An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Acts 10:34-48, for Sunday, August 18, 2024, with the title, “Including.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO:  In 1963, during the integration crisis, when police were arresting blacks in Birmingham for attempting to break the color line in transportation, restaurants, etc., Martin Luther King “sent groups (of blacks) to worship in white churches, defying the police to seize them there. (Police Commissioner “Bull”) Connor refused to be drawn. He counted on Birmingham’s white Christians to draw the color line, and most of them did; four white churches admitted the Negroes, seventeen turned them away.” (William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, Vol. II, p. 1196)

??? Have you ever seen someone discriminated against because of their race or nationality???

Then talk about how today’s lesson in Acts 10 shows us that the Gospel is for ALL of God’s people, all around the world. 

CONTEXT

When we left off in our study of Acts, Peter had been a part of two great miracles of God in Lydda, and then in Joppa, where God used him to raise Dorcas from the dead. Verse 43 says that he stayed in Joppa “many days” with Simon the tanner.

Chapter 10 then opens, “Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius,” introducing on the main characters of our lesson for this week.

You might take a bit of time here, looking at the man Cornelius, because this follows up something we have looked at before, which is very important regarding the need of ALL people for the gospel, and Jesus as the only way of salvation.

You could have your class look at Acts 10:1-2 and have them call out everything they see there that these verses tell us about Cornelius, including:

— He was a man

— He was a centurion of the Italian cohort (battalion)

— :2 He was “devout”, “feared God ….”

— “gave many alms to the Jewish people”

— “and prayed to God continually”

Then you might ask them: “How would you summarize this man Cornelius?”

(The answer might be something like, “he was a very good, religious man.”)

But then I would make the point, just like we did with the Ethiopian Treasurer, that yes, he was a very “religious” man — but still notice to what lengths the Lord went to get the gospel to him — even though he was so “religious”! This goes to reinforce the the teaching that JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY to the Father!

If He were not, why go to such lengths to get the gospel to Cornelius? If his “religion” would get him to heaven, why bring him the gospel? He would be going to heaven already anyway! But he was NOT; because Jesus is the only way, and Cornelius — and all the other Gentiles in the world, THEN AND NOW — need the gospel! And that is what our lesson is about today: how the gospel spread to the Gentiles.

OUTLINE

I. No Discrimination against the Gentiles (:34-35)

II. The Gospel proclaimed to the Gentiles (:36-44)

III. The Gospel received by the Gentiles (:44-48)

TEXT

I. No Discrimination against the Gentiles (:34-35)

Opening his mouth, Peter said:

“(:34) I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, (35) but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”

I’m not going to read all of Acts 10, but sure that you read it, and are familiar with all this background/context. Why did God have to do all this with Peter — have the dream, send the messengers, etc.? Because his inclination was NOT to share the gospel with the Gentiles. The Jews had grown up with a prejudice against them. They called them the “Gentile dogs.” You might compare Peter’s attitude with Jonah’s here; both of these Jews were reluctant to go and share the good news with foreign Gentiles.

But now, after all God did to show Peter that he DID want him to share the gospel with them, Peter sees that the gospel is for ALL the nations of the world as well. 

This is much fertile ground here for spiritual application for many of our members, and many of our churches. Racial and ethnic prejudice is a fruit of our sinful nature — but Jesus has brought us together in Him. In Ephesians 2:14 Paul, speaking of the division between Jews and Gentiles, writes, “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall … (:15) so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace.”

Jesus makes Jews and Gentiles — and all nations and races — ONE in Him. So as Paul writes in Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus BROKE DOWN the barrier between the races, as we come to him. We need to apply this in our churches.

W.A. Criswell, the long-time pastor of FBC Dallas, told this story from his first church around Waco, Texas: 

“In my first and beginning pastorate out in the country, one of those farmers had a beautiful and fertile farm in the valley of the Leon River. He brought me a book, and he said, ‘What kind of book is this?’ Somewhere he had picked up a Spanish Bible. And I held it in my hand and I said, ‘Why this is a Bible in Spanish.’ He said, ‘I can’t read Spanish, what am I going to do with it?’ I thought for a moment and I said, ‘Well on your farm in a tenant house is a Mexican family, a large Mexican family” (sic) had a lot of children. I said, ‘You go down there and give this book to them; and they can read it.’ So he went down to the tenant house on his expansive farm, and gave that Book to that Mexican family. After the passing of several weeks, when I went out to my little country church to preach, he said, ‘You know, this family that lives on my place, those tenants, they have come to me saying, ‘We have read this Book, and we have given our hearts to the Lord, and we’ve been saved. And it says in that Book that we ought to be baptized. And we want to be baptized.’ Now he said to me, ‘That posits a tremendous problem, because we don’t have any Mexicans in our church, and I don’t know how this is going to be.’ Well the racial problems that many areas in the South experienced with blacks, the same kind of a racial problem we have had in Texas regarding the Mexicans, same thing except over there it’d be black and over here it’d be brown.

