God breaks the chains of Paul and Silas thrown in jail for proclaiming the gospel. However, in this story other ‘chains’ are being broken. The chains based on making the wrong things important in our lives: money grabbing, people pleasing and success.

What are the chains that control your life?

Later on we are going to hear a story of Paul and Silas being in jail and chained up. Then God sends an earthquake, their chains are broken and they are set free.

Most of us will never be chained up or handcuffed or put in prison. But sometimes we can talk of invisible chains that control our life and stop us becoming the kind of people God has made us to be.

I want us to think about three of these kinds of chain this morning.

Money Grabbing Chain

Firstly, there is the money grabbing chain.

If you are someone that thinks that having more money is really important in life, then this may be a chain that is holding you down.

Of course we all need to have some money and we need to be sensible about how we use our money, but for many people a desire to have lots more money is something that controls their life. This may be true of people that already have lots of money or those who have very little. When you think that having more money is the one thing that will make you happy or solve all your problems, then it has become a chain for you.

Jesus and the Bible constantly warn us about the dangers of being greedy or wanting to have more and more money. It says that this desire for money, will stop us loving God and stop us living the way he has made us to live.

For example in 1 Timothy it says:

” For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Tim. 6:10)

• A chain because it leads to the fear of losing money

And when we love money, when we think that the best thing we can do is have more of it, then we will have a fear of losing the money we already have.  This fear can act like a chain on our life, stopping us being good and generous as God calls us to be.

People Pleasing Chain

Secondly, there is the people pleasing chain.

If you are someone that thinks that it is important to have everyone like you no matter what, then this also can act as a chain on your life.

Of course we shouldn’t want to upset people unnecessarily and we should try and be friends with people, but if pleasing people is the most important thing, you may end up doing things you know are wrong, because others are doing those things and you want to please them by joining in. You may end up failing to do what is right, because you are worried it might upset people.

In the parable of the sower, Jesus said that one of the seeds that did not grow and bear fruit, was like people who were excited about being a Christian to start with, but gave up being a Christian, because it made other people not like them.

• A chain because it leads to the fear of being disliked, rejected, bulllied

Like the Money Grabbing chain, this chain leads to fear that controls us and stops us doing what is good and right, because we are afraid of being disliked, rejected or bullied.

Success Focused Chain

Thirdly, there is the success focussed chain.

If you are someone who wants more than anything else to be successful, to do well in your exams, be the best in your class or at your sport, then this may be a chain that ties you down.

Again, it is good to make the most of the talents God has given you, but if you desire for success is all that matters, then it may lead you to do things that you know are wrong in order to be successful. It can also make you envious of people who are more successful than you.

In James it warns us:

“For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” (James 3:16)

•  A chain because it leads to the fear of failure.

Again the success focussed chain leads to fear. In this case, fear of failure. Failing your exams, failing to win the competition, failing to get a promotion… Such fear can end up controlling your life.

Breaking the Chains:

So, we’ve looked at some of the chains that can control people and stop us being the kind of people God wants us to be. In the story from Acts this week, we see Paul escape from prison, his chains are literally broken by an earthquake God sends.

But actually, we also see that what is even more important in the story is a breaking free from the chains we have been talking about. So, let’s think about the story and how this happens.

Paul and the Slave Girl – Breaking the Money Grabbing Chain –  16:16-19

The first part of the story involves a female slave who had an evil Spirit that enabled her to predict the future. Luke tells us that this was important because her ability to predict the future earnt a lot of money for her owners as a fortune teller.

Anyhow this girl starts following Paul and his friends around shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” This kept happening day after day and although what she was saying was true, Paul probably realised that having an evil spirit point people to you was not helpful and also it was not good for this girl to have an evil Spirit.

So eventually, he turns around and says to the Spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!” Immediately, the Spirit left her!

But so also did her ability to make money for her owners!

Paul cared more about sharing the riches of the good news of Jesus and the freedom from evil spirits of this slave girl, than the riches of her masters. Paul was free of the money grabbing chain.

