Those of us who are not Jews take for granted the availability of the Gospel to whosoever will. We know that was the intent of Jesus from the beginning, but it took about ten years for that to be realized. Cornelius is an intriguing man. In Acts 10, he is identified as a Roman centurion, a man who feared God, gave generously to help those in need, and prayed to God constantly. But he was a Gentile, and at this point, the Gospel seemed to be preached exclusively to the Jews.

Although he may not have been what we would call a follower of Jesus at this point, he had somehow come to know the One True God. So much so that one day during his prayer time, God interrupted his day with a vision. The Gospel was about to expand beyond the Jews to the Gentiles. Notice how specific God was. He told Cornelius to send for a man named Simon, whose surname was Peter. Peter was in the home of a man named Simon, who was a tanner by trade, and his home was by the sea in Joppa. When God speaks, He speaks with clarity, not vagueness.

But God was not only dealing with Cornelius; He was also dealing with Peter. For centuries, the Jews were taught that certain foods, as well as people who were non-Jews, were “unclean.” But the covenant God made with Abraham hundreds of years earlier is about to be realized. A sheet coming down from heaven had all kinds of animals on it, and a voice told Peter to eat. Though Peter was hungry, he said he would not eat anything that was “unclean.” But the voice said if God had made it clean, no one could call it unclean.

God gave this vision to Peter three times. It kinda makes me wonder if God is reminding Peter once again of the three times he denied Jesus and the three times Jesus told Peter to go feed His sheep. When Peter received the invitation to visit Cornelius, he couldn’t say no. Peter was learning that he needed to follow where the Spirit would lead him, even if it was somewhere he had never been before.

I pray we will see that God is still sending us to the world, and we must not divide the call into “us” and “them.” “For God so loved the world, that He gave… for whosoever will believe…”