FAIRNESS 2 - Everyone's important to God.

Fairness 2 - English files

Fairness 2 - German files

Devotional Thoughts about Acts Chapter 10

So what’s the big deal about whether Peter was willing to eat the animals let down in the sheet? We need Old Testament knowledge to understand his persistent refusal. The animals he was shown were evidently among those forbidden as food for Jews in Leviticus Chapter 11. These dietary restrictions were and still are a huge part of Jewish identity and lifestyle.

Peter never did eat the animals, which were then removed, but they had served their purpose. Considering how slow Peter had been to understand what God wanted from him, he was remarkably quick to apply that tardy lesson to the next situation into which he was thrust.

He realized that God wanted him to revamp his categories of clean and unclean—not primarily in terms of animals but of people. In the Old Testament, God had forbidden Jews from intermarrying with surrounding peoples for the very real danger of idolatry, which happened plenty.

But especially for those who kept that command, hatred for non-Jews must have seemed the obvious and logical alternative. In this chapter, which is a major cog in the transitional book of Acts, God expected Peter to change his categories because He had made him clean and was in the process of doing the same for non-Jews.

Not being Jewish myself, I’m very thankful that the good news of the gospel is for me, too. Lord, please help me to treat others for what they are: people whom God loves and for whom Christ died.

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