For him the money did not matter as much as people being set free and being saved by Jesus. Paul was free from the money grabbing chain and in a way he had not just freed this girl from and evil spirit, but from her role in making money for others.

However, her owners did not see it as a good thing. They were money grabbers and cared more about their profits than the girl. So they became really angry with Paul and Silas!

The story shows us that we have a choice to make between serving money and God. Jesus says,

“”No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:24)

Paul and the Magistrates – Breaking the People Pleasing Chain – 16:20-23

In setting the girl free from this slave, Paul showed that he also wasn’t afraid of upsetting people by doing what was right. He wasn’t chained by the people pleasing chain.

In fact it was not just this that upset people. They were also upset, because they didn’t like what Paul and his friend Silas were teaching. Philippi was a Roman colony in Northern Greece. Those that lived there saw themselves as Romans, but knew that most of the people in the area around them were Greeks. As a result they were very loyal to Rome and Roman customs. Paul’s message about Jesus seemed to challenge these Roman customs and so people were very upset and angry at Paul and Silas.

So, they had Paul and Silas stripped and beaten with rods and locked up in jail. The point was to scare them and bully them into not talking about Jesus anymore.

But, despite this bullying and their threats, Paul and Silas were not afraid. They were not chained by the People Pleasing Chain. Instead they praised God and sang hymns and songs to God in jail. They cared more about pleasing God, than pleasing people.

Paul and Silas had really taken to heart the teaching of Jesus about this:

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

Paul and the Jailer – Breaking the Success Focussed Chain  – 16:24-34

But the story does not end there. The focus of the story now turns to the jailer. He is keen to follow the orders and do his job well. Taking Paul and Silas he locks them in the most secure part of the prison.

Then later that night as Paul and Silas are singing praises to God, there is an earthquake and the foundations of the prison are shaken. All the prison doors are opened and everyone’s chains are loosed.

For the jailer this appears to be an utter disaster. When he saw the doors open, he assumed that all the prisoners had escaped. He thought he had utterly failed at his job and probably because he was a success focussed person, he could not bear to live with the consequences of this failure, so he decided he was going to kill himself.

But just as he draws his sword, Paul shouts out and assures him that they haven’t all run away.

Then Paul and Silas are able to explain to the jailer that true salvation comes not through success, but through what Jesus has done for them and the power of God. The jailer and all his household believe and are baptised and are filled with joy. As a result!

The jailer has been set free from the success focussed chain and learnt the importance of serving Jesus. Jesus says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

How can we break free from these chains?

So how can we be free from the money grabbing chain or the people pleasing chain or the success focussed chain.

Paul and Silas and in the end the jailer showed they were free from these chains because they put Jesus as number one in their life. In following Him we find freedom from these other chains and freedom to be the people God wants us to be and have the life God wants us to have. Paul later wrote to the church in Rome and said:

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” (Romans 6:22)

When we have that freedom in Christ, like Paul and Silas praising God despite being beaten and in jail, and the jailer discovering the salvation in Christ for the first time, we can discover a new joy, one focussed not on having money or being popular or successful, but in knowing Jesus as our Lord and saviour. As Paul later writes to the church in Philippi:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

Have you discovered the joy of being free from chains by trusting and following Jesus as number one in your life?

As we look at the first coming of the good news about Jesus into Europe recorded in the book of Acts, Colin Gale shows us four grand openings created by God.

For the last month or more here at St Luke’s, we’ve been reading the story of how the good news of Jesus gospel spread outward, first from Jerusalem to Judea, then secondly to Samaria, third to Jewish communities in the Roman province of Asia, fourth to the Gentile community in the Roman province of Asia, fifthly to Europe, and then sixthly to Rome. And in a sense all this is just the start, because if you’ve ever read through to the end of the book of Acts, you will know that there is no proper ending to it. The very last verses of the book talk about the apostle Paul living in Rome, opening his home to everyone, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching everyone who would listen about the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a way of indicating that the church of Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit, will never stop until it really does make it to the ends of the earth.

