BY ROBERT MILLER
OPINION —
There are certain moments in life when we find ourselves in places we never expected to be. Sometimes those moments are exciting. Other times they challenge everything we thought we knew. I remember arriving in Afghanistan for my first overseas deployment and realizing that I was suddenly surrounded by people from different cultures, different backgrounds and different ways of life than anything I had experienced growing up. While we may have spoken different languages and come from different corners of the world, it did not take long to realize that we shared many of the same hopes, fears and struggles. The more time I spent with people who seemed so different from me, the more I realized how much we actually had in common.
Peter found himself in a similar situation in Acts 10.
When we read the story today, it is easy to miss just how uncomfortable the situation would have been for him. Peter was a faithful Jew who had spent his entire life observing the traditions and customs of his people. He understood the distinctions that had existed between Jews and Gentiles for generations. Those divisions were not merely cultural. They shaped how people viewed the world and one another. Yet God was preparing Peter to learn a lesson that would forever change both his life and the future of the church.
That lesson began with a Roman centurion named Cornelius.
Cornelius was not a Jew. He was a Gentile and an officer in the Roman army. Under normal circumstances, Peter would never have expected to enter his home. Yet through a series of visions and divine appointments, God led Peter directly to Cornelius’s doorstep. Imagine Peter standing there, knowing that everything in his upbringing told him this was not where he belonged. Yet God had brought him there for a reason.
As Peter entered the house and listened to Cornelius share what had happened, something began to change in his heart. The walls that he had always assumed were permanent began to crumble. Suddenly he realized that God’s plan was far bigger than he had imagined. That is why Peter makes one of the most important statements in the book of Acts when he says, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality.”
For the first time, Peter fully understood what Jesus had been teaching all along. The Gospel was never intended for one nation, one culture, or one group of people. Jesus did not come to be Lord of some. He came to be Lord of all.
That truth still challenges us today. While we may not struggle with the same divisions Peter faced, we are often tempted to place people into categories. We divide ourselves by politics, education, social status, race, nationality and countless other labels. It becomes easy to view certain people as outsiders or to assume that God’s grace somehow applies more naturally to one group than another.
Acts 10 reminds us that the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
Every person we meet bears the image of God. Every person we encounter is someone for whom Christ died. Every person is invited to respond to the same Gospel that saved us. The same Jesus who called fishermen by the Sea of Galilee, welcomed Zacchaeus down from a sycamore tree, and restored Peter after his failures was now opening the door of salvation to Cornelius and his household.
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the story is not that Cornelius welcomed Peter into his home. It is that God welcomed both of them into His family.
Sometimes the greatest barriers to the Gospel are not the walls built by the world around us. They are the walls we build in our own hearts. Acts 10 reminds us that Jesus is still tearing down those walls today because He is not merely Lord of some.
He is Lord of all.
