After Cornelius receives the Holy Spirit, Peter returns to Jerusalem. The “circumcised believers” there asked him about his visit to a Gentile’s home. To what extent is Peter defending himself in this section? Luke says that they the circumcised believers “criticized him” (διακρίνω). The verb used is in the imperfect, so “began to criticize” is possible, although it may be an ongoing judgment on Peter – they “were criticizing” him.
The content of the criticism is that he enter the home of a Gentile and ate with them. Peter had been staying in the home of a Tanner and eating with him is not a problem, but fellowship with a God-Fearing Gentile is a real problem!
In fact, Peter himself is a bit disturbed by what happened with Cornelius. James Dunn entitles the section dealing with Peter’s vision as “the Conversion of Peter” (Beginning From Jerusalem, 26.3) There are more than a few parallels between Paul’s experience in chapter 9 and Peter’s in chapter 10. Both experience a visionary experience and both receive a command to go to gentiles, although Paul’s is a commission to a ministry, Peter is sent only to a particular individual. Both are obedient to their visions and both find themselves in trouble with the Jews as a result. Paul must escape Damascus, Peter must explain his actions to the (Christian) elders in Jerusalem.
Is it the case that the Jewish leadership Jerusalem did not expect the Holy Spirit to come to the Gentiles? Possibly. Within Second Temple Period Judaism, there are some texts which look forward to the salvation of the nations. Beginning with Isaiah 2:2-4 the messianic age would include salvation for the Gentiles. There are other texts which do not anticipate any conversion of the nations In 4 Ezra, for example, most Jews do not make it into the kingdom. But there is nothing in the Second Temple Period which would indicate salvation for Gentiles apart from Jewish Law.
In Isaiah 2:2-4 the Gentiles go up to the mountain of the Lord so that the Lord can teach them the “his way” so that they can “walk in his paths.” This can only mean that Gentiles will make a pilgrimage to a new-Sinai, Mount Zion in Jerusalem in order receive the Law. Certainly this is the new Covenant, but it the Jewish expectation was a mass conversion of Gentiles to Judaism in the messianic banquet. That a Gentile could receive the Holy Spirit, the sign of the New Covenant, without being obedient to God’s Torah was never considered as a possibility.
After the re-telling of the incident, the Jewish believers withdraw their objection to Peter’s activity and praise God. The verb means to “be silent,” or to “be peaceful,” meaning that they no longer are going to criticize Peter for this action. The fact that he acted in response to a vision is a part of this decision, but the real proof that repentance has come to the Gentiles is the presence of the Spirit.
This episode anticipates the problems which will develop by Acts 15. Are Gentiles expected to convert to Judaism, or not? Cornelius is not really a test case since he was already living more or less like a Jew. By Acts 13 Paul will bring the gospel to Gentiles who are not already seeking the God of Israel, Gentiles in every sense of the word.
10 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 18, 2013 at 2:05 pm
Tom Schuessler
Great angle to this, Phil. I had never thought of Peter as needing conversion in this manner, but the parallels with Paul are striking.
I think this outreach is to more than an individual, though. Why? Because Peter is in Ceasarea, which is a pagan place and a center of Roman power.
Peter had to know that by seeing the Holy Spirit at work in this place – starting with this one individual – God was calling these Jewish followers of Jesus to reach out to the Gentiles, similar to Paul.
February 18, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Phillip J. Long
I do cite James Dunn as the source of the phrase, “Peter’s conversion.” While I think that you are generally correct that Caesarea was a “pagan place,” I will point out that there was a Jewish population, and that tensions between the Gentiles and the Jewish synagogue there at least partially ignite the Jewish Revolt in AD 66.
February 18, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Howard Pepper
I think we have to take this, along with every aspect and story in Acts, in the context of Luke’s fairly obvious purpose of collapsing a whole lot of very contentious incidents and dynamics among numerous sects of early Jesus-followers, Jewish, God-fearing, and Gentile/pagan. He intends to summarize (understandably) and with apologetic and polemical purposes (also understandable but not much accepted nor grasped in any depth, as to theological effects, among Evangelicals).
