Day 56 — Peter Explains His Actions, Part 2 (Acts 11:11-18) | June 20

And God was clearly getting his attention and moving his church in a new direction. And in this argument with the Jewish believers, now he picks up where he left off, bringing the story to its stunning conclusion for these critics. Let's read Acts eleven, eleven through eighteen.

At that very moment he said, Three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were, and the spirit told me to accompany them with no doubts at all, and these six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. He reported to us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, Send to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter, and he will speak a message to you by which you and all your household will be saved.

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them, just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And if then God gave them the same gift that He also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?

And when they heard this they became silent, and they glorified God, saying, So then God has given repentance, resulting in life, even to the Gentiles.

Peter builds his case the way a skilled witness does, layer by layer, each piece fitting the one before it. At the precise moment his vision ended, three men appeared at the gate. The Spirit told him to go with them without hesitation, and he brought these six Jewish brothers as witnesses, I imagined him pointing to them. He entered Cornelius' house, he heard the angel's message that had had sent them to find out or sent them to find him, two cities, two visions.

Four days of divine coordination by God, threading everything together. And Peter's point is plain. I didn't dream this up, guys. I didn't decide this on my own. God was behind every step of this. And then he lands the argument. As I began to speak, he said. The Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning. I love that phrase at the beginning. Peter's pointing these critics back to Pentecost.

To the day that everything started, to the event that none of them would dare question, that they all shared together, this is that same spirit, this is that same gift, this is that same unmistakable evidence. And then he quotes Jesus directly, John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

And his point is, if Jesus himself promised spirit baptism to his followers, and these Gentiles received exactly that, well, guys, the argument's over. Like God's already rendered the verdict. Peter's closing question is fantastic. How could I possibly hinder God? Again it's rhetorical, but it lands hard in the room that the circumcision party had come to Jerusalem ready to put Peter on trial.

And and this question turns the whole proceeding around. The real question isn't the one they've been asking, was Peter right to go to Caesarea? The real question is whether anyone in that room is willing to stand against what God has clearly done. You don't argue with evidence like that. The response of the Jerusalem church is really moving. They went silent, and listen, it wasn't the silence of grudging defeat.

Though for some it might have been that. Luke uses a word that carries the sense of coming to a settled rest, that the way a controversy dies down when the facts have been finally spoken. And then it says they glorified God, these critics. became worshipers. The men who had walked into that meeting ready to condemn Peter walked out praising the God who had moved so far beyond their category.

So then they said, God has given repentance resulting in life even to the Gentiles. That word even reveals just how unexpected that. They hadn't imagined that God would move this way. But faced with the evidence they had the humility to let go of what they thought they knew. The silence wasn't unanimous, however. The Jerusalem Council in Acts fifteen in just a few chapters points to the fact that the tension over this Gentile inclusion didn't fully resolve here in this place.

Some of this circumcision party continued pressing the issue for years into the future. Full acceptance of what God had done at Caesarea was still in process. And by the way, this is familiar territory for the church. Something new and unexpected happens, and there's a kind of this lurching forward, and then there's a pulling back and then some arguing and then gradually settling into what the Spirit has already.

The question for any generation of believers is whether they're willing to keep up with where God is going, or whether they'll keep building fences around territory where God has moved in the past. God moves ahead of his people. He opens doors sometimes no one planned for. He includes people sometimes that no one expected. And then he waits to see if the church will follow him there.

Peter's story didn't just change the tr the trajectory of one household in Caesarea. It changed the trajectory of the entire Gentile mission, the mission that eventually reached every one of us. We are sitting inside the answer to Peter's question, How could I possibly hinder God? The answer, it turns out, is you can't. Well what might a step of ordinary obedience look like today?

I want to issue a reflection. I want to come back to Peter's question, how could I possibly hinder God? And I would just ask you, where in your life might you be resisting what God is clearly doing? Might be a relationship that you've been reluctant to pursue, might be a community that you've been slow to embrace, might be