Acts 9:32 - 10:16

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
​Series: Acts

Rusty's Notes

• With Paul home in Tarsus, the narrative focuses once more on Peter.
• He last appeared in connection with the Samaritan mission (8:14–25).
• 1) Someone being healed is a pretty big deal!
• 2) Someone raising from the dead is even a bigger deal.
• 3) Someone coming to salvation in Christ is the biggest deal!

 
Acts 9
THE HEALING OF AENEAS
32 As Peter was traveling from place to place (itinerant ministry), he also came down to the saints who lived in Lydda.

• Believers in Lydda possibly because Phillip passed through to Caesarea. (Acts 8:40)
• The Christians are referred to as “saints” in both accounts (vv. 34, 41), a point the NIV obscures by using “believers” in v. 41.
• “Saints” is a rather rare designation for believers in Acts.[1]

33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. 34 Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed,” and immediately he got up.

• Peter took the initiative.
• Peter’s first miracle was healing a crippled man in Acts 3.
• Who healed Aeneas? Jesus
• What healed Aeneas? Faith in Jesus
• “make your bed” – Couch or mat – Similar to what they would have prepared for dining at the table.
• Indicating Aeneas had retained enough sustenance to regain his strength.

35 So all who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

• Lydda was located in the fertile coastal plain of Sharon, which extends north from Joppa to Mt. Carmel.[2]​

 
DORCAS RESTORED TO LIFE
36 In Joppa

• modern Joffa in Tel Aviv, 10 miles west of Lydda)
• Same place Jonah fled to when escaping God after he was told to go to Ninevah.
• But also the same place Peter receives his calling to go to the Gentiles.

there was a disciple named Tabitha = Gazelle (which is translated Dorcas). She was always doing good works and acts of charity.

• When the Church body loses a helpful saint, it greatly impacts the fellowship.
• Today, marks the month of one year without Todd Dolbeer.

37 About that time she became sick and died. After washing her, they placed her in a room upstairs.

• It was Jewish custom to wash the body and prepare for with spices for burial.

38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples heard that Peter was there and sent two men to him who urged him, “Don’t delay in coming with us.”

• At this point, the apostles had never raised anyone from the dead… only Jesus.
• So why call Peter? Because of their faith in Jesus.

39 Peter got up and went with them.

• Who had the greater authority? The people? Or Peter?

When he arrived, they led him to the room upstairs. And all the widows approached him, weeping and showing him the robes and clothes that Dorcas had made while she was with them.

• Tabitha/Dorcas cared for the widows.

40 Peter sent them all out of the room. He knelt down, prayed, and turning toward the body said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her stand up.

• The account of Peter’s raising of Dorcas should be compared with the account of our Lord’s raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:34–43).
• In both cases, the mourning people were put out of the room; and the words spoken are almost identical: “talitha cumi: little girl, arise; Tabitha cumi: Tabitha, arise.”
• Jesus took the girl by the hand before He spoke to her, for He was not afraid of becoming ceremonially defiled.
• Peter took Dorcas by the hand after she had come to life.
• In both instances, it was the power of God that raised the person from the dead, for the dead person certainly could not exercise faith.[3]
• Peter copied exactly what Jesus had taught him.

He called the saints and widows and presented her alive.

• The distinction between saints and widows is only the fact that Tabitha/Dorcas ministered specifically to the widows and they were the most grateful of all the saints.

42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed for some time in Joppa with Simon, a leather tanner.[4]

• It is significant that Peter stayed in the home of a tanner, because tanners were considered “unclean” by the Jewish rabbis (see Lev. 11:35–40).
• God was moving Peter a step at a time from Jewish legalism into the freedom of His wonderful grace.