Each of these six missionary moves was a major psychological hurdle for the early church. Without these moves, Christianity would have remained a Jewish sect. Humanly speaking and in the absence of the Holy Spirit, most likely it would have petered out within a generation. All of us who are not Jews would have remained without God and without hope in the world.

Acts chapter 16 marks the fifth of these outward moves, the move into Europe for the first time. In speaking about verses 6 to 15 of that chapter, the second of the two passages we heard read out this morning, I want to draw your attention to what I am calling grand openings – not one but four grand openings – which can take place as readily today as they did two thousand years ago. But before I do that, I want to take a backwards glance to the first passage that was read, Acts chapter 13 verses 1 to 12.

In this reading, you may remember, the sorcerer Elymas or Bar-Jesus is clearly cast in the role of the bad guy, and it looks as though the apostle Paul has called down a curse on him to strike him blind. What was at stake was the chance the Cypriot pro-consul had of hearing and responding to the word of God. The sorcerer was intent on stopping that happening. Even so, what the apostle Paul says and does seems pretty harsh, at least it seems harsh until we read that the sorcerer’s blindness was to be ‘for a time’. Elymas is struck blind, not permanently but for a time, so that he had to grope around for someone to lead him.

This is pretty much exactly what happened to the apostle Paul at the time of his conversion, as described back in Acts chapter 9, which you may remember the vicar speaking about earlier this month. Paul’s own temporary blindness was part and parcel of the momentous change that God brought about in his life. After his blindness came a grand opening, the opening of his eyes. So too the mist and darkness that overcame Elymas was an acted-out parable, designed to highlight his true spiritual state. There is hope for the sorcerer in the fact that Paul says his blindness will only be ‘for a time’. Maybe there would be a grand opening of his eyes too, so that he, like the apostle Paul and like the Cypriot proconsul, could believe the good news of Jesus, and turn and be forgiven. We never find out from the book of Acts how the story of Elymas ends. Indeed none of us knows how our own story will end; but we do know that, by the grace of God, it is possible for our eyes can be opened to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So there is one kind of grand opening running through the book of Acts before we even reach chapter 16, which is the opening of people’s eyes, literally and metaphorically, for them to see their need, and to see the grace of Jesus Christ as the answer to that need. That is how the good news spread from Jerusalem and Judea through Samaria to Rome and beyond. And this is a grand opening that continues to happen for people today as they reflect on their own lives, learn from the Bible and connect with the church: their eyes are opened to the truth about themselves and about the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Then in verses 6 to 15 of Acts chapter 16 we read about four more grand openings that happened then, and have never stopped happening since.

The first grand opening is this: the LORD opened a way. Back in chapter 13, you may remember, Paul and Barnabas were sent on their way to Cyprus, we are told, by the Holy Spirit. Here in chapter 16, we see the flip side of having one way opened, which is to have other ways blocked off. Paul and his companions were prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia, we read in verse 6. So then they tried to enter Bithynia, but according to verse 7 “the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to”. We have no way of knowing whether this guidance came in the form of some kind of prophetic utterance, from a dream or vision, or else through a juxtaposition of circumstances. We can’t be even be sure whether or not they were even conscious, at that point, of being led; perhaps it was with the benefit of hindsight that they concluded that they had been led.

The dream of the man from Macedonia asking for help, as described in verse 9, certainly confirms them in their conviction of being led, but there is no suggestion that messages from dreams were routinely sought after, or anticipated, by them. If it was important for us to know precisely how Paul and his companions received guidance, in order for us to imitate their practice, we can be sure that Luke would have included these details in his narrative. The main thing Luke wanted to impress upon his readers was not how they were guided, or whether they were conscious of being guided, but simply the fact that they were guided, the fact that the Lord opened a way.

