and when Peter went up to Jerusalem, they of the circumcision contended with him,
Peter has just watched God pour out the Holy Spirit on a Roman officer's household. He comes back to Jerusalem with the biggest news the young church had yet heard. What meets him is not celebration but a complaint. It is not about his preaching. It is about his dinner table.
The objectors were fellow believers in Jerusalem who still kept the old separation. Their complaint had a real basis. Until then, every Jewish believer kept a strict social distance from other nations. Peter had just broken it in public.
The vision on the housetop at Joppa had taught Peter to call no man common or unclean just because of his nationality. So for the first time in his life he stayed with people who had been Gentiles, and he stayed several days. For him the dividing wall had come down. But for several years to come, some people in the Christian community at Jerusalem still did not know the liberty Christianity had brought in. Six disciples from Joppa had gone with him to Caesarea, and they returned with him to Jerusalem. There Peter faced a challenge: was his conduct at Caesarea right?… He had not kept up that social separation which all of them had until then, and rightly, maintained. But they raised the question in no hostile spirit.
Two reports arrived together: Gentiles had believed, and Peter had eaten with them. The second one gripped them.
The report of the "eating" apparently impressed them more than the report of the grace of God. What hearts are ours! The whole assembly in Jerusalem should have rejoiced. A large company of Gentiles had heard the word of the gospel from Peter's lips, and had believed it to their eternal blessing. They might well have called a praise meeting to acknowledge God's wonderful grace to men so long regarded as outside every good thing. But instead they called the honoured instrument to account for his conduct in detail in "eating" with men of another nation.
This was not simple pettiness. Agreeing with Peter meant surrendering the standing their nation had held for centuries.
The difficulty for the Jews in receiving the Gentiles was a great one. To do so was to give up all their privileges, all that remained of the ancient glory of Israel. So Peter, on his return to Jerusalem, is rebuked; he had eaten with the Gentiles.
Ordinary believers question Peter. He neither pulls rank nor takes offence.
People may call Peter "the prince of the apostles," and in the superstition of their minds set him on a very high pedestal. But in his own time no one regarded him that way. So when he came back to Jerusalem from Caesarea, his brothers called him to account for his conduct there. Peter did not question their right to challenge him like this. It never occurred to him that his words and deeds were above all criticism.
Scripture does not hide such moments. The objectors came from inside the church itself.
Scripture is beautiful in dealing with difficulties. Objectors may startle us now, but such objectors were not unknown in Jerusalem. Not only that — they were found even in the church in Jerusalem. Not only that — they even spoke against an apostle like Peter. So the apostles had to bear the objections of ignorant and unreasonable men, and that among Christians themselves.
Commentators differ on the tone of this complaint. One reads the question as honest and not hostile; others see a deeper danger behind it. Read alongside the later dispute in Acts 15, the same prejudice shows an enemy at work.
Turn back to Acts 11 and connect it with Acts 15. There we find the spirit of evil working in the hearts of believers through the prejudices of a system. It wanted to destroy the work of God, if it could, and to bring the assembly into bondage to Judaism… They fixed their eyes on earthly things instead of heavenly ones, because they did not understand their true position. Their hearts were still captivated by the honour, glory, and profit attached to the earthly system.
The chapter opens with contention. It closes with worship.
The proof piled up and crowned the argument: God had granted repentance to life to the Gentiles too. Even the strongest defenders of Jewish exclusiveness were overwhelmed by it. It was now an undeniable and blessed fact. They were more than silenced, they "were still." Grace had triumphed over law, as it ought to. And it triumphed in Jerusalem, among none but Jews who believed… It was grace that made them glorify God, reversing their earlier judgment.
- Contention. The complaint was not about Peter's preaching. He stayed and ate with Gentiles, and that broke a separation every believer there had kept.
- Cost. Their resistance was serious, not silly. Accepting what Peter did meant giving up all that was left of their nation's privileged standing.
- Accountability. Peter never claimed his actions were above review. He let ordinary believers question him, and he answered them.
- Danger. Unchecked, the same prejudice became a tool of the spirit of evil, used to bring the church into bondage to Judaism.
- Grace. The argument ended in praise, not in a truce. The objectors reversed their own verdict and glorified God.
saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and hast eaten with them.
Peter has just come back from Caesarea, where he entered a Gentile home, preached, and ate with the people there. In Jerusalem he meets no congratulations, only a complaint — and not about his preaching, but about his meals.
News reached Jerusalem ahead of Peter. What gripped the hearers was the detail of the table.
The news of the "eating" apparently impressed them more than the news of the grace of God. What hearts are ours! The whole assembly in Jerusalem should have rejoiced. A large company of Gentiles had heard the word of the gospel from Peter, and had believed it to their eternal blessing. Instead, they called the man God had honoured to account, in detail, for his conduct in "eating" with men of another nation.
The word "uncircumcised" pointed to a real dividing line, not mere prejudice. God Himself had drawn it, and Peter had told Cornelius the rule.
Notice that God has "broken down" the wall which He Himself put up long ago (it would have been sin for anyone else to have done so). The LORD said to His people, "You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine" (Leviticus 20:26). The godly gloried in this, and could say, "He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules" (Psalm 147:19-20). So Peter was right to tell Cornelius that it was unlawful for a Jew to associate with, or visit, anyone of another nation. But such distinctions belong to the past.
Only God's own authority could justify such a step. That is the ground Peter takes.
It was undeniable on the face of things that Peter had openly crossed the distinction so long set up by God between Jew and Gentile. He had to justify this by God's authority, and he does so by simply retelling the vision from the previous chapter, to convince the brothers in Jerusalem… The holiness of Israel had come to nothing in the cross of Christ. By virtue of the blood of the cross God could and would wash even the Gentiles clean. Ritual had come to its end. From now on there must be reality by faith.
The people arguing with Peter were not outsiders. They were believers, and the man on the receiving end was an apostle.
Scripture is beautiful in dealing with difficulties. Objectors today may startle us, but such objectors were not unknown in Jerusalem — not only that, but even in the church in Jerusalem — not only that, but even against an apostle such as Peter was. So the apostles had to bear the objections of ignorant and unreasonable men, and that among Christians themselves.
Peter's reaction says as much as the objection. He answers instead of pulling rank.
Men may call Peter "the prince of the apostles." In the superstition of their minds they put him on a very high pedestal. But he was not regarded that way in his own time. Peter did not question their right to challenge him. It never occurred to him that his words and deeds were above all criticism.
The wording sounds like an accusation. But what kind of men stood behind it?
Even so, for several years to come, there were people in the Christian community at Jerusalem who did not know the liberty that Christianity brought in… Peter had not kept up that social separation. All of them had rightly kept it until then. But they raised the question in no hostile spirit, so it was not hard to convince them that his course was right. Retelling the matter in order, he directed their attention to four points — proofs that it was all God's doing and not man's.
The complaint ends in worship, and one demand never comes up.
The simple account silences all resistance. The question he ends with is unanswerable. They cannot help but glorify God for granting the Gentiles repentance to life. No one even mentions circumcising them to keep the law of Moses. God's act is too plain, and He is completely in it from beginning to end. And so this all-important change happened without a single voice against it.
- Wall. The separation Peter broke was not human snobbery — God Himself had put it up, so only God could take it down.
- Table. The charge fastened on eating, not on the gospel; a question about meals drowned out the news that Gentiles had believed.
- Authority. Peter defends himself by retelling what God did, not by claiming an apostle's word is above question.
- Freedom. Ritual comes to its end at the cross; from here on the reality is faith.
- Worship. God's hand is so plain that the objectors end up praising Him — and nobody demands circumcision.