The bible is a book to be studied, meditated upon, analyzed with peers, and investigated. It is not a book for passive reading. It’s true that you’ll find some wisdom and meaning by passively reading it, so it is better to passively read it than to not read it at all. However, whenever you pay attention to it, you’ll find interesting and deep conceptual relationships in its pages that you’ll certainly miss if you only superficially scan it. It isn’t that these conceptual relationships are hidden from you. Rather, it is that they are carefully woven into the fabric of the literary narrative. This is much like watching a good movie for the third time, when you notice an overt detail in a scene that you didn’t catch in the first two viewings. That unhidden, but initially unnoticed detail, reinforces the plot and helps you understand the surprise ending in a way that you didn’t understand it in the first viewing.
Acts 10 and Acts 11 have just such a conceptual relationship. In Acts 10:9-16, God shows Peter a vision of a giant sheet depicting animals which had been formerly considered unclean and unlawful for Hebrews to consume. God then tells Peter that he is free to eat those animals. Peter strongly resisted this instruction, pointing out that he’d never eaten anything unclean. God promptly tells him not to call things unclean that have been divinely made clean. Many people will read this superficially and think that the meaning of the vision is a nullification of dietary restrictions. They would be technically correct, but it is so much more than that.
After Peter had this vision he explained the gospel to a group of Gentiles who then received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44-48). This news made its way into the ears of religious people who chastised Peter for socializing and eating with an outside group of uncircumcised, Gentile men. Jews identified themselves as different from Gentiles largely by way of adherence to law and custom. They had missed the point of those miraculous conversions. So Peter recounts his vision, highlights the Gentile conversions, points out that they received the Holy Spirit in the same way that he had at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13), and then reminds them of John’s words that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:16-17, Luke 3:16). He makes the argument that he isn't going to stand in God's way if God is divinely baptizing the Gentiles in the same way he had recently divinely baptized Jews. God had made an opportunity for unclean Gentiles to be saved, and since Jesus had already nullified the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic law (Mark 7:14-19), Jews were now free to mingle and eat with Gentiles under God’s new covenant. This would allow them to minister to people about God, Jesus, and salvation. Believing Jews would no longer find their identity in ceremonial dietary restrictions or legalistic adherence, but by being in alignment with the heart and spirit of Jesus (Romans 10:4, Galatians 3:24-26, Ephesians 2:11-15). Peter’s vision was a symbolic representation of a literal unification of all the people God was saving under a new and better covenant. Thankfully, those religious Jews eventually understood the point, and got in line with God's plan (Acts 11:18).
So read your bibles with intention, meditation, discussion, and awe!
Hozzászólások