Positive Acts - For Gentiles, Too!

I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm also a Gentile. Because of these things I love Acts chapters ten and eleven.

In these two chapters we see God announce that He is doing something that the first Christians did not expect: He is saving Gentiles, too.

Please read Acts 10-11:18 and then return to this post.

The first Christ-followers were Jews. Jesus challenged the way they thought about a great many things. Christ was a revolutionary. When we arrive at Acts chapter ten we see our Lord announce something that the early Jewish Christians had not anticipated; God was about to knock down once and for all the dividing line between Jew and Gentile. The good news of Christ-crucified was now applicable to those outside the physical line of Abraham. How would the early believers handle this paradigm-shifting turn of events?

We receive an answer to this question in 11:18. Luke writes, "When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, 'Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.'"

The early church responded to God's saving the Gentiles by accepting it and by glorifying God.

We can learn much from this. In our individual lives and in our church lives God may challenge us in ways we do not anticipate. In fact, there's a good chance He will do so. The question is: how will we respond? In Acts 10-11 we see that the appropriate thing is for us to accept it and glorify God in the process.