Bible School · New Testament survey · Class 28 of 53
Peter and Cornelius: the Spirit is given to the Gentiles
Acts 10–11 · about 24 minutes · The Gentiles receive the Spirit
By the end of this class you should be able to
- Outline Acts 10 and 11 in their movements: two visions, a journey, a sermon, the gift of the Spirit and the defence in Jerusalem.
- Explain why the Jewish purity laws made a Gentile's house a hard place for Peter to enter, and what the vision of the sheet teaches.
- Summarise Peter's sermon in Cornelius's house and its claims about Jesus.
- Describe how the church at Antioch began and what the name 'Christian' meant.
- Trace how this section prepares for the Jerusalem council and connects to the Old Testament promise that the nations would turn to the LORD.
Read the passage
10At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment. 2He and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly. 3One day at about the ninth hour, he had a clear vision of an angel of God who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” 4Cornelius stared at him in fear and asked, “What is it, Lord?” The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God. 5Now send men to Joppa to call for a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among his attendants. 8He explained what had happened and sent them to Joppa. 9The next day at about the sixth hour, as the men were approaching the city on their journey, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12It contained all kinds of four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, as well as birds of the air. 13Then a voice said to him: “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” 14“No, Lord!” Peter answered. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” 15The voice spoke to him a second time: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” 16This happened three times, and all at once the sheet was taken back up into heaven. 17While Peter was puzzling over the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house and approached the gate. 18They called out to ask if Simon called Peter was staying there. 19As Peter continued to reflect on the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20So get up! Go downstairs and accompany them without hesitation, because I have sent them.” 21So Peter went down to the men and said, “Here am I, the one you are looking for. Why have you come?” 22“Cornelius the centurion has sent us,” they said. “He is a righteous and God-fearing man with a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation. A holy angel instructed him to request your presence in his home so he could hear a message from you.” 23So Peter invited them in as his guests. And the next day he got ready and went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa. 24The following day he arrived in Caesarea, where Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25As Peter was about to enter, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet to worship him. 26But Peter helped him up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.” 27As Peter talked with him, he went inside and found many people gathered together. 28He said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. 29So when I was invited, I came without objection. I ask, then, why have you sent for me?” 30Cornelius answered: “Four days ago I was in my house praying at this, the ninth hour. Suddenly a man in radiant clothing stood before me 31and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been remembered before God. 32Therefore send to Joppa for Simon, who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, by the sea.’ 33So I sent for you immediately, and you were kind enough to come. Now then, we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has instructed you to tell us.” 34Then Peter began to speak: “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism, 35but welcomes those from every nation who fear Him and do what is right. 36He has sent this message to the people of Israel, proclaiming the gospel of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37You yourselves know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee with the baptism that John proclaimed: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. 39We are witnesses of all that He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And although they put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, 40God raised Him up on the third day and caused Him to be seen— 41not by all the people, but by the witnesses God had chosen beforehand, by us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. 42And He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the One appointed by God to judge the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” 44While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard his message. 45All the circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46For they heard them speaking in tongues and exalting God. Then Peter said, 47“Can anyone withhold the water to baptize these people? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have!” 48So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay for a few days.
Open Acts 10 in the reader (BSB)11The apostles and brothers throughout Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him 3and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4But Peter began and explained to them the whole sequence of events: 5“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me. 6I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’ 8‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into heaven. 11Just then three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s home. 13He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14He will convey to you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.’ 15As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He had fallen upon us at the beginning. 16Then I remembered the word of the Lord, as He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of God?” 18When they heard this, their objections were put to rest, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” 19Meanwhile those scattered by the persecution that began with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message only to Jews. 20But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. 22When news of this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts. 24Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. 25Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26and when he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. So for a full year they met together with the church and taught large numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. 27In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world. (This happened under Claudius.) 29So the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30This they did, sending their gifts to the elders with Barnabas and Saul.
Open Acts 11 in the reader (BSB)01Background
Acts was written by Luke, the physician and travelling companion of Paul, as the second volume of his work addressed to Theophilus (; ). The date is disputed. Some scholars place Acts in the early 60s, because the book ends with Paul still waiting in Rome and does not report his trial or death. Many others place it in the 80s, after Luke's Gospel and after the fall of Jerusalem. The events of and 11 fall in the 40s of the first century, some ten or more years after the resurrection, and the exact year cannot be fixed.
The story takes place in two worlds. Caesarea, on the coast, was the Roman administrative centre of Judea, built by Herod the Great and named in honour of Augustus. Cornelius is a centurion of the Italian cohort, a Roman officer stationed there. Luke calls him a devout man who feared God, gave alms generously and prayed regularly. He belongs to the group called God-fearers: Gentiles who worshipped Israel's God and attended the synagogue but had not become full proselytes by circumcision. Joppa, thirty miles or so to the south, was a Jewish port town, and Peter stays there with Simon the tanner.
