Acts 10:1-8

Acts 10:1. Cornelius is divinely warned to send for Peter

St Luke now brings to our notice the circumstances which attended the first preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. The Apostles, though informed by Christ's commission that they were to "teach all nations," yet tarried the Lord's leisure, and waited till the Spirit, who was their constant guide, shewed them a door opened for such extension of their labours. The first Gentile converts seem to have been living in some sort of communion with the Jews of Cæsarea, for Cornelius, the representative figure among them, was "of good report among all that nation," but yet from the complaints of the brethren at Jerusalem, when they heard what Peter had done, we can see that Cornelius was one of the "sinners of the Gentiles." "Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them" expresses the shock, which the strict observers of the Law experienced in this new development of the Church, and even Peter himself, though chosen to inaugurate the preaching to the Gentiles, was not always proof against the scruples and remonstrances of his brethren of the circumcision (Galatians 2:12).