This is the first grand opening in this passage, and what it means for us is that we may be reassured that God will guide us. Thankfully we don’t have to stress about the ways or means by which God will guide us. He will do so whether or not we are conscious of it at the time, and regardless even of whether we can even recognise it with the benefit of hindsight. It will not always be the way we would have chosen, but the Lord will open a way for all his children.

We don’t need to worry about failing to discern or accidentally missing out on the will of God. The centre of God’s will is this: to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. “Whatever you do”, wrote the apostle Paul to the Colossians, “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it in the name”, by which he means according to the character, “of Jesus Christ, giving thanks to the Father through him”. (3:17). The law of love is the revealed will of God for the transformation of our lives, and it is the work of our lifetimes to be conformed to it. Beyond this, God has a providential will by which he governs the universe and everything in it, which we cannot always discern, let alone frustrate. We may rest assured that he will open a way for us to do, or to endure, whatever he wants us to do or endure, and that he will open a way for us to go, or to stay, wherever he wants us to go or stay.

The second grand opening in Acts chapter 16 is that the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to the message of the gospel. Verse 14 tells us that Lydia was one of several respectable, well-to-do and devout Jewish women who gathered to pray outside the city of Philippi near the river. Jewish law required a minimum of ten men for the establishment of a synagogue. No number of women, however god-fearing, could make up this quorum of ten, and in the absence of a synagogue inside the city, an informal meeting-place was found outside. Lydia, however respectable, well to do and god-fearing she was, still needed her heart to be opened to the message brought by the apostle Paul that Jesus was the Lord and Messiah, and it was the Lord himself who opened her heart.

This grand opening is reminiscent of and synonymous with the opening of the eyes of the apostle Paul himself to the truth of the gospel back in chapter 9. John Calvin, the Protestant Reformer, says that “by the word ‘heart’, Scripture sometimes means the mind, as when Moses says [in Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 4] ‘until now the Lord has not given you a heart to understand’. So also in this verse Luke means not only that Lydia was moved by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to embrace the gospel with a feeling of the heart, but that her mind was illuminated to understand”.[1]

It is like the moment that took place in church a couple of weeks ago, when Claire displayed a picture on the screen of indecipherable pink shapes with a white background, but then explained that once you saw the pink as the background, you then see the white shapes clearly forming the word ‘Jesus’. It was a little light-bulb moment, a moment when the penny dropped. Once we saw the word ‘Jesus’, it was impossible for us to un-see it afterwards. This is what it is like for us when the Lord opens our eyes, our hearts and our minds to a new way of seeing, feeling and thinking – the way of the Christian gospel as set out in the Bible and lived out by our fellow believers. It is a definitive change which affects our entire lives from that point on, and from which there is no going back. This grand opening is the principal work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, whether or not we think to acknowledge it as such. Our hearts may have been already opened to this message. We may be seeking a means of obtaining or sustaining this single-minded clarity. In any event, here in church we are in the right place for our hearts and minds to be opened, re-formed and conformed to Christ. One thing is for sure: it’s not within our power to open and change our hearts, it is a work of God to do that.

The third grand opening in this chapter is easy to miss if you’re not looking out for it, but it’s between the lines of the first half of verse 15. The Lord having opened her heart to Paul’s message, Lydia opened her household to the gospel. This is implied in the fact that the members of her household were baptised along with her. Having received the message with gladness, Lydia took it home and shared it with her nearest and dearest, the people she lived with every day. We are not given any of the details about how she did this. There might have been infant children among the number who were baptised on this occasion, for all we know. There’s nothing in the chapter that prohibits that as a possibility, and there’s the Old Testament precedent of Abraham having the infant male children of his household circumcised at the same time he was, as a sign and seal of belonging to God’s family. Lydia might have thrown a baptism or christening party, but if she did the baptism wouldn’t have been for the sake of the party; the party would have been for the sake of the baptism.

Or, on the other hand, the gospel might have been accepted by those of older years within Lydia’s household with whom she shared it. Either way, the fact that Lydia brought her household along with her in accepting baptism is proof that Jesus Christ was the subject of conversation in Lydia’s home, and that in having these conversations, Lydia was demonstrating love for the people she lived alongside every day.