The idea of a “conversion” fits well, as you point out, with Peter’s visionary experience. Taken with the visionary experiences of Paul (plural, including the core one that he took as of Jesus – and may well have been, without confirming Jesus’ deity, in my view), Stephen (at least according to Luke), the “transport” of Phillip, the many Apostolic miracles, etc., we have a picture of a very “charismatic” disciple/apostle group. That it was this way from before Jesus’ death is also evident in the Gospels. So key characteristics were the charismatic “gift” functions and the apocalypticism of the expected in-breaking of the Kingdom; this then morphed into the expected imminent (in their lifetimes) return of Jesus WITH that kingdom.
Interesting that charismatic phenomena were associated with a “coming” or special presence of the Holy Spirit, much as in modern charismatic circles (of which I was a part for a while, decades ago). However, Luke may not have had to “sell” this aspect as much as he would to a present-day audience which, even as committed Christians, often questions if not denies that the Holy Spirit is involved in some of the phenomena which Charismatics believe firmly that “he” is. So “Holy Spirit phenomena” are important, but it takes a careful theological/historical framing for Luke to make the case which proved convincing enough for the proto-orthodox and orthodox, at least eventually, such that it went largely unchallenged for many centuries and still is among most “orthodox” folks today.
Part of that task of Luke was to try to show that relatively quickly the Holy Spirit made it clear that God’s actions in Jesus had opened the way for Gentiles and that, as with Paul, the New Covenant was based ultimately only on faith in Christ rather than Torah observance and attendant good deeds and such. Trouble is, other evidences, many WITHIN the eventual NT canon, give evidences otherwise, that things were not at all clear for a long period, and agreement was not easy to work out. Nor were relationships with differing messianists (Jews), skeptical (observant, often pious) Jews or God-fearers (cf. Apollos and John the Baptist followers, e.g.), competing Christians (Paul vs. James/Peter importantly but far from exclusively).
We obviously get a very selective picture from Luke — valuable info to be sure, but there seems no alternative than to take this important fact very seriously or else be misled. And sometimes it is Luke himself giving us clues to the more complex and important larger picture, so not always pitting outside sources against him.
February 18, 2013 at 3:57 pm
Phillip J. Long
Thank you for your very thoughtful reply, quite detailed! You said that Luke had a “fairly obvious purpose of collapsing a whole lot of very contentious incidents and dynamics among numerous sects of early Jesus-followers.” I agree, although I am not sure his motivation was bad. The Greco-Roman world considered “harmony” a virtue, so a movement that was contentious, or having the vice of discord, would not have been attractive. (I am not so sure it is ever all that attractive!)
You are certainly correct that Luke is highly selective based on his theological and literary agenda. But that does not “count” against accuracy in the first century.
February 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm
annalange
The Jews and other apostles accused Peter of eating with a Gentile (Acts 11:3). Peter felt like he had to defend himself to the Jews by starting at the beginning and telling them exactly what happened (Acts 11:4). I think that it is interesting that in Peter’s trance God told him that it is okay to eat meat and other food that the Jews considered unclean (Acts 11:6-7). Peter said to the Lord that he could not eat that (Acts 11:8). God told him that He had made it clean to eat (Acts 11:9). God was revealing to Peter that He had removed the law, and now eating meat was acceptable. Peter saw God give Gentiles the gift of salvation and the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:14-15). At the end of his recount of the Gentiles’ salvation, he asks the people “Who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17). The people had to think about this, yet they said, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18). Like Dr. Long said, the Jews were not expecting salvation to be opened up to the Gentiles and for them to be able to receive salvation. “That a Gentile could receive the Holy Spirit, the sign of the New Covenant, without being obedient to God’s Torah was never considered as a possibility” (“The Conversion of Peter?” post). They were amazed that God would give someone who was not a Jew and who did not keep the Law salvation. This story confirms that God had kept the mystery of reconciliation a secret since before the world began (Romans 16:25-26). It also verifies that it was not manifest until Paul and only with Paul.
