Acts 10:1-8 | It's for Everyone. Everyone!Sample

We left off with Peter in the house of a tanner named Simon in the city of Joppa. This is on the cusp of him raising a disciple named Tabitha from the dead. What we don’t want to miss is that both of these would make Peter unclean. Coming into contact with dead things – whether a person or the carcasses of animals for leather making – made you unclean according to the Mosaic law (Num 19:11; Lev 11:26-45). But like Jesus, it would seem that when Christ’s power is on the scene, it makes the unclean clean.

This is where the story picks up. About 30 miles up the road, a Roman centurion named Cornelius receives a vision from God that he has found favor with God and that he should send for Peter. Cornelius, of course, is a Gentile. Peter is a Jew. And just like the clean/unclean distinctions were meant to show Israel, Jews and Gentiles don’t mix. And yet, like Jesus’s mother, Mary, Cornelius receives a similar message from an angel. He has found favor with God.

This sets up a larger story in Acts 10 that we’re dividing into three parts over the next three plans. Together, they form the story that guides the rest of the book of Acts – Christ’s kingdom coming to the Gentiles. Put another way, if God’s salvation is also for the Gentiles, God’s salvation is for everyone. God’s salvation is for you!

Today, read the set-up to the story, along with a couple of passages standing in the background.