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Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Your thoughts are something to consider.\u00a0 Here are some things that they had me thinking about recently.\u00a0 All this is bouncing around in me.<\/span><\/p>\n I wonder now how much Peter really understood of anything.\u00a0 How would he have explained being born again, or the forgiveness of sins, for example?<\/span><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n Exactly, Damien.\u00a0 After Pentecost, what would he have thought animal sacrifices were accomplishing, as far as atonement for sin was concerned?\u00a0 And what did Peter consider the standard someone had to meet in order to belong to God?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n When Peter said in Acts\u00a010:43<\/span>, “All the prophets bear witness to him, that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins,\u201d what did Peter think that meant?\u00a0 It is so easy to read that and unwittingly insert your own understanding!\u00a0 His doctrine on the day of Pentecost was, \u201cRepent and be baptized, every one of\u00a0you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and\u00a0you will receive the gift of the holy spirit!\u201d \u00a0I assume that was still how he was thinking.\u00a0 Did he even understand the connection between the spirit baptism and the forgiveness of sins or was there a certain separation produced by an absolute need, in his mind, to repent and be water baptized first?\u00a0 (The same might be asked of Ananias when he said to Saul of Tarsus, \u201cGet up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling upon the name of the Lord!\u201d )\u00a0 Did Peter understand what God did when he gave the Gentiles the spirit?\u00a0 Did he realize that they were cleansed by that experience alone and then connect it to what was said to him about God cleansing someone (Acts\u00a010:15<\/span>)?\u00a0 Peter could easily call to mind that twice Jesus had said that he and the other apostles were clean \u201cthrough the word that I\u2019ve spoken to you.\u201d \u00a0Peter\u2019s thoughts about being cleansed could have been very different from ours.\u00a0 So, when the voice said to him \u201cWhat God has made clean, don\u2019t you call common!\u201d I wonder what, if anything, he comprehended about God making something clean.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n There had to be much confusion in Peter\u2019s mind, Damien, if he actually got still and tried to sort it all out.\u00a0 He knew that God still required the Jews to obey the law, which was true at that time, but even if the Jews obeyed the law, according to what Peter himself said, they could not be saved except through faith in the name of Jesus.\u00a0 And when God by-passed the law and began pouring out His Spirit on gentiles \u2013 well, there are no words to describe the bewilderment that Peter and the other believers at that time must have felt.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps we ought to consider something else in that interesting exchange which Peter recounted exactly in Jerusalem. Peter says he had eaten nothing unclean or common. \u00a0“Common” may well have to do with Jewish tradition as the use of the same word (in Greek) in Mark 7:2 suggests.\u00a0 I doubt unclean and common are intended as synonyms but rather that they betray Jewish thinking.\u00a0 The Lord’s response might then be seen as addressing Peter’s Jewishness and directing him away from Jewish tradition.\u00a0 But I don’t think Peter got it then, nor could he.\u00a0 By the time of Acts 15 he seemed to have a better understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, and that is an important point.\u00a0 \u201cCommon and unclean\u201d would mean to a Jew that something, or somebody, was ritually impure.\u00a0 The Jews knew that certain rites of the law could make a defiled person clean, and until that person underwent that ritual, he was unclean.\u00a0 What God was telling Peter on the rooftop was that he could make a ritually unclean person clean without the use of the law\u2019s cleansing ritual.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The theological implications of what God told Peter were enormous, but obviously, Peter could not at that time take them in.\u00a0 And no one living at that time could have.\u00a0 That amazing truth had to be revealed in order for us to believe it, and it had not yet been revealed.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever the case, all in all, God put Peter in a situation that was beyond him.\u00a0 Actually impossible.\u00a0 How would Peter’s heart have felt if he didn’t water baptize Cornelius and the other gentiles if he thought forgiveness of sins depended on it, in some way?\u00a0 As Paul later taught, Peter had a gospel, but it didn’t really fit with the Gentiles.\u00a0 Yet it was the only gospel on earth before Paul came preaching his.\u00a0 Peter would not have thought of himself as having the “gospel of the circumcision” committed to himself.\u00a0 He had THE gospel (in Acts 15 he still said \u201cby my mouth the Gentiles were to hear the word of the gospel, and believe.\u201d) And there he was, in a house with Gentiles, with a gospel that was not really even for them, but still, God sent him there.\u00a0 God really knows how to set things up.<\/span><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n That is true, Damien.\u00a0 Peter would not have thought of himself as having the gospel for the Jews only.\u00a0 In fact, in the beginning of this covenant, it actually was the gospel for everybody on earth because if a Gentile wanted to participate in it, he first had to submit to the law and become a Jew.\u00a0 Peter had no idea that such would not always be the case, as long as the world stood.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n The day Jesus died, no man could do right, and on this day at Cornelius\u2019 house it was somewhat similar.\u00a0 No one could yet answer Peter’s question, \u201cCan anyone refuse\u00a0them\u00a0the water, that these should not be baptized who received the holy spirit just as we\u00a0did?\u201d \u00a0There was no answer until Paul received his gospel, and his answer to the question was perfectly reasonable.\u00a0 I can\u2019t help but feel Peter\u2019s question came out complete confusion and bewilderment at what God had done.\u00a0 Maybe desperation as well.\u00a0 But it was a very good question.\u00a0 Peter may have thought it was rhetorical, but God did have an answer.<\/span><\/p>\n What a time in history! What an incredible moment.\u00a0 I never saw before how events \u00a0were swelling to the point of an eruption, when the spirit came down in Cornelius\u2019 house. After this, God had to send another man (not sure about\u00a0needed<\/em>\u00a0:))\u00a0 The Gentiles needed that man.\u00a0 Peter\u2019s gospel had reached its extremity.\u00a0 It could not accommodate what God had in store for the Gentiles.\u00a0 And we have been blessed in this time to have been granted understanding of what that man, Paul, taught, and to see and understand Peter\u2019s place in the foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n You have to love Peter.\u00a0 For God to be able to use him in this way says something for him.\u00a0 God could really knock that rock around!\u00a0 Can you imagine being Peter?!<\/span><\/p>\n Damien<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pastor John,\u00a0 Your thoughts are something to consider.\u00a0 Here are some things that they had me thinking about recently.\u00a0 All this is bouncing around in me. I wonder now how much Peter really understood of anything.\u00a0 How would he have explained being born again, or the forgiveness of sins, for example? ============ Exactly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}