Acts 10–11: ‘Cleansing’ the nations to enter the ‘big tent’ of God vs. Noachide laws; life in the blood

The vision of Acts 10, repeated in Acts 11, has been misinterpreted for millennia, in part because many people reading the text fail to see the vision of the animals in the context of Peter’s later meeting with Cornelius and the conversion of Cornelius household to the Gospel and God’s gift of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius. Many Christians see the vision of the animals on the sheet as simply a change in dietary laws. The focus on physical food rather than upon the spiritual reality of God’s call of both Jews and Gentiles to believe in the one and only Messiah Yeshua becomes lost when this vision is interpreted out of context.

Post author By Jeff
Post date June 20, 2009

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Download study notes for Acts 10-11.

Food for thought from the recorded discussion of Acts 10

Some Bible interpreters acknowledge that Peter’s vision of Acts 10 of clean and unclean animals in a blanket coming out of Heaven for him to “kill and eat” is referring to people and not food. Yet they claim that because of the interpretation of Mark 7:19 that Messiah Yeshua “declared all foods clean” abrogated the distinction between clean and unclean foods commanded in Leviticus 11. However, God’s ample use of the “prophetic paradox” as a way to jar people out of deeply held positions — unbelievers, like food, are “unclean” — as well as Yeshua’s insistence He wasn’t changing God’s Law can’t be ignored.

What was Peter’s vision (horama, Strong’s 3705)?

What does this story reveal to us about the influence of Pharisaical thought on the Apostles and leaders of the Messianic community in these early days? Who were the Pharisees? Where did they come from? Were the Pharisees a movement of the common people or of the aristocracy? What did the Pharisees teach about “clean and unclean meat”?

How did some of these teachings differ from what the Torah teaches about what meats are clean or unclean? How were the rulings of the Pharisees a reaction to the Exile? What kind of “fence” should believers have around the Torah?

How does the LORD’s command for the prophet Ezekiel to cook over human excrement (Eze. 4:12-15) compare with His command to Peter to eat unclean meats (Acts 10:11-16)?

Reader: John Walsh. Speaker: Jeff.