Powerful Roman commander living in a thriving, multicultural port city requests an audience with a small town fisherman who will shortly be considered an enemy of the state. What happens next changes history.
This whole chapter is a celebration of the work of the Holy Spirit. We often associate the Spirit with emotional responses felt in a worship service and perhaps a stray miracle now and again. However, this passage shows us that the Holy Spirit also functions in many other roles. If you are in industry, consider that the Holy Spirit is production control, or Human Resources. If speaking from a musical perspective, He is the conductor. If from the military perspective, He is the ground commander. The list goes on an on. The point is this: The Holy Spirit is moving among all people to organize and orchestrate the plans and purposes of God. He motivates Cornelius to request Peter. That’s unusual in that Peter is unknown to Cornelius, and he (Peter) is in a small fishing village about 45 miles away. Cornelius is in huge government funded and supported port city called Caesarea. Herod the Great built a mansion on the water in Caesarea.
The Spirit motivates Peter at the same time with a simple message:” don’t call something unclean if the Lord has made it clean”. (vs 15). Then, the Holy Spirit instructs Peter to “go with the men”….since Peter still doesn’t seem to get it. It isn’t until Peter arrives, hears the story and sees the faith of Cornelius that his spiritual eyes are opened. In the meantime, he simply obeys what the Spirit leads him to do.
Because Peter is obedient, Cornelius, his family and friends are blessed with the infilling of the Holy Spirit. This isn’t just a “good feeling” that is rewarded to him and his family for being faithful and generous followers. This infilling is necessary for growth and maintenance of the Christian life. Not too many days hence, Christianity will become persecuted, and Christians will have no favor with the government. However, it will be too late to stop the spread of Christianity, because Cornelius and perhaps others like him are already believers.
Jesus has planted the seeds of faith for all Gentiles right underneath Caesar’s nose. The Holy Spirit has seen to it.
You and I celebrate this chapter because when the Spirit came to Cornelius, we learned that the Gospel was available to all people, not just Jews, but Gentiles. You and I are Gentiles (provided that you aren’t Jewish from birth). I know that we are considered the “new Israel” and “ingrafted branches”, and that’s exactly the point. We had to be “grafted into” the family tree. The Holy Spirit filling Cornelius is the first time we realized how expansive God’s plan was for us.
Are there other lessons to learn from this Chapter? undoubtedly. Caesarea is in ruins today…Joppa has become Tel Aviv, the largest city in Israel. The abandoned city stood for Roman power, the small fishing village stood for God’s people.
And then there’s the idea of not calling others “unclean”. How many people live on the fringe today because Society has set them aside? I’m not speaking of alternative lifestyles here…they have the center stage, and the governments favor. I am speaking of the men and women in 3rd world countries that no one seems to care about. They are used like cattle. Let’s not forget the women and children caught in the sex slave trade….and the list goes on. Men and women who are seeming from a different place where their concerns are not our concerns.
The Holy Spirit calls us to “leave Joppa” and travel to those who eagerly desire to hear the message of salvation. when we are obedient, we will see the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated in unbelievable ways.
Listening for His voice,
PR