February 18, 2013 at 9:17 pm
Joseph Furno
I find it some what surprising that the Jews are shocked by this incident considering that Cornelius was already seeking God and likely practicing many of the Jewish laws. I’d have expected this reaction more when the ministry to the Gentiles in Act 13 who aren’t doing as such. This reaction is still to be expected from the Jews who had always been the only people to have a “direct line to God” if you will. I’d imagine that Gentiles suddenly having access to God without having to practice any of the laws they had been keeping for centuries would be a bit disconcerting. As far as Peter goes in this passage I think that as with Paul, conversion isn’t the right word. He continued following the same God and kept the same laws. However for Peter call isn’t even the right word. For he wasn’t called specifically to minister to the Gentiles as Paul was. I get the sense from this and other passages in Acts that Gentiles were a hard topic for Peter and that he struggled to accept them much as the Jews who confront him do. I think this was more of God confronting him on the issues and helping him to overcome the ill feelings he had towards Gentiles.
February 18, 2013 at 10:19 pm
heatherjoyy
It is interesting to understand how this event plays out. At first, the religios party critisizes, and even insults Peter (11:2) for eating with a Gentile. (11:3) I believe that this may have been another way for the religious leaders of that time to further maintain the obligations of the Law. However Peter explains the situation to the religious party (11:4). At first, Peter’s reaction was to denounce anything that was considered “unclean” (11:7-8) but he recieves multiple confirmations from the Lord, saying “What God has made clean, do not call common.” (11:7-10) As the event continues to unfold, we see the Holy Spirit decending, and when this occurs, the religous leaders respond with a “reaction of praise” Thereby, they were silenced by the majesty of God, and understood that God has also “granted repentence” to the Gentiles also. And this repentence leads to life. (11:18) This silenced their criticism against Peter.
February 18, 2013 at 11:23 pm
April Lorenz
When Abraham was told that he would be the Father of the nations and Israel was God’s chosen ones, they (Israelites) became proud and possibly over time couldn’t see that the coming of the prophesied messiah meant salvation for all. As the religious leaders do not fully understand that Jesus was the Messiah at this point, they still are trying to uphold the law, which is the reason they are criticizing Peter for eating with “Gentiles”, probably unclean foods. Peter explains his vision in verses 5-12, And concludes with a powerful verse “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” The Jewish leaders probably chose to disagree strongly putting Peter at risk and this is similar to when Paul converts and the vision he has and then having to leave Damascus. At the end of Chapter 11 is very confusing for me, So there are others who God has given the words to say to the Hellenists and other Jews in order to make them believe but they, these men, are not mentioned by name. And Barnabas went to them and was also”glad” and encouraged them to keep preaching. At first I thought that these were false prophets and then realized that they had power from the Holy Spirit. Then one prophet is mentioned by name. Agabus, was used to save the apostles from a famine. It just seemed weird that he was mentioned by name and then the others that were preaching were not.
February 18, 2013 at 11:42 pm
Nick Van Loo
Revelation 3:16 is the verse that says God prefers one to be hot or cold, and if you are lukewarm, he will vomit you out of his mouth. As soon as I read the line in the post where you said “By Acts 13 Paul will bring the gospel to Gentiles who are not already seeking the God of Israel, Gentiles in every sense of the word”, I thought of that verse. God wanted Paul to bring the word to humans who have not has a chance to live for God. He wanted to turn cold people (full gentiles) into on fire Christians.
Now to the bulk of the post. The whole issue presented in this post is the people on the “inside”, the Jews who believed Jesus was the messiah. Did not think it was right, or just, or fair for gentiles who do not follow the law to be let “in” and receive the Holy Spirit. They tried to make who could receive the spirit and who could not up to them. However, it was never up to authority in the church of who could receive the holy spirit, it was up to God who created the heavens and the earth and changed the rules when he sent his son Jesus so everyone on earth could be saved.
I would also like to point out one of the differences between Paul and Peter’s conversion. There are many parallels, but to me there is one distinct difference. Peter was already a believer and he doubted what the Lord had said. Paul was a persecute and the moment the Lord spoke he fasted for three days and came on fire for anything Jesus had for him.
February 19, 2013 at 12:53 am
leviwood138
I think that this section in Acts is one of my favorites because it really seems to showcase what was going on in the transitional period between Israel as God’s Ecclesia to becoming the Body of Christ. Peter having to explain himself and being criticized for his actions, I believe does show that even though Jesus taught and that OT scripture showed that the light would be spread to the Gentiles the early leaders still did not understand. Luke does a very good job of showing his readers the process that is taking place in the Body of Christ it is a sort of the already but not yet. We have seen it move closer and closer to a Gentile who was not already practicing the law being converted.