They say that charity starts at home, and so it does whenever we speak and act at home in such a way as to promote Christian faith, hope and love. The people who live with us probably know us most intimately. They tend to know what makes us tick, and if we try to put on an act, they can usually spot it a mile off. Have our hearts been opened by the Lord to the gospel, and do we love the people we live with, or if we can’t say we love them, do we even like them, if only a little bit? If so, we must find appropriate and genuine ways of opening up our households to the gospel. The previous two grand openings I spoke about are the work of the Lord, but this one is one for us.

The last grand opening in Acts chapter 16 is also to be found in verse 15. Having been baptised, Lydia opens her house to Paul and his companions. Luke, the author of the book of Acts, writes that “she invited us to her home”. By the way, the use of the word ‘us’ there is a little clue that Luke had joined the apostle’s entourage by this time. When discussing the comings and goings of Paul, Silas and Timothy at the start of chapter 16, Luke talks about where they went and didn’t go, but from verse 10 onwards he uses ‘we’ and ‘us’, indicating that he was an eyewitness, along with Silas and Timothy, of the events he proceeds to describe. “‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord’, [Lydia] said, ‘come and stay at my house’. And she persuaded us.”

This would have been a grand opening indeed, because it is fair to presume that Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, was wealthy, and that her house was large. The manufacture of and trade in purple cloth was a thing in the ancient world; it was centred in Thyatira and commentaries on the book of Acts pick up on historical evidence outside the Bible for a guild of purple cloth merchants in Philippi.

We learn from verse 15 that Lydia becoming a Christian changed the way she related to her family – she opened her home to the gospel – and changed the way she related to the bricks and mortar she owned – she opened her house for fellow believers, to come and stay with her and eat with her.

Lydia’s motive in inviting Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke to come to her house does not seem to have been to establish the kind of network of social obligation that was part and parcel of Roman society. Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke were living itinerant lives at the time, and it would have been obvious to Lydia that they were in no position to reciprocate her offer. Nor did Lydia invite them to stay because they were old friends from similar social backgrounds who got on well together. It is clear that she had only just met them. The basis for the invitation is there in her words: “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house”. She invited them because they were fellow believers. And – this too is important – they accepted her invitation, simply because they were fellow believers. It was not a matter of obligation, or social affinity. They were building a new society which cut across economic and cultural barriers, gender barriers as well, and which was centred on their common faith in Jesus. Part and parcel of doing that was opening, and being welcomed into, each other’s homes, sharing food and drink, showing and receiving hospitality, not simply to be sociable but to grow and to strengthen the church of Christ. Lydia does here in chapter 16, Paul did it at the open-ended conclusion to the book of Acts, and Christians have been doing it ever since.

This too is a grand opening for us to emulate. Think of all that God has done for us, and at what a cost. He has opened up a way for us, and he has opened our hearts to a new life, and he will continue to do so. Is it such a hard thing to open our homes to the gospel, and to our fellow believers in Christ? “Let no debt remain outstanding”, writes Paul in Romans chapter 13, “except the debt of love”.

Actually it can come hard. Not all of us have the gift of hospitality, or of remembering names. Many of us consider ourselves to be shy or private people. If we are at a church that we have been part of for many years, I know it requires a conscious decision on our part to talk to people other than those we have known for years. If we are at a church that is new to us, I know it can be really tough to reach out and begin to form the links that are needed in order to say to one another: Shall we arrange to meet? For some of us there is the practical problem that we do not have the skills to boil an egg, or perhaps we do not have the kind of bricks and mortar that would easily accommodate guests. So we need to think creatively about different ways to apply the ‘debt of love’ principle.

If we are doing the inviting, let’s consider not inviting our friends, our relatives, or our rich neighbours, since if we do, they may invite us back, and we will be repaid. Instead let’s consider inviting those who are not in our circle, who are new to the church, or who are in no position to return the invitation, knowing that, if we do this, as Jesus says in Luke chapter 14, we will be blessed.

