[00:00:00] Hello listeners, welcome to my podcast. We will continue from yesterday, Acts, a commentary by E. M Blaiklock. Sorry, yesterday I meant tomorrow, which is now today, we will proceed with Acts 10, verses 24-28 where the Apostle Peter meets Cornelius.
[00:00:23] Progressing from page 96, see Caesarea 10, 24-48. At the headquarters of the Israeli-slash-Roman command, Peter meets Cornelius. Note a singular feature of Luke's style. He is ruthless in his brevity when he narrates events without immediate significance in the plan of his story. He is prepared for repetition when he is setting forth important movements in the record.
[00:00:53] We shall note the same phenomenon in the next chapter, and in the triple repetition of the story of Paul's conversion. Note the full Christology of Peter's speech. Peter was the first to declare that Jesus was the Messiah, and in his exposition of the Gospel to his Gentile audience, he covers the same theme fully and faithfully. Peter and Paul, remarks R.J. Knowling, are both one in their witness to the resurrection of the Christ on the third day,
[00:01:23] and also in their witness to his appointment as the future judge of mankind. This startling claim made by St. Peter with reference to Jesus of Nazareth, with whom he had lived on terms of closest human intimacy, and in whose death he might well have seen the destruction of all his hopes, is a further evidence of the change which could only be accounted for by the belief that this same Jesus was risen and declared to be the Son of God with power.
[00:01:51] The speaking with tongues of verse 46 was probably the Corinthian phenomenon of ecstatic utterance. Nonetheless, this event may rightly be described as the Gentile Pentecost. Notice that the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit preceded baptism. Peter, it is noted, commanded them to be baptized.
[00:02:22] See Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 1, I. 3-16. D. Jerusalem 11, 1-18. This passage is a strong light on the nature and preoccupations of the Jerusalem church, and the situation with which Paul was later to contend. It is clear that Christianity was accepted as a reformed Judaism, and not Judaism's successor.
[00:02:51] True, the assembly accepts Peter's explanation, and gave God glory, 18. But it is clear from the outcome that they could have contemplated little more than that type of spiritual hospitality which the synagogues, especially those of the dispersion, had long offered to the God-fearing among the Gentiles. It was a different matter when Paul threw the church open to all Gentiles, whether they had previously conformed to Judaism or not.
[00:03:19] Probably, too, as A. W. F. Blunt suggests, such is human nature. They may have thought that such cases as that of Cornelius were likely to be few and exceptional before the return of Jesus took place, and that a minority of Gentiles on the circumference of the church might be tolerated, especially as they might possibly in time go on to be circumcised through the influence of the Jewish majority.
[00:03:44] It required, indeed, a major readjustment of all thinking for a people fiercely conscious of racial privilege and stirred anew by the thought that the Messiah of promise had appeared and spoken, readily to abandon the thought that a unique national destiny approached fulfillment. To accept a reinterpretation of ancient prophecies, to admit a spiritual rendering of old promises accepted and cherished as literal and material,
[00:04:13] to see Israel melt into the church and the minority of the chosen lose identity, privilege, and special place in a global organization called for insight, faith, self-abnegation, magnanimity, and a transcendent view of God rarely found in any but the most enlightened souls. We see Paul occasionally waver. We sense the struggle of Peter towards the wider vision, and we shall see him falter in the difficult path.
[00:04:43] It is easy to dismiss the prejudices of the Jerusalem church as narrow-minded and unchristian, but it is better to look upon such agonizing reappraisal with a sympathetic eye, and to appreciate the greatness of the men who rose to the occasion, and especially of that mighty spirit towards whose work the story is tending. The Wider World 11. 19-30
[00:05:10] The story of Peter's imprisonment in chapter 12 is a continuation of the Acts which began in chapter 10. Luke's purpose, therefore, in introducing this interlude must be sought. He was probably intent on drawing some threads of narrative together, and showing that, while significant events were taking place in the citadels of Jewry, there was a ferment abroad in the great centres of the Gentile world,
[00:05:40] and that while Peter was being prepared for his role of leadership in Jerusalem, God's time was ripening for the introduction of Saul of Tarsus to the task of Gentile evangelism. The mention of the collection, 27-30, is relevant to this end, for that obligation was to be a major occasion of liaison between the Gentile and Jewish sections of the church, and a link between the apostle to the Gentiles and Jerusalem Jewry.
[00:06:10] The section is also designed to show that the Jerusalem church was not without a sense of responsibility towards the world at large, nor without wisdom in its choice of an officer to report on spiritual developments there. 22. Barnabas is one of the choice saints of the early church, a man of insight, willing to move others to the forefront of the stage, gracious and wise.
[00:06:38] He it was who had first sponsored Saul, and now, seeing the whitening fields of the Gentile world, he thinks of his one-time protégé and brings him to Antioch. 26. No doubt at Barnabas's suggestion, the same Saul is appointed to visit Jerusalem under circumstances calculated to find him acceptance there. Tomorrow we will proceed to page 99,
[00:07:06] which will be one-third of the way through Acts. A commentary by E.M. Blaiklock. M.A. and D. Lit.