Acts 10:36-43 (NIV)
“You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached–how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen–by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
The gospel had been progressing rapidly all throughout Judea, and Peter assumed that Cornelius and those with him had heard the general outlines of it. So, he determined at the outset to focus on the broad outlines and then respond to questions with fuller teaching.
The first section was the general point that Jesus came to bring the gospel (“good news”) of the possibility of peace with God through Himself and His work, as opposed to such peace only being available to those who were able to devote their lives to studying the whole law of Moses and conforming their lives to every detail. This was especially pertinent to Cornelius, and presumably to his gathered family and friends, who, as God-fearers, still lacked obedience to some parts of the law, specifically with those requiring circumcision in order for them to be brought into the people of God.
The next point was focused on Jesus’ ministry. He had come on the scene toward the close of John the Baptist’s ministry, after He had been filled with the Holy Spirit. And His ministry was typified by spectacular works of power, as well as works of kindness to those in need, including freeing people under spiritual oppression by casting out the demons who had taken them over.
Next in order was Jesus’ murder by crucifixion and his resurrection on the third day. Peter spoke of these two events in the same breath. To him they were a single movement in God’s plan of salvation, and the short space between them, very significant to Peter while he was experiencing it, had shrunk in his own mind into insignificance. Jesus died, and then God had raised Him from the dead; those were the facts. And the reality of the resurrection was attested to by all His followers who had seen and talked with Him, and ate and drank with Him, afterwards.
Finally, Peter’s story reached the present, and the commission that Jesus’ followers had received to share the story of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection with everyone. This included helping people to understand all that He had accomplished and included His elevation to judge of the living and the dead. All of this was exactly what God had foretold through the prophets for hundreds of years before Jesus had come on the scene. And the bottom line was that belief in Jesus was God’s only path to forgiveness of sins, and the only entrance into the real relationship with God that Cornelius and the others had been searching for and trying to accomplish in their own strength. They had sought God, and God had sent them a man who could share with them the one way that He had devise to find Him.
Father, Your mercy to Cornelius and his whole household is phenomenal. Just as You promised, he sought You with all his heart, and in response, You let Yourself be found. Deuteronomy 4:29) He hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and now he would be filled. (Matthew 5:6) And the message that took him to that point wasn’t long or complicated, but simple, to the point, and based on Peter’s own experience with Jesus. Lord, help me to be as clear and open when I tell others about Jesus, without trying to pad it with theological terminology and high-sounding concepts, so that those who hear can easily see You and receive Jesus. Amen.
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