If we receive an invitation, let’s accept it whenever we can, not on the basis of similarity of status, circles of friendship, or how many years we have been part of the church, and without any embarrassment, because we share the same faith in Christ.

If our homes can’t accommodate guests, let’s meet for a walk. If we don’t cook, let’s meet for coffee. If we can’t afford lunch, let’s meet to not have lunch, or let’s share lunch at church today, whether or not we have brought food ourselves today or whether or not we are particularly interested in the business of the annual meeting. I dare say that there will be enough to go round. Let us find time in our diaries to connect with one or other of the St Luke’s, St George’s or Christ Church growth communities outside of Sunday morning.

By his Holy Spirit, the Lord has opened a way for us, and he has opened our eyes, our hearts and our minds to believe his message. Let us therefore open our homes to him and to one another, so that together we can grow to know one another better and become more like the church God wants us to be.

---

[1] Calvin, Acts 14-28, p. 73.

A Radical Welcome (Acts 11:1-18)

Peter was in trouble! He had spent time at someone’s house that was not a Jew. For the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem this was scandalous! So, when Peter returns to Jerusalem he explains what had happened and how God was calling them to a radical new way of thinking about the world.

Why all the fuss about who you eat with?

Partygate and more recently Beergate have dominated our news over the last few months.

When you describe the stories out of context you might wonder what all the fuss is about?

People are outraged that Boris Johnson had a birthday cake with a number of guests in his house on his birthday.

Keir Starmer had a beer and curry with some colleagues whilst preparing for a local election.

In normal circumstances neither event would pass without comment, they would just be seen as normal events in the run of life. Yet, when we know the whole story, the big picture or context we can understand what all the fuss is about. These events happened during a Pandemic when there were laws in place to  stop people mixing together outside their household. Both events arguably were law-makers breaking the law at a time when many others were making huge sacrifices to keep those same laws. Given that context the events take on a far greater significance, although the details of whether laws were actually broken is of course still under debate – especially in the case of Keir Starmer.

Chapter 11 of Acts tells us that Peter has returned to Jerusalem after spending a long time travelling further afield telling people the good news about Jesus, who had risen from the dead and was offering salvation to all who believed. However, for the Christians in Jerusalem who were all Jews, Peter’s ministry had become controversial, because he had started preaching that same message to those who were not Jews and in particular had stayed in their houses and probably eaten with them.

So in verse 3, Peter is accused of ‘going into the house of uncircumcised men (that is non-Jewish men) and eating with them.’ For us that seems like they are making a fuss about nothing, but we need to understand the cultural context and the background they were coming from.

The Wrong Division: Unclean, Clean and Saved

In particular we need to see how the very first Christians would have viewed the world.

The Old Division: Clean and Unclean

They would have divided the world into two groups, Jew and Gentile or clean and unclean. To be a part of the people of God you needed to be ceremonially clean according to the Law of God, that is you would have been circumcised – if you were a man – and  would have taken seriously the Jewish rules and regulations on remaining clean and unclean. In particular the rules about which animals could be eaten and which animals could not be eaten, the animals labelled clean in the Old Testament Law, such as cows, sheep and goats and those labelled unclean such as pigs and shell fish.

Such rules were God given religious identity markers – ways of showing who the true people of God were. Yet it meant that in practice Jew would refuse to eat with non-Jews for fear of becoming unclean.

The New Division: Saved and Unsaved

Yet, for the Christian Jews, another division had now happened, one brought about by the person of Jesus. This was a division between those who were saved and those who were not saved.

With Jesus’s death and subsequent resurrection, they had realised, as Peter makes clear in Acts 2, that Jesus was both Lord and Messiah. He was God’s chosen king, the Son of God.

This was also confirmed by the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on Jesus’s followers, a kind of Divine confirmation that the first Jewish followers of Jesus, were the true people of God, because they had accepted Jesus to be God’s Messiah and Lord.

