Gospel Goes to Gentile
Cornelius
ACTS 10:1-11:18
Part 2: Chapter 11
| Acts 11:1-3 PETER CRITICIZED |
The conversion of Cornelius was a milestone in the church’s history. However, it didn’t settle the troubling issues of the proper relationship of Jews to Gentiles within the body of believers. In fact, the church throughout Judea was soon buzzing with the tale that Peter had met with and baptized Cornelius. Luke writes of the controversy: "The apostles and brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So that when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the uncircumcised believers criticized him and said, ‘You went into the house of uncircumcised man and ate with them’" (11:2-3).
It’s important to notice that Luke made a deliberate distinction between "the apostles and brothers" (11:1) who heard about what Peter had done and "the circumcised believers" who criticized them. This implies that the apostles and leaders of the Jerusalem church, as well as some believers in Judea, didn’t have a problem with Peter’s actions in Caesarea. It was the circumcised believers of Jerusalem who felt Peter had violated Judaistic regulations pertaining to the separation of Jews from Gentiles. (That is not to suggest that there was a formal "circumcision party" within the church at this time, though apparently there would be one later.)
We should notice that the circumcised believers apparently did not criticize Peter for having baptized Cornelius. Peter was challenged because he entered the house where uncircumcised people were, and ate with them. (That he ate there is not directly stated by Luke but is inferred from Peter having stayed at Cornelius’ home for some days.) "The sting in the charge, of course, is found in the ancient symbolism of table-fellowship: to eat with someone is to share spiritually with them as well; by implication to eat with Gentiles is to collude in idolatry" (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, page 197).
Peter’s opponents were accusing him of abandoning his sacred Jewish heritage by associating with and eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. Some thought he had put the identity of the church community at risk. Thinking in terms of the Jewish paradigm of Israel as God’s holy nation, some emphasized that the church was a holy people. It was to be separated from the pollution of the world, including fraternizing with Gentiles. But now the church had been tainted because one of its leaders had violated ritual separation.
There might have been another, more practical concern as well. The Hellenistic believers had been persecuted and driven out of Jerusalem for their attacks on the foundations of Judaistic piety. Now Peter, a leading apostle, had disregarded the sacred and traditional laws of separation in order to associate with a Gentile. This could lead the Sanhedrin to persecute the remaining, and more conservative, Jewish converts in Jerusalem.
| Verses 4-17 PETER EXPLAINS HIS ACTIONS |
It was clear that Peter would need to explain why he met with Cornelius and baptized him. He went before the "circumcised believers" of Jerusalem (again, not the apostles!) and there recounted everything "precisely as it had happened" (11:4). That is, he recited the events related to Cornelius’ conversion in sequence, point by point. In giving us a summary of what Peter said, Luke repeats, to a large degree, the same material he included in chapter 10. We need not tell the entire story again, though there are a couple of new pieces of information that should be mentioned.
Peter referred to the six circumcised disciples who went to Caesarea with him, and also entered the home of Cornelius (11:12). The fact that he brought these six men with him to Jerusalem suggests that he expected to be challenged. These six men would be important witnesses to what happened. They were circumcised believers, and hence their credentials as pious Jews (as well as Christians) would carry weight with the church in Jerusalem.
The six had seen Cornelius and the other Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit (10:45). Thus, they were witnesses to the fact that God had put his stamp of approval on the whole occasion. More than this, the six believers also entered Cornelius’ home, and ate with him. They were more than witnesses for the veracity of Peter’s story. These pious and observant Jewish Christians had been implicated in Peter’s actions at the house of Cornelius. Since they were respected members of the circumcision, the fact that they were willing to be "tainted" by being in a Gentile’s presence would have helped counter the objections being raised.
More important, however, was that Peter could appeal to God as the one who had orchestrated the meeting with Cornelius. Thus, Peter concluded his defense by saying, "If God gave them [the Cornelius group] the same gift as he gave us...who was I to think that I could oppose God?" (11:17). The important phrase here is "same gift." The Gentiles had experienced something similar in all essentials to that of the original Jewish disciples at Pentecost (2:1-5). That being so, they should have an equal membership in the body of Christ.
Peter had argued that he went to the home of Cornelius, baptized him, and then fellowshipped with the group in response to God’s action. He didn’t do this simply on his own initiative or to play fast and loose with tradition. There had been a divine motivation in all this, beginning with his vision on the roof of Simon the tanner’s house.
For the moment, the Jerusalem disciples were satisfied with Peter’s explanation. "They had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life’" (11:18). On the surface, this appears to be the end of any controversy regarding the Gentiles. But that is not the case, as we shall see later in Acts.
| Verses 1-18 CONTROVERSY CONTINUED |
The conservative Jewish Christians did, of course, acknowledge that Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit before fully living the Jewish life. After all, Peter and the six witnesses showed that God was unmistakably behind the conversion of Cornelius. Perhaps they allowed that Peter, in this extraordinary circumstance, had to fellowship with uncircumcised Gentiles.
However, some in the church would continue to claim that Gentiles must, after conversion, begin to fulfill all the requirements of the Torah, such as circumcision. Only after doing so could they truly be saved. No doubt, the more zealous members and leaders of the Jerusalem church pointed out that many problems would be created in allowing formerly pagan Gentiles to fellowship with observant Jews. Regardless of what was being claimed, as good Jews they would be defiled by "unclean" Gentiles.
The Jerusalem believers must also have been concerned about the impact a rash of Gentile conversions would have upon the standing of the church in the community. After all, it was being closely watched by the Jewish leaders to see if it was upholding the standards of Judaistic worship. Any suspicion about the church fraternizing with Gentiles would create suspicion and rancor in the Jewish community. This would also be a problem in other cities with a large Jewish population in which large-scale Gentile evangelization and conversion occurred.
These issues were not solved nor even taken up by the Jerusalem church at this time. However, the questions would continue to fester until the apostles found it necessary to call an *unprecedented council a few years later. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem congregation struggled to remain acceptable to the Jewish authorities. If they failed in this regard, they would suffer the fate of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians who had been persecuted and expelled (8:1).
It is thought that such fears on the part of the Jerusalem mother church led it to speedily acknowledge James as its leader, rather than any of the apostles. (The apostles probably agreed that such a course was best, and in any case were soon obliged to leave the city themselves.) James was known to be a legally scrupulous practitioner of the Torah, for which he was called "James the Just." Thus, he enjoyed a good reputation with the Jewish community. This would help diffuse any potential crisis with the Sanhedrin over the "Gentile question."
To the last half of chapter 11