When the Holy Spirit tells Peter to go the house of Cornelius the Centurion, the followers of the Way are being told that their old ways are being reformed. For many centuries, for thousands of years, the people of Israel have kept the dietary laws of the Old Testament that were traditionally understood to have been given by Moses while they made their way in the wilderness. The dietary laws kept the people of Israel separate from the nations around them. In keeping them, Jews were simply unable to eat with the people of other cultures; there was no way to tell if the food prepared in foreign kitchens had not been contaminated.
Peter has a vision in which he hears God telling him that he must break the old laws. Peter refuses at first but God insists. Peter agrees, and when he is welcomed into the centurion's house it becomes clear that something much greater than the dinner menu is being changed here. God is fulfilling the old prophesies that the nations would come to Jerusalem and worship with the chosen people of God. The barriers which had served to protect and preserve the chosen people as God's chosen people are being removed.
That is made emphatically clear in what happens after Peter arrives at Cornelius' house. First he discovers that Cornelius too has had a vision. An angel has appeared to him at the same time that the Holy Spirit spoke to Peter, telling Cornelius to bring Peter into his home. Peter's response is to proclaim the Gospel to those in the house. (It's worth taking a moment to go back and read Peter's version of the Gospel in this story - how is it the same and how is it different than what Peter proclaims earlier, or what Stephen proclaims before he is killed?) In response to hearing the Gospel, the gentiles of Cornelius' household receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter witnessing this action realizes that God is gathering all the peoples of the Earth to himself. Just as Philip does with the Ethiopian, Peter baptizes these people in the name of Jesus and they are added to the body of the Church.
It's hard for us to recognize what a significant conceptual leap this was the for earliest disciples. They had been raised as observant Jews, a culture which very deliberately drew walls between themselves and others. They had been raised to understand the importance of ritual cleanliness and how critical it was to their relationship to God. To suddenly kick out the supports of their entire social system and say that God was doing a new thing was more than many of them could manage to understand or believe. We know from other writings in the New Testament, and we'll read later in Acts, that this change was not received by everyone nor all at once. There was significant resistance. Compromises were made within the early Church so that those who accepted this new teaching could remain in relationship with those who would not. Peter's strong reaction to what he was being told, his amazement at what he discovered in Cornelius' house and his final decision to baptize represent as much as a conversion experience as that which Saul experienced in the previous chapter.
God did not stop taking the followers of Christ to places they didn't expect. I don't think God has stopped doing this in our own day. I would imagine that, in your own walk with God, you have found yourself in places and with people you couldn't have imagined you would be. Perhaps you too have been converted from one way of thinking to another. Perhaps you have discovered that God was present to people you didn't expect would know God. If so, then you too have had a conversion experience. You too have been led by God.
Maybe you might take sometime today to think about where it is that God has taken you in your life. What surprises have you encountered? Are you willing to follow further? Is there anything that holds you back?
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