Real Hope: A Study of Acts 6 -11Sample

Even To Gentiles

READ ACTS 11

When we become believers, we bring our old ways of thinking. If we are to grow into becoming more like Jesus, part of the journey is to allow God to transform our hearts and minds. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He said, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone’ (Mark 16:15 NLT), but in their centuries-old Jewish way of thinking, the disciples thought that ‘everyone’ meant just the Jews. The thought of Gentiles becoming followers of Jesus without first becoming religious Jews hadn’t even entered their minds.

Hindsight being a wonderful thing, we now know that this was ALWAYS the plan, and in Acts 10, we see the moment when the Holy Spirit reveals Himself to the Gentiles, just as God always promised He would. In Acts 11, we see the follow-up to this encounter with Peter telling his fellow believers about what had happened.

This story is important. It’s a shift in the direction of the church from preaching just to the Hebrew people to preaching to everyone. Acts 11 also shows us early believers' humble, malleable hearts and their desire to be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, despite an upbringing and culture that seemingly contradicted what they were seeing. Their response to seeing their cultural beliefs challenged was humbling. Peter said, ‘Who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?’ and his fellow believers, ‘had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life.”’ As I explored Peter’s response to such a significant change, I wondered, would our hearts be as open to God’s Spirit challenging our cultural ideas of Christianity as our brothers and sisters in the early church were?

Written by LUCY WEIL

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