Today's Devotion

Wednesday, July 1, 2026 - Acts 10:18-33

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

It was God’s will that these two men should meet “in the presence of God.” One man is Peter: a Jew, an apostle of Jesus – also a Jew, who was put to death by Roman soldiers at the insistence of other Jews. The other man is Cornelius: a Roman soldier “who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation” and a “God-fearing man” (meaning, a Gentile who worships the Jewish God). And making this meeting different than any other is that Jesus is that very Jewish God, and this meeting is His will.

God had set this meeting in motion in long ago. For Cornelius had rejected the false gods of his own people to embrace the God of Israel. Over the course of time, he earned the respect of “the whole Jewish nation” in spite of being a soldier ordered to occupy the nation. This speaks to Cornelius’s sincerity and sense of solidarity with the children of Israel. And yet, the children of Israel, the Jews, as part of their religion, upon orders of their God in His Word, consider Cornelius “unclean.” They cannot gather under his roof. They cannot eat with him.

And yet, it is God’s will, the will of the Jewish God (who died as a man at the hands of Jews who rejected their own God, and also at the hands of Roman soldiers) that the Jews and the Gentiles who believe in Him should gather together under one roof, to eat together, and to become a new nation: a transcendent Israel that is no longer exclusively Jewish, no longer bound by separation from Gentiles. Jesus is building His church upon the rock of the confession of St. Peter (Matt 16:18) – a confession that is as of this meeting, a confession shared by a minority of Jews and a smaller minority of Gentiles.

And so the Jewish God commanded the Jewish people, in the form of Peter’s vision, that they “should not call any person common or unclean.” Having been brought to fulfillment by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the old wineskins (Luke 5:37-39) of the Old Covenant are being replaced by the fresh wineskins of the New Testament in Jesus’ blood (Luke 22:20).

And this divine meeting involves more people than Peter and Cornelius. For Peter brought along “some of the brothers from Joppa” and Cornelius “had called together his relatives and close friends.” Here we see a synagogue, an assembly, a church. Cornelius was right that he has come to worship a man – but that man is not Peter. Cornelius and Peter and this gathering of Jews and Gentiles, have come together “in the presence of God to hear all” that Peter has been “commanded by the Lord” to speak.

This chapter in Luke’s narrative of the Acts of the Apostles is pivotal. For now that the Gentiles have been brought into the promise, now that the Lord has declared the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, now that Jesus Himself has broken down the old wall of separation – the mission to spread the Good News to the “end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) among the Greek and Roman Pagans, and beyond, has advanced one more step.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.