He 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. Sermons I. THE RECEPTION OF THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE BY THE GENTILE CONVERT. Here were Jew, Gentile, and Christian visibly brought into juncture and unity in the persons of these two men. 1. The Roman officer gives a noble reception to Peter, at once a true Jew and a true Christian, by calling together his kindred and friends. He desires that others may partake of spiritual gifts and blessings - a true mark of love. We become poor by giving earthly goods away; rich by imparting of those that are spiritual. Perhaps there is commonly too much reserve in such relations. We assume reluctance where we might meet with a ready response on the part of friends to such invitations. 2. Cornelius feels deep reverence for the person of the apostle; fell at his feet on his entrance, to do him homage. The Romans were an intensely religious people in their way. They recognized the numen, or Divine power, in all the great objects of the creation. It was a profound mystical instinct, needing only proper direction. II. THE CHRISTIAN APOSTLE'S DEMEANOUR TOWARDS THE GENTILE CONVERT. "Rise! I also am a man." "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" had been his confession to Jesus; and on this he had been appointed fisher of men. Perhaps he remembers that incident now, and, in view of the respect and preparations of Cornelius, repeats, "I am also a man." "Cornelius does too much in his reverence towards a living and genuine saint; then how can prayer to the images of saints be justified?" No true successor of Peter is he, nor has he Peter's humble mind, who suffers his feet to be kissed. The worship of the instrument obscures the honor of the Divine Agent. The word of Peter rebukes, not only the worship of saints, but all excessive hero-reverence and worship paid to great men in the Church. III. THE CONNECTION OF EVENTS EXPLAINED. 1. There was a great prejudice to be overcome. (Ver. 28.) The prejudice of the Jew against intercourse with the stranger. No barrier in nature, no mountain to be crossed or traveled, river to be forded, waste to be reclaimed, is comparable to the obstinacy and difficulty of prejudice, most of all of religious prejudice. And where in all the pages of history do we find a prejudice equal in strength to that of the Jew against the Gentile? 2. The Divine victory over prejudice. God had shown that "no man is to be called common or unclean. Immense word! Not yet has its meaning been exhausted; not yet, perhaps, begun to be truly unfolded. How profound the strength and the comfort which flows from such a clear word of God? For the preacher, teacher, missionary, every kind of worker for anthropic good, it is a clear light, a clue to hand and heart alike. The ideal human nature is pure and beautiful, for God made it - whatever actual human nature in the individual may be. 'Tis this thought gives inspiration. Peter will not hesitate to come to the Gentile's house when he is filled with it; and we may face the facts of the life of the nations, as they are now being so abundantly unfolded to us by scientific inquiry, with intelligent interest and cheerful hope, with the light of the gospel resting broadly over the whole field of inquiry. Such is the impulse which has brought Peter hither. But why have they sent for him? The answer will disclose: 3. Further coincidences. Cornelius now relates his vision. He, too, had been praying and seeking. To him, too, an apocalypse had been given; and the Divine finger had pointed Jew-wards, as to Peter it had pointed Gentile-wards. Equally Divine is the call; with equal promptness obeyed. Cornelius has sent, Peter has done well to come. Happy meeting, divinely brought about, and pregnant with Divine consequences! Such a series of events indicates God's hand, prepares the mind to listen to God's voice. The inarticulate voice of events is his voice, and it prepares us to listen to that which is clear and definite. - J.
A man that is a Jew. I can conceive of no object more profoundly interesting than this — "a man that is a Jew!" All that is venerable in antiquity, sacred in religion, rich in story, sublime in poetry, cleaves to this extra. ordinary race. But for such a man infidelity would have lost one of the most unanswerable proofs of her falsehood and her folly.I. HIS COMMON CLAIMS AS A MAN. A recent pope was passing through Rome; a Jew, fallen in a fit, lay prostrate on the pavement; the people who saw him, like the priest and the Levite, passed by on the other side; but the sovereign pontiff, alighting from his carriage, ran to his help. "He is a Jew!" they cried, as if in horror of a contact so contaminating. "He is a man!" cried the pontiff; and, like the good Samaritan, he hastened to his relief, saw him safely conducted to his home, and sent his own physician to attend him. 1. He is a man as well as a Jew, although he is a Jew, and all the claims that humanity can present to the sympathy of the species belong to him. He, too, may make the appeal, so long urged in vain by the enslaved African, "Am I not a man and a brother?" You owe to him the performance of a brother's part; and if you fail to render it the voice of your brother's blood will cry against you. 2. He Is a man, the offspring of the same parent, the workmanship of the same Creator, as fearfully and wonderfully made as you are, the same life blood flows in his veins, the same heart throbs in his breast, and to all the ills to which flesh is heir, he is subject as well as you. 3. That man that is a Jew has a soul, precious as yours. God's breath inspired it; His Spirit endowed it; and He who has emphatically said, "All souls are Mine," claims it as His own. Think of the faculties with which it is endowed, its vast capacity of happiness or misery, the perilous circumstances in which it is placed under the curse and condemning sentence of God's violated law, and the dread eternity it is destined to inherit if it pass into it unforgiven. 4. And was not the same precious blood shed for its redemption? On what other ground than this can you seek with any degree of propriety, or with any hope of success, the salvation of the Jews? And if it be so precious, what an argument does that consideration furnish for our best efforts to promote the salvation of the soul for whose redemption even that was not esteemed a price too great. II. THE CLAIMS PECULIAR TO HIM AS A JEW. He belongs to a race — 1. Venerable in antiquity. Who can boast of a heraldry or of a history like theirs? A heraldry whose emblazonment is from heaven, and a history whose records are written by inspired pens. The origin of other nations is veiled in obscurity and so blended with fable that it is hard to separate fact from fiction. But here is a people, all whose story is drawn out in lines of accuracy and in characters of truth. And is it not an affecting spectacle to behold a people, thus hoary with the accumulation of ages, treated with contumely, and left to perish? 