Acts 10:11-13 – He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." (NIV)

It has been my privilege to lead a Bible discussion at the Meaford Long Term Care Centre for a number of years now. I do it every other Friday and have done it over 250 times now. We meet in a small, private room, and there are usually anywhere from 6 to 15 people in attendance, depending on the state of their health and other activities taking place that morning. Two ministers from different churches do it on the other Fridays. I do it three times when there are five Fridays in the month.

For the last while, we have been looking at the story in Acts 10 about the vision of Peter on the roof of Simon the tanner's house in Joppa, Peter's reluctance to preach the gospel to anyone other than the Jews, and the vision of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, to call for Peter to come to his house. Cornelius wanted to know more about Jesus and become a Christian. Peter would have been reluctant to go, but in the vision he had heard the words, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." (Acts 10:15b NIV)

In our discussion, we came to the conclusion that there is a lot of discrimination in the world. Some of us remembered times when Jews could neither be members of nor play at a golf course in a city nearby, and when people of colour were not allowed to stay overnight in a local town. One of our group had lived in an occupied country and talked about the hatred expressed by some for even the descendents of the occupiers of many years before. Someone else told us how her family used to go to a cottage near a native reservation, and their parents told them not to go play with "those kids". Another person mentioned about the influx of immigrants after the Second World War and how some of the residents felt that these new arrivals were taking good jobs away from Canadians. There was also the worry by the new immigrants that their children would marry outside of their cultural or faith boundaries. We could understand why Peter would not want to go to visit a Roman soldier—a Gentile and an occupier of the land.

And then one of the people in our group said, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16 NKJV) She put the emphasis on the word "world".

We are so familiar with this verse that we recite it without thinking about it. We discussed this verse at length as it relates to Peter's visit with the centurion in Caesarea, and we reiterated that indeed Jesus came for all people everywhere in the whole world, regardless of colour, land of origin, or cultural background. How does this challenge our usual thought patterns?

Prayer: Our Father in heaven, there are so many times when we forget that Jesus came into the world to bring the good news to all people. We ask that You will help us to do whatever we can to spread this gospel of salvation. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

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About the author:

Joel Jongkind <austria67@bmts.com>
Meaford, Ontario, Canada
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