The issue is table fellowship. The Torah separated Israel from the nations through food laws and the distinction between clean and unclean animals (; ). By the first century this separation had hardened into a custom that Jews did not enter Gentile homes or eat with Gentiles. Peter says as much in . Until now the Jerusalem church had been entirely Jewish in make-up, apart from the Samaritans () and the Ethiopian official (). Luke tells the Cornelius story at length, and twice, because it is the hinge of the book: here the gospel crosses the line between Jew and Gentile with the approval of the Twelve.
02Outline
- Cornelius, a God-fearing centurion, is told by an angel to send for Peter
- Peter's vision of the sheet and the arrival of the messengers
- Peter enters the house and preaches Jesus as Lord of all
- The Spirit falls on the Gentiles and they are baptized
- Peter explains the events to the Jerusalem believers
- The gospel reaches Greeks in Antioch; Barnabas and Saul teach; the name 'Christians'
- Agabus foretells a famine and Antioch sends relief to Judea
03How to read it
Acts is historical narrative, and its genre carries rules. Narrative shows what happened and why Luke thought it mattered; it does not turn every event into a command. The reader asks what the story does in the book as a whole. Luke has arranged Acts around Jesus' promise in that the witnesses would carry the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. and 11 are where the last stage becomes real. Luke signals their weight by repetition: Cornelius's vision is told three times (, , ), and Peter's vision is told in and retold by Peter in .
The sermon in is a sample of apostolic preaching, and like the other speeches in Acts it is probably Luke's condensed report of what was said. It can be compared with the sermons of , 3 and 13. The Antioch section () picks up the scattering after Stephen's death (), so the Gentile mission is told as the fruit of persecution.
A central question is how to read the vision of the sheet. Its surface concerns food, yet Peter himself explains it as being about people (). The right order is to let the narrator and Peter interpret it. That the food laws no longer bind rests on other texts, such as , more than on the vision alone.
04What the text says
Acts 10:1–8
Cornelius sees an angel at the ninth hour, the time of afternoon prayer. The angel says that his prayers and gifts have gone up as a memorial before God. 'Memorial' (mnemosynon) is the language of offering. His piety is recognised, yet he still needs a message, and he is told to send to Joppa for Simon Peter. The angel does not preach the gospel; a preacher must (compare ).
Chapter 10:9–16
About noon, on the flat roof of Simon's house, Peter is hungry and falls into a trance. He sees a great sheet let down containing every kind of animal, and a voice tells him to get up, kill and eat. He refuses: he has never eaten anything common (koinos) or unclean (akathartos). The voice answers that what God has cleansed, Peter must not call common. This happens three times, and Peter is left puzzled.
Chapter 10:17–33
The messengers are at the gate, and the Spirit tells Peter to go with them, doubting nothing. The Greek verb (diakrino) means to make a distinction or to hesitate, a word that picks up the theme of distinction. Believers from Joppa go with him and later serve as witnesses (). Cornelius has gathered relatives and close friends. Peter says it is unlawful for a Jew to visit a Gentile, but that God has shown him not to call any person common or unclean.
Chapter 10:34–43
Peter begins: God shows no partiality (prosopolemptes, literally 'receiver of face'), but in every nation the one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. This does not say that good works save. It says that national origin is no barrier to hearing the message. Peter's sermon then follows the shape of the gospel: Jesus of Nazareth, 'Lord of all', who brought the good news of peace; whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power; who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; whom they killed by hanging on a tree; whom God raised on the third day and caused to be seen by witnesses chosen beforehand, who ate and drank with him. He commanded them to testify that he is appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in his name receives forgiveness of sins.
Chapter 10:44–48
While Peter is still speaking, the Holy Spirit falls on all who hear the word. The believers from the circumcision are astonished that the gift has been poured out on Gentiles, because they hear them speaking in tongues and praising God. The Spirit comes before baptism and before any laying on of hands, in contrast to Samaria (). Peter asks if anyone can forbid water for those who have received the Spirit just as the apostles did, and orders them baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Chapter 11:1–18
Back in Jerusalem, 'those of the circumcision' criticise him, and their complaint is about table fellowship, not about preaching: he went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. Peter answers by retelling events 'in order'. He adds the detail that the Spirit fell on them 'as on us at the beginning' and that he remembered the Lord's word that John baptized with water but they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit (compare ). He asks who he was to stand in God's way. The criticism ends, and they glorify God for granting repentance leading to life to the Gentiles.
