The Gentile Pentecost (Acts 8-15)Sample

The apostle Peter was God’s leading person in the events of the Gentile Pentecost itself. It is fascinating, but also important, to study how God prepared Peter for what he was about to do, (because as we watch and meditate and learn to see and understand how God works in other people and the situations around us, so we shall be able to work with the Spirit in all He is doing today).

To get to the point, the apostle Peter, the man Jesus appointed to lead the twelve chosen apostles, was at the pinnacle of his ministry, both before and after, the outpouring of the Spirit on the believing Gentiles. We could say that everything God had intended for Peter was coming to fruition in this story. Peter was God’s key agent in opening the door of the kingdom to non-Jewish people, (just as Paul was the God’s key agent in then taking the gospel to the world and articulating it to all humankind).

In Acts 9 just before the Gentile Pentecost, God uses Peter to heal a man who had been paralysed for eight years and then to raise a woman back to life. And in Acts 12 just afterward the Gentile Pentecost Luke narrates how Peter is miraculously freed from prison by an angel.

In other words no one can argue that in letting the Gentiles into the church Peter made a horrific mistake.

Just suppose for a moment that all the business with the Gentiles in Cornelius’ house was a terrible mistake, then why would God immediately vindicate Peter by freeing him from prison? The story before the Gentile Pentecost proves that Peter was exactly in God’s will, and the story afterwards demonstrates Peter’s public vindication by the Lord Himself!

When Peter was at the pinnacle of his ministry God told him to do something he had NEVER done before; to go into the home of a non-Jew.

God intervened six times to make the point that the Gentiles were going to be saved by faith just like the Jews!

First; God sent an angel to Cornelius when he was praying, and told him to send for Peter.

Second; God gave Peter a vision when he was praying – he fell into a trance. The voice tells him ‘Get up Peter, kill and eat’ and then when Peter questions the instruction, says; ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean’.

Third; this vision was repeated three times. Generally in scripture, if something happens once, it indicates God’s will. It if happens twice, it is God’s confirmed unchangeable will. And if it happens three times, it is God’s confirmed unchangeable will and it will be fulfilled now, which is exactly what happened to Peter at this point.

Fourth; the Holy Spirit told Peter to go with the three men to Caesarea.

Fifth; we see more generally that God had prepared everything for Peter so that when he arrived there was a large gathering of people.

Sixth; the Holy Spirit comes powerfully on the Gentile believers in Cornelius’ home. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on even the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God (Acts 10:45-46).

In this very sentence we witness the fulfilment of God’s plan that He had first promised Abraham in Genesis 12:3, ‘all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you’.

Throughout the successive chapters of Acts we watch God work the DNA of the Kingdom in life after life after life; in Peter, John, Stephen, Philip, the Ethiopian, - even conversely in Ananias and Sapphira and Simon - in Saul and here again in Peter, we watch God establish His Kingdom and His will through His agents.