5 Smooth Stones

had been poured out on the Gentiles also. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.” The understanding at the time was that a devout Jew would not go into the home of a Gentile, as that act would make them spiritually unclean. It is doubtful that had the servants sent from Cornelius arrived looking for Peter that he would have received them without the astonishing vision that he received while in his trance. In fact, since Peter was at the time hiding from the authorities, under a death penalty, it certainly might raise questions for him that anyone had found him, much less those sent by a centurion! Yet their story was so convincing, timed also with a vision from the Lord, and the fact that the angel had given them the directions to fi nd his hiding place, perhaps the very same angel which released him from prison, that he went with them and witnessed for the fi rst time gentiles who called upon the Name of the Lord receive salvation and be fi lled with the Holy Spirit with the manifestation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues. In fact, even with all of these remarkable events combining to cause Peter to go, he still felt the need to take witnesses with him that might corroborate whatever God was about to do. And any exhibit of crying or repenting or praise on the part of the gentiles might not have convinced these men that salvation had come to the gentiles also, but witnessing the Holy Spirit fall upon the gentiles as it had upon them on Pentecost was what convinced them. Now there are plenty of Old Testament scriptures that speak of salvation coming to all the world and gentiles coming into the Kingdom. Even Jesus spoke of this: John 10:16 “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one fl ock and one shepherd.” And in His Great Commission to the church Jesus said: Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Yet with these and many other prophecies of salvation coming to all the world, it still contradicted their understanding of the scripture. They had a stronghold in their understanding that not only was salvation of the Jews, (John 4:22) but too the Jews. Yet even though this great event was orchestrated by God, through the highly respected and anointed apostle Peter, Peter did not just go out and start preaching this new understanding 193