Even the Gentiles!

The book of Acts is a crucial part of God's word, it gives us the back ground to how Christianity took it's roots and for believers a long way from Jerusalem it gives them the basis to have an equal footing with all other believers as the Gospel goes out.

Yesterday we saw Peter speak at the house of a Gentile, today we see the reaction to that:
“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:15-17 NIV)
Peter recalls the events that happened, that he spoke to the crowd and he saw the Holy Spirit come on them, remembering that this was what Jesus had promised, the Holy Spirit would come upon his people, and so it made no sense to Peter that they couldn't be baptized and be Christians as well.

The rest of the believers respond:
When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18 NIV)
It is because of God's giving of the Holy Spirit that we see their objections being taken away. Of course, this means that they missed the point for thousands of years, although this is not really their fault, Jewish society created a religion that was tied with nationalism, which was never God's intent. The Jewish nation was to be a light to the world and lead to people coming to God, instead they made it a nationalistic religion and hence God's giving of the Holy Spirit even to Gentiles is mind blowing for this group.

As a result the word of God goes out:
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. (Acts 11:19-21 NIV)
What's interesting is that those who are acting as missionaries from Jerusalem are still only speaking to the Jews, it is the believers who come from Cyprus that speak to Gentiles, in other words only Gentiles spoke to Gentiles at this stage, while they believed it, it took some time for them to actually put that belief in to practice, even though Antioch is a crucial part of our history, it is here where believers are first called Christians and it is where Paul starts his ministry perhaps kicking off some serious ministry to the Gentiles.

Let us not just believe things in theory but let us put the things we believe in to practice living out our faith.