Bible Study series: Acts 10:9-16. This is the second scene in the biggest shift of God’s dealings with people.
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I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
At the link to the original post, next, I write more commentary and dig a little deeper into the Greek. I also offer a section titled Observations for Discipleship at the end. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided in the commentary section for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Acts 10:9-16
9 The next day, while they were traveling and nearing the town, Peter went up on the housetop to pray around noon. 10 He got hungry and was wanting to partake. But while they were preparing the meal, a trance happened to him. 11 He saw heaven open up and an object coming down, something like a huge sheet, lowered by the four corners to the ground. 12 On it were four-footed animals, reptiles, and birds of the sky. 13 And a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter, slaughter and eat!” 14 Peter said, “No way, Lord! I have never eaten anything common or unclean!” 15 And again a voice said to him a second time, “What God has made clean, don’t you call common. 16 This happened a third time, and instantly the object was taken back up into heaven. (Acts 10:9-16)
Comments:
9:
What is about to happen is a divine convergence or appointment. While the emissaries from Cornelius approach Joppa, Peter goes on the rooftop to pray and is about to receive a vision.
“pray”: see v. 4 for a closer look.
10:
After praying a while, he got hungry and wanted to partake (of a meal), so Simon’s servants prepared food for him.
“trance”: It befell him; he did not ginger it up or use soul power.
For more information on dreams and visions, please see Observations for Discipleship in this post.
Also see:
Dreams and Visions: How to Interpret Them
11-12:
“He saw heaven open up”: Heaven is not on a far, distant planet inside the corrupt universe (as some teachers and even a few theologians oddly claim). If so, then where did God live before he made the heavens and the earth? No, heaven is another realm in a completely different order from ours. It is another dimension. All God has to do is to pull back the veil, and we could see it, just as Peter did, in part.
Here Peter has another power encounter with the Lord. He received thee infillings in Acts 2:4, 4:8 and 31. Renewalists believe that God fills and empowers his people throughout their lives at special times. It is not as if they “leak,” but sometimes we need a special power surge or anointing to accomplish a special task for God.
In the descending object, God worked out a design that served his purpose. The object must have been solid, and not a sheet that curves under some weight. But we don’t need to focus on the laws of physics here. It is a vision.
The three classes of animals were named in Gen. 6:20. Apparently the vessel or object contained all unclean animals like the pig.
“reptiles”: ground crawlers, which reminds me of the serpent cursed by God to crawl around on the dirt, without feet (Gen. 3:14-15). It “ate” dust, so to speak. This kind of creature, thereafter, was a lower life form, which must be avoided. Unclean.
Peter was right there when he heard Jesus speak these words in the Gospel of Mark (and most scholars say Peter was the source of Mark’s Gospel):
17 And when he entered a house away from the crowds, his disciples asked him about the illustration. 18 And said to them, “Are you still without understanding? Don’t you know that everything outside entering a person is unable to defile him 19 because it does not go into his heart but into the stomach and goes out into the latrine?” (This means all foods are clean.) 20 The thing coming out of a person—that defiles the person. 21 For on the inside from the heart of people are evil thoughts that come out: sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come out from the inside and defile the person.” (Mark 7:17-23)
Apparently in order to appreciate Jesus’s teaching, Peter needed this extra-powerful revelation / vision to learn this truth about ceremonial cleanness. He soon applied the parabolic vision to humankind. Jesus was not just talking about animals. Peterson is great here. “What needed to be resolved for Peter was not whether the gospel was for Gentiles (cf. Lk. 24:47; Acts 1:8; 2:39; 3:25-26), but how they could receive it in view of their ‘uncleanness’ in Jewish eyes and be one with Jewish believers in the fellowship of the church. In practical terms, Jews and Gentiles could not share food and shelter” (p. 324). Then he goes on to cite another commentator (Gaventa) who says that the issue of hospitality requires a conversion of Gentiles, true, but mainly a conversion of the (Jewish) church as well. The change of mind in the Messianic Jews was more gut wrenching than the change in Gentiles which they gladly accepted (p. 324).
This explains very well the hesitation of Peter to arise and kill and eat in light of the passage in Mark 7:7-23. It takes a long time for these religion-altering, worldview changes to happen. Gentiles will be accepted by the Council in Jerusalem because Peter says that the Gentiles have cleansed their hears by faith (15:9), implying that ethnic birth and keeping “kosher” (an anachronistic term) is irrelevant to the Jesus Movement, as it goes out into the provinces and the Gentiles.
Once again:
Dreams and Visions: How to Interpret Them
13-16:
Here Peter does argue with the Lord, and he knew it was the Lord, too! In contrast, Cornelius had a humble and pliable outlook, while Peter was stuck in his religious past. But let’s not be too hard on Peter. Religious traditions in which one grows up for years are heard to break or leave behind. “God’s voice corrects Peter: God is able to make the unclean clean (10:15); triple repetition 10:16 underlines the point. By eliminating the intrinsic impurity of gentile foods, God removes the barrier to table fellowship with gentiles (cf. 11:3). God’s agenda is not a change in Peter’s regular diet, but God cleansing unclean gentiles (10:28; 15:9)” (Keener, p. 300).
“No way!”: it can be translated “Certainly not!” “By no means!” I use a more updated phrase.
“common”: the opposite is holy, which means “set apart.” “Common” means everybody acts this way and has the same degraded moral status. It’s common! However, you personally are set apart by God; you are not common in the sense of profane or unclean or “unkosher.” It is actually a verb: “don’t you ‘commonize’ what God has made pure.
Peter is about to learn that Cornelius is just as set apart for God as the Jewish nation is. Gentiles too can be grafted into God’s Chosen People. They too can be consecrated to God and made holy.
On the third time, the object was taken back up in to heaven. The verb is passive, indicating that God is the behind-the-scenes subject of the verb. He is the one who took the sheet back up.
And as to God making something holy, he has to declare it to be holy. Those three classes of animals are not holy or unholy, kosher or unkosher in themselves, by their nature; they are just animals. But God decreed some animals to be kosher or holy or clean, and other animals to be the opposite. (It is odd that a locust is clean or kosher [Lev. 11:22], for example.) To use other verbs, he considered or imputed or calculated or reckoned certain animals holy or kosher. Yes, scientists have figured out that a pig is a scavenger and can eat bad food, but what about a pig that is given special treatment and is fed only the best food? So it is all about God’s declaration, not about the animals being who they are by nature. The same goes for humans. All humans are sinful and unclean by their nature, so God has to get them ready for judgment and declare them clean. Then he sends his Holy Spirit into them to work out what God has declared over them.
God did this to Cornelius and his household and gave them the Holy Spirit.
See my post:
GrowApp for Acts 10:9-16
1. This section is, on the surface, a vision about clean and unclean animals. But it is more deeply about unacceptable people, those who do not have the right religious background. How has God accepted you despite all your sins and uncleanness? Tell your story.
RELATED
The Historical Reliability of the Book of Acts
Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles: Match Made in Heaven?
SOURCES
For the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 