Well I had my first decision to make concerning that in my life. And I said to the deacon, ‘Well the Book says that the Lord died for us all; and that includes them. And if they found the Lord, and they want to follow our Savior in baptism, let’s accept them.’ So the man came with his family, and all of his kids, and I baptized the whole (group) of them.”   (Dr. W.A. Criswell, Why I Preach the Bible is Literally True, Criswell Bible Institute Chapel, 10-14-80)

So make sure you and your group apply this to YOUR lives and churches today:

??? What are some ethnic or other groups in our society today that we/others might be tempted to discriminate against/not want to include in church???

(Some might include: blacks and Hispanics, as Dr. Criswell mentioned; or Caucasians in some communities; or any other language/ethnic group: Asians, Jews (there are reports of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S., Muslims/Middle Easterners — also poor; adults with special needs of various kinds — you/and your group can name many.)

Then ask: ??? Does the Bible’s teaching apply to these groups??? 

And of course, the answer is “Yes!”

(And you might quote the last part of :35 again, “in EVERY nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”)

And you might also add that this is the impetus for our missions ministries: to lead people from every nation to the Lord.
Revelation 5:9 says “For You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”  Verse 10 adds “You have made them (ALL these tribes and tongues and peoples and nations!) to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” ALL of them! Perhaps Romans 2:11 sums it up the best: “For there is no partiality with God.” There should be no discrimination against the Gentiles (or ANY ethnic group!)

II. The Gospel Proclaimed to the Gentiles (:36-44)

In these verses, Peter now shares the Gospel with Cornelius and the other Gentiles who had gathered with him (:24 says he’d asked his relatives and close friends to come) to hear the message.

In :36-42 Peter preaches the message about Jesus: His life, how He went about doing good; how He was put to death by hanging on a cross (:39) (notice the cross is always central in the Gospel) and (:40) how God raised Him from the dead. He mentions in :41 how He appeared to “witnesses” (I Cor. 15:6 says He appeared to 500 witnesses at one time!) who went to their graves, many of them tortured in the process, testifying that they had seen Him alive.  You might summarize all this, and point out anything else you find significant.

But to me perhaps the most significant point here is found in :43, when Peter says “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name, everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” THIS IS THE GOSPEL: believe in Him, and receive forgiveness of sins! It’s not works or deeds or anything else; we are saved by FAITH. 

And then to emphasize just how true this is, look at what happens in :44, “WHILE PETER WAS STILL SPEAKING THESE WORDS, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.”

This demonstrates in such a clear and powerful way, that salvation is by faith in Jesus ALONE. Verse 44 says the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were listening. This a mark of salvation. We receive the Holy Spirit when we are saved. Ephesians 1:13 says, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation — having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” So the moment a person believes, the Holy Spirit comes into their life. This is what the Bible teaches. No “works,” no “deeds,” no nothing on our part. We are saved by faith. And we see that SO CLEARLY here in Acts 10, perhaps better than any other passage:

??? What did these Gentiles DO to receive the Holy Spirit and be saved??? Were they baptized? Did they give any money? Did they do ANY works or deeds? 

(Of course the answer is NO!! The second they heard those words “everyone who believes in Him receives the forgiveness of sins,” they believed it in their heart, and THAT MOMENT the Holy Spirit came upon them! This is one of the most powerful examples in all the word of God, of how we are saved by faith in Jesus ALONE!

Emphasize this to your group. Make sure their faith is in Jesus, and what He did for us, ALONE, for their salvation. 

This was the testimony of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

“In London, Wesley met the Moravian minister Peter Bohler, who (like Angenberg in Georgia) questioned whether, in the midst of all his spiritual disciplines, John had actually come to know Jesus as his savior. Bohler similarly challenged Charles Wesley … Within days of one another in May 1738, Charles and John experienced their breakthroughs. Charles wrote of his: “I now found myself at peace with God and rejoiced in the hope of loving Christ,” John famously wrote that at a fellowship meeting on Aldersgate Street, while one of the leaders was reading Martin Luther’s preface to Romans, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.’”

(Thomas S. Kidd, George Whitefield, America’s Spiritual Founding Father, pp. 50-51)

What John Wesley said there is the faith we all need to have: “Trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.’

