Jun 6 2013
Cornelius’ House
Acts 10:1-11:18
As Peter entered the house he was shocked to see that it was crowded with Romans. These were Cornelius’ friends and family; a mixture of military personnel and civilians with their wives and a few others. Never before had Peter preached to Gentiles, and certainly not this type. Romans! But this was Caesarea, the military headquarters of Judea, and this was Cornelius the Centurion’s house, a man who was in command of a hundred soldiers. God had told Peter to respond to Cornelius’ request to come, but he did not expect such an audience.
Now these Romans had served long enough in Judea to know that a Jew wasn’t supposed to enter a Gentile’s home, so Peter quickly explained that had God had spoken to him and had shown him that he was not to consider a Gentile impure or unclean. Just the day before God had given Peter a vision More
Jun 13 2013
Knowing the Unknown God
As I climbed the flight of stairs I kept arriving at doors that had strange brass faces. Some faces were kind of smiley while others looked rather evil. A number of doors also had statues resembling weird creatures. One part of me wanted to leave, but another wanted to knock on doors and preach. I mean why would anyone worship these things? Was it a case of following a cultural superstition, or did they actually believe these things existed? Were you ever in this situation?
When the apostle Paul walked around Athens and saw all their objects of worship he felt ‘distressed’ (Acts 17:16-34). But instead of wanting to leave, he had a strong desire to convince the Athenians to turn from their false gods and worship the God of Israel. Paul was so disturbed by the images that he broke with his usual practice of preaching only in the synagogues and started preaching openly in the marketplace. He didn’t want to just speak to Jews; he wanted to reach these Athenian Greeks. More