Articles
Arguing With God - Acts 10
Arguing With God - Acts 10
As Peter was praying, he fell into a trance and God gave him a vision. While we do not know how that actually works (how did God do that), we can ‘see’ what Peter saw and hear. The vision is easy but practicing the implication can be difficult: The gospel message is for ALL PEOPLE. The lesson was not about food (although there is a lesson on that in it), but about the scope of God’s grace. This goes back to the beginning.
God promised Eve, the mother of all mankind, that her seed would destroy the very work of Satan. This promise was repeated unto Abraham: “In your seed all nations will be blessed”. God then began working with the physical children of Abraham as he was bringing about the birth of the promised child. God did not ‘abandon’ all of the rest of the world, but the story is about using Israel to bring Jesus into the world. Hence, the ‘nations’ (non-Jews, gentiles, the rest of humanity) is not the focus of the story. God ruled over them! Read again the book of Daniel, the book of Jonah, the oracles of Isaiah against the nations, etc.
Now, in Jesus the time had come, and He was the promised child: “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). While Jesus limited his personal serving to Israel, his great commission however was to every nation – men of all the earth (Matt. 28:18-19; Mark 15:15-16).
Peter, the rest of the apostles, and the disciples needed a push. They now get this great object lesson: God has granted repentance that leads to life TO THE GENTILES as well as the Jews (Acts 11:18).
Peter knew that the gospel was to be preached to all, everyone, every creature, all nations. Jesus said so! But years of Jewish prejudice were difficult to put aside! So it is with US. Study history or simply observe the world today and see that every culture has such biases. All people are ‘equal’ BUT ‘some are more equal than others’? “Our ‘group’ (nation, race, clan, party, etc.) is BETTER…” What God has called acceptable, do not call them unacceptable! Do NOT argue with God.
God is God of all. Jesus is ‘judge of the living and the dead’ (Acts 10:42), everyone will stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2Cor. 5:10). Most bible students readily see that ‘all have sinned’ (Rom. 3:23, etc.) and NEED the gospel message; yet, like Peter, we tend to argue with God about who is ‘worthy’ to hear.
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:18-19), Are you arguing with God, or making disciples of ALL PEOPLE?
Hugh DeLong