Chapter 11:19–30
The scattered believers from Stephen's persecution at first speak only to Jews, but some from Cyprus and Cyrene tell Greeks in Antioch the good news of the Lord Jesus, and a great number believe. The Jerusalem church sends Barnabas, who sees the grace of God and rejoices. He fetches Saul from Tarsus, and for a year the two teach large crowds. There the disciples are first called Christians (Christianoi), a Greek word with a Latin ending meaning those who belong to Christ. It was probably first used by outsiders. The prophet Agabus foretells a great famine, and the disciples each send what they can to the believers in Judea by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. The Gentile church gives to the mother church.
05Key terms
- unclean / common akathartos, koinos
- The two words of the vision. Unclean refers to what the law prohibits; common is what custom treats as ordinary or defiled. God declares them clean.
- God-fearer phoboumenos ton theon
- A Gentile who worships Israel's God without becoming a full convert. Cornelius is one.
- shows no partiality prosopolemptes
- Literally 'receiver of face'. God does not judge by outward standing or nationality.
- anointed echrisen
- The verb behind 'Christ', the Anointed One. Jesus is anointed with the Spirit and power ().
- Christians Christianoi
- Followers or partisans of Christ. A name given first in Antioch, probably by outsiders.
- repentance leading to life metanoia eis zoen
- The gift God has granted to the Gentiles; it is God's gift as well as human turning ().
06In the whole Bible
The central teaching is that salvation in Christ is for all nations on one footing. The promise to Abraham was that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (). The prophets saw the nations coming to the LORD, as in , where the Servant is given as a light for the nations, a text that Paul and Barnabas will quote in . and 11 shows that promise becoming history. Peter's words, that God shows no partiality, echo and prepare Paul's argument in .
The passage also teaches the Spirit's sovereignty in the mission. The Spirit tells Peter to go, falls on the household without human arrangement, and is recognised as the same gift as at Pentecost. For Luke this is the 'Pentecost of the Gentiles'. The repeated phrase 'just as' makes the point: what the Jewish apostles received, the Gentiles received, with no second class of believers. The clean and unclean distinction, which had marked Israel's holiness since Sinai, is answered by God's own cleansing of the heart by faith (compare ). Other texts take the lesson further: records that Jesus declared all foods clean, and speaks of the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile being broken down in Christ. Even so, Peter's later wavering at Antioch () shows that the practical lesson took time to learn.
The passage also shows the church growing by the gift of God. Scattered believers tell the message without being sent by any office, and Jerusalem answers by sending an encourager. Repentance is called a gift (). Antioch's relief to Judea begins the pattern Paul will later organise in his collection (; ).
07Where Christ is
This section is the plainest fulfillment of what Jesus promised. Peter recalls the Lord's word that his followers would be baptized with the Holy Spirit (; ) and sees it kept for the Gentiles. The sermon in is also one of the clearest summaries in the New Testament of who Jesus is. He is 'Lord of all' (), so that his peace is not confined to one people. He is the one God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power (), which is the meaning of 'Messiah' and 'Christ', and which echoes as Jesus applied it to himself in . He did good and healed those oppressed by the devil. He was put to death 'on a tree', words that recall , the curse on one who is hanged, which Paul uses in to say that Christ bore that curse. God raised him on the third day, and the apostles ate and drank with him afterwards. He is the judge appointed by God, and forgiveness comes in his name.
Peter also says that all the prophets testify about him (). The Old Testament connection is made by the New Testament itself: the nations' turning to the LORD, hoped for in places such as and , is now taking place through Jesus. That is fulfillment, as Luke presents it. In Antioch, the disciples are named after Christ (), so that the community is defined by him rather than by Torah observance or ethnic descent.
The Spirit in these chapters is the gift of the ascended Lord (). When the Spirit falls on Cornelius's household, the exalted Christ is acting, and Christ himself is the ground on which Jew and Gentile stand together.
08How traditions read it
Christians read the relation of the Spirit's gift to water baptism in different ways. Catholic and Orthodox churches see baptism as the ordinary means by which the Spirit is given and treat Cornelius as an exception that shows God's freedom. Lutherans and Reformed stress that the Spirit is given with faith and that baptism seals what God has done. Baptists and many evangelicals read the passage as showing that baptism follows faith. Pentecostals point to the tongues as the same sign as in . There is also disagreement on whether Cornelius was saved before Peter came; says Peter would speak words by which he and his household would be saved, which most readers take to mean that Cornelius, though devout, still needed the gospel.
09Review questions
- What do the two visions of each say, and how does Luke use them to bring Peter and Cornelius together?
- What does Peter say in and that shows how he now understands the vision of the sheet?
- What events in Peter's sermon () concern Jesus' life, death, resurrection and future role, and how does he connect them to the prophets?
- What was the objection raised in Jerusalem in , and how does Peter answer it?
- How did the church at Antioch begin, who was sent, and what does Luke tell us about the name 'Christians'?
Prepared with AI assistance. A scholar's review is still to come; if you spot anything to correct, please tell us.
Your notes
Only you can see your notes.