2. Which once enjoyed the special tokens of the Divine favour. Now, indeed, they are trodden under foot of the Gentiles. But they were a great nation once. They, and they alone, could boast a pure theocracy, and laws given from heaven. Are a people, then, once thus signally owned and honoured by God, to be regarded with indifference or contempt? A people too, whose abandonment by God is not final, and whose restoration to His favour shall assuredly come. I am not sure that the tardy progress of the Christian cause may not be, in some measure, attributed to the unconcern which Christians have manifested towards Jews. 3. To which we are laid under the deepest obligation. There is nothing great or good that we possess but we are indebted for it to the Jews. The best of books, the best of gifts, we owe to them — the sacred volume and the Saviour of the world. Who is the most ancient and the most authentic of all historians — but a Jew? What poets can compare with theirs? Beloved they must be, for the fathers' sake if not for their own; and though we may well despair of ever paying the debt due to them, still, by our efforts for their welfare, we will testify that we are not altogether unconscious of or unwilling to acknowledge it. And think how long this debt has been contracting, while scarcely a fraction of the interest has been paid. Societies there are expending hundreds of thousands on the distant heathen, but how few there are interested in the restoration of the lost sheep of the house of Israel! 4. To whose conversion prodigious advantage must accrue. If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness? The Jews, in the event of their conversion, will become the most zealous and successful missionaries; while the Church herself, aroused by this event to a life and energy and unanimity unknown to former times, will take the field against the common foe in numbers compared with which all present figures will appear contemptible. Who can go forth and announce the faithful saying, "worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and add, with the same emphasis as the Jew, "of whom I am chief"? 5. For whose salvation there has never been a period more favourable than the present. Already there seems to be a shaking amongst the bones in the valley of vision. The Jews begin to be weary of the long delay that attends the coming of their vainly expected Messiah. They have their misgivings as to the correctness of their views. They feel as though the system to which they have so tenaciously clung had waxen old and was ready to vanish away. Hope deferred begins to make the heart sick. They long for some better teaching than their Rabbins give, and for some more satisfying and sustaining influences than their Talmuds and their Targums yield. In this state of things their enlightened and intelligent men are more disposed to converse and argue upon the subject of the Messiahship of Christ in former times. And most assuredly when infidelity, under the guise of rational Christianity, is overspreading the continent, we shall do well to seek the conversion of the Jews. Infidelity can meet no antagonist more formidable than a learned, intelligent, and converted Jew. (T. Raffles, D. D.) God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. I. ITS GOOD GROUND.1. By creation. (1) (2) 2. By redemption. (1) (2) 3. By experience. (1) (2) II. ITS BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE. 1. For the Christian contemplation of the world and conceptions of history in general. 2. For Christian intercourse in daily life. 3. For the Christian ministry. (K. Gerok.) A rich nobleman was once showing a friend a great collection of precious stones whose value was almost beyond counting. There were diamonds, and pearls, and rubies, and gems from almost every country, and had been gathered by their possessor at the greatest labour and expense. "And yet," he remarked, "they yield me no income." His friend replied that he had two stones which had only cost him five pounds each, but which yielded him a very considerable income, and he led him down to the mill and pointed to two toiling grey millstones.(W. Baxendale.) People Cornelius, John, Peter, SimonPlaces Caesarea, Galilee, Jerusalem, Joppa, Judea, NazarethTopics Associate, Better, Clear, Common, Company, Forbidden, Foreigner, Gentile, Impure, Jew, Join, Joined, Law, Named, Nation, Race, Shew, Shewed, Shewn, Shouldn't, Showed, Shown, Strange, Strictly, Taught, Unclean, Unholy, Unlawful, Visit, Yet, YourselvesOutline 1. Cornelius, a devout man, being commanded by an angel, sends for Peter,11. who by a vision is taught not to despise the Gentiles; 17. and is commanded by the Spirit to go with the messenger to Caesarea. 25. Cornelius shows the occasion of his sending for him. 34. As he preaches Christ to Cornelius and his company, 44. the Holy Spirit falls on them, and they are baptized. Dictionary of Bible Themes Acts 10:28 5882 impartiality 8471 respect, for human beings 5843 embarrassment Library December 2 MorningYe have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.--I JOHN 2:20. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.--It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.--Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. Thou anointest my head with oil.--The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught … Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path September 29. "Call not Thou Common" (Acts x. 15). February 13. "Thy Prayers are Come up for a Memorial Before God" (Acts x. 4). Easter Monday What God Hath Cleansed 'God is no Respecter of Persons' May the Twenty-Sixth the Uniting of Sundered Peoples The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit The Candour of the Writers of the New Testament. Devotion to God. Israel and the Nations. Whether Paul, when in Rapture, Saw the Essence of God? Whether the World is to be Cleansed? Whether Blindness and Hardness of Heart are Directed to the Salvation of those who are Blinded and Hardened? Whether the First Movements of the Sensuality in Unbelievers are Mortal Sin? Whether Judiciary Power is to be Specially Attributed to Christ? Whether all Men Will be Present at the Judgment? Whether the Witnesses of the Transfiguration were Fittingly Chosen? Whether the Prophetic vision is Always Accompanied by Abstraction from the Senses? Whether Grace and virtues are Bestowed on Man by Baptism? Whether the Old Law Should have Been Given to the Jews Alone? Whether the Judicial Precepts Regarding Foreigners were Framed in a Suitable Manner? Whether Every Act of an Unbeliever is a Sin? Whether Christ's Birth Should have Been Made Known to Some? 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