Indeed, Peter in his first sermon quotes from Joel  and Old Testament prophet that describes the coming of the Holy Spirit on all God’s people. The end of the quote says:

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:31).

Peter and the earliest Christians realised that Jesus was the Lord and those who called on him, his disciples or followers were the ones who were truly saved. They were the ones who believed in Jesus, the ones who had repented and found forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.

Yet, not all Jews had accepted that – after all many of the Jewish leaders had been behind Jesus’s crucifixion, so were unlikely to accept that they had God’s Messiah killed. Thus increasingly it was clear that from a Christian point of view the Jews were split between those who believed in Jesus and were saved and those who rejected him and were not saved.

Salvation for Jews only

Yet, to start with at least, when they said, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,’  they thought the ‘everyone’ referred to ‘everyone who was clean,’ that is every Jew. Jesus after all was the Jewish Messiah, a Jew himself, and all Twelve apostles were Jews themselves. Surely, you could only be saved by the Jewish Messiah if you were already a Jew.

So, the very first Christians saw the world as a three-way division, the Gentiles or unclean, the Jews or clean who didn’t believe and were not saved and the Jews who did believe and were saved. The coming of Jesus had certainly changed their view of the world and how it was divided up, but they still believed in the distinction between clean and unclean, between Jew and Gentile, that the Old Testament religious markers of the Old Testament people of God: circumcision and the food laws, were still relevant.

Yet, Peter had broken those rules. He had eaten with Cornelius a non-Jew. For the Jews in Jerusalem, this felt a bit like Party-gate. So when he arrived in Jerusalem, Peter had to explain himself.

Interpreting the Event: Another Pentecost

Peter’s re-telling of the story, which you can read at far greater length in chapter 10 of Acts is useful, because it doesn’t just repeat the facts, it helps us see how Peter was interpreting the events to help persuade his fellow Jewish Christians that he was right to eat with Cornelius.

Whilst chapter 10 tells us what God did and what Peter did, Peter’s explanation in chapter 11, is Peter explaining to those who believed Gentiles were unclean, how he had come to change his mind with God’s guidance.

The Problem: Ritual Cleanness

Firstly, Peter does not begin in the same place as Acts 10. In Acts 10, Luke begins with the angel coming to Cornelius, but Peter begins with the vision God showed him. This is where God deals with the key issue for Peter.

In the vision, a blanket full of unclean animals is lowered down and Peter is commanded to kill and to eat. Peter as a Jew keen to follow the Jewish ritual rules on cleanness refuses, but God responds: “Do not call anything unclean that God has declared clean.”

God seems to be declaring that the old laws around ritual uncleanness were no longer relevant. God had a new way of declaring things clean.

Just as the laws that restricted our freedom because of the Pandemic were appropriate and in place for a time, they have now come to an end. We are now in a new era, where the threat of the disease is not strong enough to justify restricting people’s freedom to meet and congregate. So the law have been dropped.

In the same way, what God had shown Peter in Acts 10, was that the old Jewish laws around clean and unclean were no longer relevant now that Jesus had come. This was a new era, a new covenant or testament was in place. Now, the Law of the Spirit had superseded the Law of Moses, now Gentiles could be a part of the people of God, without first becoming a Jew. Peter eating with Cornelius was not breaking God’s laws, because those laws were no longer relevant.

The Proof: Combined Witnesses

But how could they be sure about that?

Because God provided three separate witnesses to show that Peter should be with Cornelius. This is really important. The Bible says that in order for something to be proved you need two or more witnesses.

The first witness was the vision Peter had, which is confirmed by the almost immediate arrival of messengers from Cornelius summoning him to his house in Caesarea. A summons that is further confirmed by the Holy Spirit’s guidance to Peter.

Then when he arrives at Cornelius’s house, he hears that Cornelius has also received a vision of an angel who knew where Peter was and told him to summon him. Two separate visions, that both encouraged the same encounter at the same time. This seemed to be a double witness to the fact that God was bringing them together.

