PURGING PREJUDICE

July 30

Bible Reading: Acts 10:9-16

Acts 10:14-15, “But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.’ And the voice came to him again a second time, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.”

Approximately seven years had passed since Jesus’ commission to the Apostles to be His witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  It took a “great persecution” to scatter believers to the “regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1).  Even then, there was no apparent attempt to take the message to the Gentiles.  The gospel outreach to the remotest part of the earth was apparently of remote concern.

The problem was that there were longstanding religious traditions and prejudices that stood in the way.  It was unlawful for a Jew “to associate with or visit anyone of another nation” (Acts 10:28) or eat with them (Acts 11:3).  In NT times, the Jews had little regard for the Gentiles.  So strong was their animosity that a common Jewish prayer went something like this: “God thank you, I was not born a woman or a Gentile.”  There were several Jewish laws that prohibited contact with Gentiles.  The very dust of heathen countries was unclean, and it defiled by contact.  It was not permissible to enter a Gentile’s home or even converse with them.  A Jewish woman could not help a Gentile woman, even in childbirth.  A Jew could not drink milk drawn from a cow by a Gentile’s hands or eat bread prepared by a Gentile.  Inviting a Gentile into a Jewish home required not leaving them unattended, to prevent every article of food and drink from being considered unclean.  The animosity by the Jews towards the Gentiles (and vice versa) was pervasive.  It affected every aspect of life.  A Gentile could be proselytized to Judaism, but as a matter of course, it rarely happened.  Gentile converts were rarely treated fairly and were commonly looked on with suspicion.

God would have to intervene if the gospel were to be taken to the Gentiles.  Christ “broke down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14), but the benefits of His work had not yet borne fruit in this sense.  Religious traditions and prejudice kept the gospel from reaching the Gentiles.  So, God worked through Peter and Cornelius to set it free.  God orchestrated a meeting between the two at which Peter shared the gospel.  Long established walls of prejudice and division came crashing down when Cornelius and his family believed.  The day will come when people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” will sing a new song of worship to the Lamb (Revelation 5:9).  God is good at breaking down barriers and bringing people together.

“Without a change in apostolic attitudes, none of us would have heard the gospel of the love of Jesus Christ.”—Kent Hughes

A CRY FROM MACEDONIA
There’s a cry from Macedonia Come and help us,
The light of the precious gospel bring,
Let us hear the joyful tidings of salvation,
We thirst for the living spring.
O, ye heralds of the cross, be up and doing,
Remember the Saviour’s great command,
Go ye forth and preach the word to ev’ry creature,
Proclaim it in ev’ry land.

Chorus:
They shall gather from the East,
They shall gather from the West,
With the patriarchs of old.
And the ransom’d shall return
To the kingdom of the blest,
With their harps and crowns of gold.
There’s a cry from Macedonia Come and help us,
The light of the precious gospel bring,
Let us hear the joyful tidings of salvation,
We thirst for the living spring.
O, ye heralds of the cross, be up and doing,
Remember the Saviour’s great command,
Go ye forth and preach the word to ev’ry creature,
Proclaim it in ev’ry land.

O how beautiful their feet upon the mountains,
The tidings of peace from God who bring,
To the nations of the earth who sit in darkness,
And tell them of Zion’s King.
Then, ye heralds of the cross, be up and doing,
Go work in your blessed Master’s field,
Sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet of salvation,
The Lord is your strength and shield.

Chorus:
Let the distant isles be glad,
Let them hail the Saviour’s birth,
And the news of pardon free,
Till the knowledge of the truth
Shall extend to all the earth,
As the waters o’er the sea.
There’s a cry from Macedonia Come and help us,
The light of the precious gospel bring,
Let us hear the joyful tidings of salvation,
We thirst for the living spring.
O, ye heralds of the cross, be up and doing,
Remember the Saviour’s great command,
Go ye forth and preach the word to ev’ry creature,
Proclaim it in ev’ry land.