Acts 10:27

"And as he talked with him, he went in, and findeth many come together: and he said unto them, Ye yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for. man that is. Jew to join himself or come unto one of another nation; and yet unto me hath God showed that. should not call any man common or unclean" "Ye yourselves know" The people assembled knew well the awkwardness of the situation at hand. In Palestine, such mingling of Jews and Gentiles was taboo. "It was largely because of their carelessness in food matters that Gentiles were ritually unsafe people for. pious Jew to meet socially" (Bruce p. 222). "God showed"

What. relief and breath of fresh air to those Gentiles that heard this statement. Let us remember again that Peter had come to this conclusion on the basis of. necessary inference. God had not specifically said anything about "people", but from all the evidence presented by God and the events that followed, Peter necessarily inferred that God was teaching him the above truth. Consider the wonderful attitude displayed by Peter. He would do whatever God commanded, even though it might not make complete sense at the time. He was willing to change-when God changed, even if that change demanded that he discard centuries of ingrained ancestral traditions, and even if that change required him to believe and act contrary to the beliefs of his friends, family, or neighbors (Luke 14:26).

Stott notes, "Peter had just now repudiated both extreme and opposite attitudes which human beings have sometimes adopted towards one another. Peter refused both to be treated by Cornelius as if he were. god, and to treat Cornelius as if he were. dog" (p. 189). We can read the above passages without really understanding the full "impact" of. man from the Jewish race to be in the home of. Gentile. Edersheim notes the extreme lengths to which this ethnic division was pushed: "So terrible was the intolerance, that. Jewess was actually forbidden to give help to her heathen neighbor, when about to become. mother. If. heathen was invited to. Jewish house, he might not be left alone in the room, else every article of food or drink on the table was henceforth to be regarded as unclean" Acts 10:1