The chapter begins by introducing Cornelius, a Roman centurion, as “a devout man who feared God with all his household,” and who “gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God” (Acts 10:2). Later he is said to be “an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation” (Acts 10:22). Why bother making this clear to the reader? The answer is that as a Roman centurion, Cornelius is someone who the early Jewish believers are likely to interpret as an enemy or antagonist, based on their political differences, ethnic differences, and religious differences. Perhaps the author of Acts is trying to soften the coming blow by telling us that Cornelius isn’t so bad right up front.

Next we learn that Cornelius has a vision at 3:00 in the afternoon. The God who he fears, the God of the Jewish people, sends an angel to instruct Cornelius to send some servants to search for Peter, probably the most important leader in the new community of Jesus-worshipers and one-time disciple of Jesus. The angel even gives Cornelius an address where his servants will find Peter. Cornelius obeys and sends three people to find Peter.

While they are en route, Peter has a vision of his own. As a member of the Jewish people in first century Palestine, Peter was subject to certain cultural and religious dietary restrictions. In his vision, an angel commands him to eat some forbidden food. Peter resists, and the angel firmly replies with what I think is the most significant verse of this chapter:

“What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15).

Peter puzzles over this, wondering what it means. After all, he is waiting for his lunch. And then the people sent by Cornelius arrive. Peter connects the dots. To his credit, he both offers the messengers hospitality and also he accepts their hospitality. That is, he “invited them in and gave them lodging” (Acts 10:23) and then the next day he went with them to accept the invitation from Cornelius. When he arrives Peter finds a large group gathered and Cornelius immediately commits a major faux pas. Cornelius bows down and worships Peter, which forces Peter to correct him in front of the group. Not a great start. This kind of embarrassment could have been avoided by just declining the invitation. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Peter begins by justifying or defending his visit, saying up front that,

“You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean” (Acts 10:28).

That is the meaning of both visions. The cultural, political, ethnic, and religious norms of that time and place were such that Peter and Cornelius had no business being under the same roof, offering and receiving hospitality from one another. It has taken two direct acts of God, in the form of visions with angel messengers, to overcome these barriers and bring these two men together. It is the Spirit of God that has brought Peter and Cornelius together—with their cooperation. As Cornelius says, “I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come” (Acts 10:33). God has ignored all the human reasons to stay apart, and both Cornelius and Peter have followed suite. God has made their shared hospitality clean, God has made the people who share it clean, and no one should call it unclean or profane.

What happens next? On a first reading, it seems that Peter preaches the Gospel to Cornelius and his household. But first Cornelius unwittingly preaches the Gospel to Peter and his fellow believers. Cornelius tells Peter about his vision, about how God told him to invite Peter to come and speak to him. He tells Peter that “all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say” (Acts 10:33). What is Peter’s response? He replies by saying,

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

This is the Gospel of Cornelius to Peter. The Spirit of God teaches Peter this universal Gospel message, something that was sorely needed given the exclusivist tendencies of the first Christian community. Then Peter returns the favour as best he can. He shares what he knows about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that the God whom Cornelius fears and prays to has made manifest God’s character and purposes through the Jewish man Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

By the time he gets to saying “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43), in keeping with the universal Gospel articulated earlier, the Spirit of God acts for a third time, as if for added emphasis. “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word” (Acts 10:44). This is a tremendous surprise to those on Peter’s party, who thought that the Spirit of God was a gift given only to Jewish believers, and not foreign God-fearers. God declares, by the presence of God’s Spirit, that “God shows no partiality”, that Cornelius and his foreign household are among those “acceptable to God”, that they “should not call anyone profane or unclean”.

The book we are reading is called “Acts of the Apostles”, but many people think it should be called “Acts of the Spirit”, because the Spirit of Jesus acts first and then people respond, especially in this chapter. We have three acts of the Spirit in this episode. The first act of the Spirit, the vision of Cornelius, is met by an obedient response: Cornelius sends a scandalous invitation to Peter. The second act of the Spirit, the vision of Peter, is met by an obedient response: Peter accepts the scandalous invitation. The third act of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit manifest or falling upon all those present, upon both the household of Cornelius and the party of Peter, is also met by an obedient response: Peter baptizes Cornelius and his household.

This act of baptism is a symbolic and sacramental marker of the boundaries of the people of Jesus. Baptism is the ultimate Christian symbol of hospitality because baptism officially welcomes someone into the people of Jesus. By using baptism in response to this third act of the Spirit, Peter fully embraces the scandal, asking rhetorically “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47). It is the Spirit of God that defines the people of Jesus. Baptism needs to keep up. Baptism must never be used to quench the Spirit.

In the following chapter Peter faces criticism from other believers for his judgment in this remarkable turn of events. But he defends his judgment and his response to this Spirit-orchestrated event. Peter insists that,

“The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us” (Acts 11:12).

That is what he came to understand his initial vision to mean. The Spirit of Jesus commands him to ignore a deeply entrenched us-them distinction. Then Peter appeals to his personal experience as a disciple of Jesus, perhaps the main source of his authority in the community. Peter says,

I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (Acts 10:16-17).

Here we have the logic of the Gospel, that the gift of God in Christ, made manifest here by the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a boundary-buster. When God’s gifts ignore a boundary, we must follow suite and also ignore or reject the significance of that boundary. That’s how the Gospel works. The gift of God leads, namely the gift of the Spirit, and we must follow that lead. This boundary-busting even applies when the boundaries in question are allegedly biblical boundaries. The biblical case for Peter to reject Cornelius and his invitation was basically air-tight. As was the traditional case, and the case from religious precedent. It took an act of God to spur Peter to consider the possibility that his biblical and traditional boundaries—his two-tiered attitude toward people created in God’s image—was something that needed transformation. This isn’t easy for Peter. We know from Paul’s letter to Galatians that even though Peter gets in right in this chapter, he will get it wrong in the future. His old prejudice and fears creep back in and he reverts to denying hospitality to those outside his ethnic group, contrary to the logic of the Gospel.

Hospitality is a powerful thing, and the Spirit of God is made manifest in our willingness to extend and receive it. In fact, the Spirit of God challenges our reservations and prejudges at the very practical level of hospitality. Face to face, even if electronically or masked, we can see each other as people acceptable to God. We can see each other as people loved by God, and people among whom the Spirit of God is at work. So a Gospel that strictly polices hospitality, a Gospel of immutable borders and boundaries, is bound to be a fraud upon closer inspection.

The flipside of hospitality is prejudice. Becoming a Christian doesn’t automatically defeat prejudice. Unfortunately, Christians face the risk of leaning into prejudice with a religious zeal when they confuse it for the Gospel, or when they can find a biblical or traditional case to defend it. If this chapter tells us anything, it tells us that three years of literally walking alongside Jesus, as Peter did, isn’t enough to overcome our prejudices. We are all at risk. The only hope we have is a receptivity to the Spirit of Jesus, as that Spirit prompts us to extend and receive hospitality to surprising people in surprising ways. As we cooperate, we come to see God and the Gospel in a deeper way. We might find that the Spirit is already present among those we once regarded as outsiders. We might even have the Gospel preached back to us from those we presumed needed our teaching. As always, our greatest risk and loss is that we might quench the Spirit with a religious justification. Cultivating our obedience to the Spirit, and not fearing the inevitable awkwardness or initial embarrassment, is the best and most fruitful thing we can do.