disciples much earlier.
- Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
- Here are a group of people who had not seen the Gentiles filled with the Spirit and yet they had believed.
- It leaves me this question: Do I have to see to believe?
- Do I have so much pride that I have be the one who experiences a trance & then the transformation to believe?
- Or could I be humble enough to be convinced by a story or explanation that is true?
- Praying for a humility that keeps me open to God’s ways.
I find two parts of this scripture amazing. 1, Peter goes against (at God's will) thousands of years of Jewish Tradition, and some how through a very short conversation convinces the believers that things have changed, and they accept it. I can't even think of a modern day equivalent of that....the Holy Spirit must have been working through the believers in a radical way. Second, they now accept that the Gentiles get the same thing they do. Both of these things combined had to be mind boggling for their families when they went home and said "hey, lets have a pig roast tomorrow with our gentile neighbors!" For me it goes to show that listening to God can, and will result in major changes in what I do, and how I think.
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