Then arguably there is a third witness. As Peter begins to explain the good news about Jesus to Cornelius and his household all of who were Gentiles, the Holy Spirit comes down on them and they start speaking in tongues, in a way very similar to the way it had happened to Peter and the Jewish followers at Pentecost.

Each event by themselves could be argued to be made up by one person or a strange happening, but the combination of events gives a cast-iron guarantee that this was from God. Peter and the Jewish Christians with him at the time were at least persuaded that the old laws around clean and unclean were no longer relevant.

The Point:

And the point was this for Peter. Before he had ascended to heaven, Jesus had said in Acts 1:5:

“For John baptised with water,

but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”” (Acts 1:5)

The mark of those who belonged to Jesus was that they were given the Holy Spirit. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter had realised that this pouring out of the Spirit on God’s people was a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy, the prophecy that ended with the statement:

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:31).

If God was repeating Pentecost with Cornelius a non-Jew, then the implication was that the ‘everyone’ was not just restricted to Jews, it was literally everyone, Jew and Gentile.

The old way of looking at the world was no longer relevant. The old Jewish religious markers of the people of God: circumcision and food laws were no longer relevant now Christ had come and fulfilled the Law. Now it was those who called on the name of Jesus and so received the Spirit who were the true people of God.

Peter was not wrong to eat with Cornelius, the old rules were no longer relevant. Partygate was explained.

A Radical Welcome:

Yet, this was not just about defending Peter’s actions, this was about confirming a radical new perspective that goes to the heart of what Christianity is all about.

The radical welcome of Cornelius draws out the full implications of what Jesus had achieved through his death and resurrection and the sending of the Spirit.

1. Radical Salvation

First of all it underlines the radical nature of salvation through Jesus. Cornelius was told by the angel that Peter would bring him a message through which he would be saved and it was as Peter was preaching that the Holy Spirit was poured out on Cornelius and his household, in a way that fulfilled the Joel prophecy and so showed they were saved.

In other words, you did not have to be clean – in terms of the Old Testament Jewish regulations in order to be saved or receive the Holy Spirit. You were saved merely by hearing the message about Jesus and responding to it with repentance and faith.

Yes, that change of heart will show itself in terms of changed moral behaviour. The moral laws of the Old Testament were still relevant. After further debate on this issue in Acts 15, the church agrees that Christians do not need to be circumcised, but they do call them to steer clear of idolatry and sexual immorality two areas where Biblical morals and the morals of the ancient world differed most markedly.

Yet, salvation comes instantly with faith in Christ and commitment to live his way, the good works flow from salvation, they do not achieve it. This is radical salvation.

Let’s be careful not to suggest or require that anything beyond faith in Christ and repentance is needed for salvation.

2. Radical Church

Secondly, this shows us that the church is a radical new community where the only identity that matters is to belong to Christ. All other identities become irrelevant to membership of the church. Paul expounded this in Galatians by saying,

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

There will be people within the church who are radically different to you. If you have really grasped the difference Christ makes, this is something that should be celebrated as showing the incredible unity we have in Christ.

3. Radical Invitation

Thirdly, this reminds us that the invitation to come and follow Jesus is a radical invitation, because no-one should be left out of that invitation. It is easy to think that only people like us can become Christians or to imagine that whole groups of people should not really ever be invited to become Christians.

Yes, different groups may require different approaches, but no-one is outside of Christ’s invitation to salvation.

Ironically, in the light of our passage, today in an attempt to avoid anti-semitism, telling Jews about Jesus is often frowned upon. Yet, Jews are just as much invited to turn to Jesus as anyone else.

Conclusion:

Peter concludes his talk by saying, “… who was I to stand in God’s way.” If we make salvation about more than faith and repentance or fail to welcome or invite people that are different to us into the church, then the reality is we are standing in God’s way.

That’s not a place I would like to stand!