 
CORNELIUS’S VISION
Acts 10

• We see Peter using “the keys of the kingdom” for the third and last time.
• He had opened the door of faith for the Jews (Acts 2)
• and also for the Samaritans (Acts 8),
• and now he would be used of God to bring the Gentiles into the church (see Gal. 3:27–28; Eph. 2:11–22).
• This event took place about ten years after Pentecost. (Roughly 40 AD)[5]
• The Gentile mission was not an easy step for the Jewish Christians to take.
• It involved two major issues.
• 1) The question of whether Gentiles had to become Jews in order to become Christians, i.e., should they undergo Jewish proselyte procedure when they were converted to Christianity?
• This would have required the circumcision of male converts and the adoption for all converts of such Jewish legal distinctives as the kosher food laws.
• Because God granted the gift of the Spirit to the Gentiles in Cornelius’s home without their subscribing to proselyte procedure, Peter became convinced that such Jewish conversion procedures were not necessary for the Christian mission to the Gentiles (cf. 15:7–11).
• The second major issue involved the question of table fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
• Since Gentiles did not follow kosher practices, Jewish Christians like Peter were exposed to a real situation of compromise when they associated with them.
• Both questions were answered for Peter in the experience with Cornelius because he was convinced that God accepted Gentiles without circumcision and that he could himself in good faith enjoy table fellowship with his Gentile-Christian brothers and sisters.
• The issues were not, however, fully settled for the Jewish Christians as a whole.
• Both issues resurfaced at the Jerusalem Conference (chap. 15) after Paul and Barnabas’s successful mission to the Gentiles, and a compromise solution was agreed upon at that time.

 

• Acts 10:1–11:18 is the longest single narrative in all of Acts. This in itself witnesses to the great importance Luke placed on the incident.

1 There was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment. 2 He was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God.

• Caesarea is sixty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and thirty miles north of Joppa (Jaffa).
• At that time, Caesarea was the Roman capital of Judea and boasted of many beautiful public buildings.
• Caesarea was a Hellenistic-style city with a dominant population of Gentiles.
• Originally a small town named Strato’s Tower, it was rebuilt on a grand style by Herod the Great, complete with a man-made harbor, a theater, an amphitheater, a hippodrome, and a temple dedicated to Caesar.[6]
• Show 1st minute of Israel ’18 Video.
• Cornelius, the Roman centurion, whose heart had tired of pagan myths and empty religious rituals, and who had turned to Judaism in hopes he could find salvation.
• Cornelius was as close to Judaism as he could get without becoming a proselyte.[7]

3 About three in the afternoon he distinctly saw in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, “Cornelius.”

• Cornelius was keeping one of the three traditional Jewish times of prayer, the afternoon hour of 3 p.m., which coincided with the Tamid sacrifice in the temple.[8]

4 Staring at him in awe (fearful respect), he said, “What is it, Lord?”
The angel told him, “Your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended as a memorial offering before God.

• Cornelius’ sacrifice of prayer & charity were pleasing to the Lord.

5 Now send men to Joppa and call for Simon, who is also named Peter. 6 He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, who was one of those who attended him.

• Somewhat secretive but also needed men he could trust.

8 After explaining everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
 
PETER’S VISION
9 The next day, as they were traveling and nearing the city, Peter went up to pray on the roof about noon. 10 He became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance.

• Noon was not the normal eating time, mid-morning and mid-afternoon were.
• So Peter might have missed the mid-morning brunch.
• 3 meals a day was not normal until the industrial revolution (1700’s)

11 He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth.

• Roofs were often covered with awnings. Perhaps that or the glimpse of a distant sail at sea provided the vehicle for the vision Peter had.

12 In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky. 13 A voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”
14 “No, Lord!” Peter said. “For I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean.”

• What the voice requested was strictly against the law.
• Never had he eaten anything defiled and unclean.

15 Again, a second time, the voice said to him, “What God has made clean, do not call impure.” 16 This happened three times, and suddenly the object was taken up into heaven.

• The voice ignored his protest, reissuing the command and adding, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
• The command came three times; each time Peter objected and fell into further confusion.
• It is simply not possible to fully accept someone with whom you are unwilling to share in the intimacy of table fellowship.
• The early church had to solve the problem of kosher food laws in order to launch a mission to the Gentiles.[9]

[1] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 246). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[2] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 246). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[3] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 444). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[4] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Ac 9:1–43). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[5] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 444). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[6] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 252). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[7] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 444–445). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[8] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, pp. 252–253). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[9] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 256). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.