The old “EE” (Evangelism Explosion) question is a good one to help evaluate where people are at this point: “If you were to stand before God, and He were to ask you, ‘WHY should I let you into My heaven?,’ what would you say to Him?”  People answer all kinds of different things: I’ve tried to live a good life; I think my good deeds outweigh my bad; I’ve been baptized; I was a member of a church — but ALL of these kinds of answers betray that they are trusting some deed/deeds THEY have done. Our only answer; our only hope must be in Jesus, and His perfect death on the cross for us ALONE. 

— Like the old hymn says “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.”

— Like a newer song says: In Christ ALONE my hope is found”!

The Gospel proclaimed to these Gentiles is the gospel by which we are saved: by faith in Jesus ALONE! This passage powerfully demonstrates that. Be sure to emphasize it to your group this week.

III. The Gospel Received by the Gentiles (:44-48)

And so in that same :44 we see that those Gentiles DID receive the gospel that was shared: the Holy Spirit fell upon them, it says. Why? Because they had believed in their hearts as they listened to the message. As :43 says “everyone who BELIEVES in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” 

So these Gentile believers were saved. They believed the gospel in their hearts, and the Holy Spirit came upon them.

NOW NOTICE an important element here: the response of the Jewish Christians is significant:

:45 “All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed.” WHY?? “Because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out among the Gentiles also.”

See, they were still captive to their prejudices against the Gentiles. They still thought the Gospel was for the Jews only. But now they saw the Gentiles being saved with this same Gospel. 

And this helps us with :46, which expands on this some more: 

“For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.” 

What’s important about this? Some people would say, “This means that ALL believers must speak in tongues, or you are not saved.” NO! Paul writes in I Corinthians 12:30, “All do not speak with tongues, do they?” And of course the implied answer is, “No!” 

So WHY did the Gentiles speak with tongues here, like the Jews did in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost? We see it in the response of Peter and his circumcised friends here:  when they saw these Gentiles speaking in tongues just like they did at Pentecost, this confirmed to them absolutely that the Gospel was for the Gentiles just like it was for the Jews. God gave them the very same experience that He gave them. HAD HE NOT DONE THAT, MANY OF THE JEWISH CHRISTIANS MAY NEVER HAVE ACCEPTED THE GENTILES! But He gave this (what. some theologians call) “Gentile Pentecost” to show that the Gentiles could be saved by faith and receive the same Holy Spirit that they did.

(By the way, this was also true with the Samaritans earlier in Acts 8, a passage that was not in any of Lifeway’s “focus passages” for this study. Philip preached the gospel to the Samaritans, a group the Jews despised; and they received it and were saved. But they did not receive the Holy Spirit until Peter and John went up to investigate, and they prayed for them to receive the Spirit, because they had not up to that point. WHY might this be?

Again, because the animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans was so great, that had God not done something like this to link the Jews with the Samaritans, they would never have received them into the church. But 8:17 says when they laid their hands on them, “they were receiving the Holy Spirit.” Again, they needed a “Samaritan Pentecost” to show that they too could be saved. 

Is this a pattern for all churches and all believes for all time? Not at all. The Jewish, Samaritan, and Gentile “Pentecosts” were all different: the Spirit just came upon the Jews at Pentecost; the Samaritans didn’t get it until hands were laid on them; the Gentiles got it the moment they believed, but with Jewish witnesses to verify it. Every person does not receive another “Pentecost;” these were one-time events that served to link the Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles as ONE Church of God.). 

And this had the effect that was intended, because we see them make that very conclusion in the next verses, don’t we?

In :47 Peter answers, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized WHO HAVE RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT JUST AS WE DID, CAN HE?” In other words, they got what we got! There is no difference! We should baptize these people too, just like we are. The Gentiles too are definitely a part of the church of Jesus Christ.  

And then :48 says “And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.” 

So they were baptized, and Peter stayed there for while, and undoubtedly discipled them for a while. 

But the main point is: the gospel is the same for all. God included the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and He powerfully showed it in the way they were saved by faith alone, and by how He gave them a “Gentile Pentecost” that demonstrated that they were to be included in God’s church. 

I hope this will help you some as you prepare for Sunday’s lesson. This is a little shorter than most of my overviews, but many of you know this is due to this week’s circumstances with my family; my mom’s husband passed away very suddenly, and we have been on the road and tending to a multitude of family matters and helping my mom with the services this week. Many of you have indicated that you have been praying for us, and I appreciate that greatly.  I have also prayed for each of you who has commented, and for the special requests you have mentioned as well. 

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