Join us as we read the scriptures and a daily devotion written by Don Crisp. We pray these messages will bless us all at this time.
Acts chapter 11:11-18:
Categories: Don’s Daily Devotions
Acts chapter 11:11-18:
V11-12: Continuing his account, Peter tells them how the men from Cornelius arrived at such a significant time, and how the Holy Spirit directed him to go with them without any doubts – for God was clearly removing the old distinction between Jew and Gentile. ( See Ephesians 2:14-16.) Also, how Jewish believers from Joppa were witnesses to what happened.
V13-14: He tells how God sent the vision of the angel to Cornelius, to prepare him for the gospel he would hear through Peter,
giving the further detail that Cornelius had been told he would hear from Peter ” a message by which you will be saved”.
V15: And how, as he spoke, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as previously upon the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost. This repetition of so much detail from ch 10 shows us how important what happened there is – the seal of God upon the inclusion in the church of Jew and Gentile, on equal terms.
V16: So, Peter remembers Jesus saying that the baptism of the Holy Spirit would come upon believers, as God’s grace brought them to faith ( not a “second” or further experience, as the record clearly shows) and now this has clearly happened to non-Jews in the same way.While the outward signs were for that Apostolis period, remember the words of Acts 2:39.
V17-18: Since this was God’s own work, who was Peter to resist it? Here is the answer to all the doubts and reservations of the Jewish believers he is addressing, and indeed as Peter speaks of this, they recognise God’s work of grace for what it is, and give Him the glory. ( Yet not all Jewish doubts were banished at once, as ch 15 will show us, and many references in Paul’s letters.)